Wow, what a whirlwind the past few days!

First, I ran out of school Wednesday afternoon and over to the Long Beach airport where I found out that our plane was delayed in Portland due to a mechanical failure. Time: 3:45ish pm. Flight departure time: supposed to be 5 pm. Since the plane would not be able to make it to us by 5, they sent a number of us to different airports for different flights. My group went up to LAX where the nice lady at check-in said, "Say, we've room on a non-stop straight from here to Anchorage; want to go?" I said (much nicer, of course), "Hell, yes!" As a result, I wound up in Alaska at about 9:30 pm -- wonderful when compared to the 2 am I was originally going to arrive. My picks me up, we go home, and get some sleep.

Thursday, I went into town with my father and spent some time at a Fred Meyers picking up some forgotten essentials and then an Office Max making the copies of my resume and application packet. Hung out with dad at his office applying for some stuff and getting organized. Then we went to his meeting for the Alaska Air Association (not quite sure of the name, there) where they're gearing up for their big event this summer. It's the 100 year anniversary since the first airplane flew in Alaska, so instead of one big show like they usually do, the AAA are doing this "barnstorming" thing where they're going to take the planes from their airshow and fly around the state doing shows and talking about the history of aviation in Alaska. It sounds really cool and I'm disappointed that I'm going to miss it (it ends the week I'm due to arrive up there in July).

After that, my dad and I took the dogs down to the park by their house and went ski-joring. Essentially this is your dog in a sled dog harness attached to you, and you're on cross-country skiis. Generally, really fun. Unfortunately, I ended up with my mom's dog (Merlin) and he was not having anything to do with skiing that night. I ended up towing him half the time. It was very annoying and exhausting. Cool thing was we started skiing around 8 pm and I could swear from the sky it looked no later than say 5 or 6 pm. The sun set around 9 pm and it got dark around 10pm.

Thursday was beautiful and sunny with highs in the low 20's (in Fahrenheit). Friday's weather was more of the same, maybe a little warmer.

My dad took me into town and dropped me off at the hotel where the job fair was being held. Most of the school districts were there and I got some disturbing news about the city of Anchorage and her closest neighbors: the school district is in turmoil due to a crooked school superintenant (and there seems to be more but I'm not sure if I understood what I was told). Anyway, some schools got closed, teachers are being laid off, and they're just not sure what's going to be happening next year. The short story is they're not going to be doing any hiring until June/July, if at all. The Mat-Su district was much the same and the Kenaii district is doing their usual mucking around, so I wrote them off, too.

From there, I wandered around the booths looking for districts hiring science teachers. Pretty much everywhere I stopped, I was asked to interview. 8 interviews the first day between 9 am and 5 pm. Three of those folks offered me a contract on the spot, and a fourth guy is a current principal but will be taking over the HR position in his district. Super-nice, handsome (married) ... Mm, anyway, he was the third/fourth person I interviewed with and I had been at the booth chatting with the folks and they were looking at their schedule for interview times when Jerry (that's his name) walks up. They said, "Here," handed him my resume packet and told him to interview me now. I looked at him, he looked at me, I shrugged, he laughed, and off we went! I really thought the interview wasn't going particularly well, but at the end of it, he told me that I was going to have my pick of schools, but if I didn't find something I liked, then I needed to come back and he would find me a school to work at. I was blown away. At the end of the fair, he gave me his contact info and said that should my job fall through or something happen, then to still give him a call. I talked to him a couple times in-between those two meetings and sheesh! I want a man like that.

So, in the afternoon, I had an interview go long (they were generally scheduled for 30 minutes, but I averaged 45 min each time) and I missed a subsequent interview I'd scheduled. This was for a place called St. Mary's. I had spoken with them 2 years ago (but not interviewed) and they remembered me and wanted me to interview, and I remembered them and wanted to interview, but I missed my scheduled time and was worrying I had just screwed up everything. At their booth, they had a sign saying they were currently interviewing someone and would be back, so I wandered around a little, trying to keep my eye open for one of them coming back, when I found myself talking to some folks from Chevak, Alaska, out on the West coast, but significantly south from St. Mary's. I found the people (Matt the principal, Rebecca his wife, and Skye-Michael the HR guy) endearing and fascinating and agreed to interview. In the meantime, David (the school superintendent for St. Mary's) had returned, so I rescheduled the interview for 5 pm and went off to chat with Chevak.

The Chevak folks and I hit it off right away. We chatted for over an hour and I left the interview with a job offer and the impression that they were the ones I was going to say yes to.

A couple of interviews later and I met with the St. Mary's guys. David was the main interviewer. The two elders in the community, Francis and Moses, didn't say much (Moses seemed to pay more attention to the phone book) but David described everything I remembered from before and I was as fascinated by it as I was a couple years ago. St. Mary's science program is very "go out in the environment and do stuff and then bring it back into the classroom and discover the science behind whatever." They have several trips that they do combined with the native community (ice-fishing, bear hunting, etc.) and it just sounded really really cool. And again a half-hour interview turned into close to an hour and a half and I had a job offer.

I left Thursday wondering how in hell I was going to decide between these schools. Chevak is the most technologically advanced rural school I've heard of on the west coast of alaska. They have smart boards and document cameras, projectors, high-speed satellite internet, etc. etc. They also want to join some of the schools in the neighboring district in the state robotics competition, so they were really eager to hear that I was working part-time with a similar program at my current school. I think they're a grant away from moving to ipads at that school. Everything I heard about Chevak from the reps and from others was about their technology and friendliness. They also have a program funded through the state to develop teachers from the local native community, which is awesome. Skye-Michael told me that they want their children to be equally well-versed in the traditional subsistence life-style and the western culture/lifestyle. They want their children to go to college and come back to support the village, which is a very different attitude than most villages, who don't care if their kids finish or even enter high school, because they can live the traditional way with less than a 6th grade education.

What fascinated me about both schools was in how involved the community and elders are with the school. In both places, the community and the school combine and do things together. The village elders teach the 7th grade science course in Chevak, which is all about the biology/ecology of their local area, the tundra. Both schools take their students out on trips where they live the traditional way and eat what they hunt/gather. They're willing to "adopt" new teachers and teach us anything we want to know about their culture and most importantly, if they like you, they're behind you 100 percent. Realize that in the native culture, the "elders" raise the children because the parents are out most of the day hunting/gathering to provide for the family. Beloved grandparents, great-uncles/aunts are the ones who comprise the "city council" and make things happen.

So I went back to my parents' place wondering just what I was going to do. I of course googled what I could, but there's not much. St. Mary's is located off a branch of the Yukon River and is forested and hilly. Chevak is more flat, no trees, and 16 miles from the Bering Sea. Tundra is like wetlands in the summer but turns into what is called a "frozen desert" in the winter. The good part is there's not much precipitation (rain or snow) and the wind off the ocean keeps them warmer than places further north.

On Saturday, I got a phone call just as my mom and I were leaving the house. The principal from Craig, a city in Southeast Alaska, wanted to set up an interview for a middle school math/science position. I said sure, because who wouldn't want to work in Southeast Alaska? Aside from the rain (they measure it in feet), the location is amazingly beautiful, Prince of Wales Island is the 3rd biggest island in the U.S., there's the Alaskan rainforest there, fishing, hiking, actual roads, a ferry system into Ketchican ... I could go on and on, so of course I said yes and went to chat with them before my interview with Nome at 9 am. I liked them; they liked me, so we picked another time later that afternoon to finish the interview.

Meanwhile, I went and talked to Nome. Nome is a city of about 3,000 people and is the biggest rural town I interviewed for. They received a grant for this coming school year -- a three year grant for a project-based science program. The classes will be geared toward getting the under-performing students to grade level or beyond so that they can successfully pass the state's high school exam. It sounds like an amazing program and I can imagine that any teacher would love to do it; but the whole time I'm there I'm comparing them to the other schools and it didn't quite measure up. It was definitely interesting, but I liked the others more.

After that, I decided I liked Chevak more than St. Mary's. Perhaps if St. Mary's had brought some of their teachers with them, this would be a different story. I told David how I felt and he said he was sorry I wouldn't be working for them because he thought I was their strongest candidate (they had offered me a contract the night before), but that he hoped I would be happy wherever I ended up and, who knows? I talked to him before two years ago. Maybe I'll be chatting him up again in 2 more years. Then I went and sought out folks who could tell me about Chevak and Craig, the school in Southeast Alaska who I was now trying to decide between.

I chatted with Chevak a second time and got Skye-Michael's cell number so I could call him later that day. Then, at 12:30, I went back and talked to Craig for another 45 minutes. It was this conversation that I started to feel that the principal and I really wanted to different things. I asked about the community ties and they said something along the lines of, "Oh, well, we have culture days," and I was thinking ... Really? In Alaska, you're not trying to bring in the native culture on more than a once-a-year thing? Oh, they had a connection with the Alaska Forestry service, but I came to find out the city was a predominantly white community. Tourism is the biggest income and I was like, um, yeah, I dunno that working at a school similar to middle schools I find in California is really what I want. I know that their parent representative liked me, and the Language Arts teacher she brought with her liked me, but I got the distinct impression that the principal and I were not going to have the relationship that Matt and I already had. Then, at the end of the interview, she said they were going to be reviewing their notes as a committee (there were a couple others dialed in on a conference call) and making a decision Monday -- this is quite different than what they said that morning where she said they wanted to give the letter of intent-to-hire to someone that day.

So I thought about it as I went home in the afternoon and realized that my heart wasn't there with Craig's goals/objectives, and I wasn't called to Nome, either. It really was down to Chevak and St. Mary's, and I liked Chevak better.

So I called Skye-Michael (don't you just love that name?) in the late afternoon and told him I would love to come work for him next year and they were just ecstatic. My parents were taking me out to dinner, so we stopped by the hotel where Matt, Rebecca, and Sky-Michael were meeting up with the other new teacher they were hiring and I got the contract and newcomer's packet and union agreement. My parents were very taken with the folks as well and said that they had nothing but good things to say about me and while they were disappointed I wouldn't be living in town with them, they thought I would be very happy, and, oh, what an adventure this will be!!

So, now it's time to give the state of California a kick in the ass and get my credential transferred and take the tests I need to tidy up any loose ends. I have to report for work no later than August 9th, which means, I really only have to suffer through 1 month without pay this year. I also get a sign-on bonus when the paperwork is finalized. With rent being $400-600 and tuition reimbursement due to being in a rural community, I have the possibility of walking away from there in 2-3 years completely debt-free. What a rush that would be! And with class sizes of 15 or less, I stand to have lots of free time to learn more about my home state and its people and to hang out with the other teachers housed at the school.

This is going to be hard work, but I'll be teaching 8th grade physical science, 9th grade biology, and 10th grade earth science (9th and 10th may be switched, not sure), with an additional advanced class in chemistry or physics, I'll be able to take charge of the website, I'll essentially have free health care, and I'll get my own 4-wheeler, learn to hunt and fish the native way, maybe dance, and certainly get more physically fit than I've been in the last 5 years. So much to look forward to!

More to come, hopefully soon, on the paperwork and shipping nightmares.