This morning, Noah woke up screaming from a nightmare. I went in to comfort him, and had the bright idea to tell him a story. I thought that "Goldilocks and the Three Bears" would be a good one, so I started in.
You see, Sophie and I read to Noah all the time. However, we don't ever just tell him stories. We had discussed this fact after speaking to our neighbour, an Inuk, who grew up in a home where the parents' stories were a large part of the entertainment in the home. In an era like ours in which early childhood education is becoming more and more scientific (or at least that's what scientists would have us believe) books reign supreme. I guess I figured that Noah was going to miss out on something, so I told him a classic.
Let me tell you, I was rusty. Here's my recollection of how it went (with my simultaneous thought process in parentheses):
"Noah, do you know the story of Goldilocks and the Three Bears?"
He looked at me like I had a golf ball-sized tumour growing out of my forehead.
Goldilocks was walking in the forest (you know Noah, with trees? Those things on TV?) one day and she got lost (is that how this thing starts?). Goldilocks was a little girl with beautiful blonde curly hair, and she didn't listen to her mama, who said "don't go into the forest" (shit, that's Little Red Riding Hood). So, she was walking through the forest and she got lost.
She came upon this house, and she could smell oatmeal. She was so tired and hungry from wandering around all night (was she wandering around all night? Oh boy, am I in trouble). She smelled the oatmeal and followed her nose (Dear God, that's so lame). She went into the house and saw three bowls of oatmeal (where the hell are the bears anyway? Who leaves hot oatmeal on the table?).
She sat down and tried papa bear's bowl. It was too hot. She tried mama bear's bowl, and it was too cold. She tried baby bear's bowl and it was just right. She ate the whoooooolllllle bowl. (Hit the panic button. How the &%$@ does this end? Does she get eaten? I'm not telling him that. That's ridiculous. I know she goes to sleep. Uuggghh, this is going to get worse before it gets better.)
Then she realized that she was really tired and climbed up the stairs and went to bed. The end! (I'm such a failure. Where the hell is google when you need it? Why can't they just wire it into my brain like in Feed? Then I wouldn't have to remember anything. I'm googling "Goldilocks and the Three Bears" later.)
I looked at Noah, he laughed at me. He had never heard the story before, but he knew. Oh he knew his old man %&$#ed that one up.
Anyone else? What happens?
Friday, June 10, 2011
Wednesday, June 08, 2011
Clean Shaven
Today, I shaved off my beard. Before I moved up here, I almost never wore a beard. I did all sorts of ridiculous stuff with my facial hair, but I never rocked the full beard. In my first year in Nunavik, I definitely had a little Farley Mowat/Grizzly Adams mentality going on, so I let it go. Plus, it's really freaking cold here. It snowed about four inches today. Anyway, over the years, my beard has become part of my identity.
The last time I shaved off my beard was in January. I set two feet outside to go for a run in the -30 winter before deciding that it would not come off again before I left Kangirsujuaq. However, my desire to pack the clippers today got the best of me, and I found myself clean shaven at 7:55 p.m.
Not that any of this really matters, but it did get me thinking about how different I am than I was when I arrived. I know that the changes go a lot deeper than the follicles of my facial hair, but I can't help but think that a more than significant part of me will stay here with my shavings when I go.
It's not that I want to pine over the North forever. I want to be able to get on with other things. However, I don't want to leave behind everything that I made here for myself. I guess it's a good thing that the most important things I made living in Kangirsujuaq were a couple of kids and a loving relationship with their mother. I guess I just hope that some of the other relationships that I've made will endure the distance as well.
People say they will visit, and I say I will stay in touch, but there is a part of me that wonders if Kangiqsujuaq and I will cut off our ties to each other the way I cut off my beard today. I hope not.
The last time I shaved off my beard was in January. I set two feet outside to go for a run in the -30 winter before deciding that it would not come off again before I left Kangirsujuaq. However, my desire to pack the clippers today got the best of me, and I found myself clean shaven at 7:55 p.m.
Not that any of this really matters, but it did get me thinking about how different I am than I was when I arrived. I know that the changes go a lot deeper than the follicles of my facial hair, but I can't help but think that a more than significant part of me will stay here with my shavings when I go.
It's not that I want to pine over the North forever. I want to be able to get on with other things. However, I don't want to leave behind everything that I made here for myself. I guess it's a good thing that the most important things I made living in Kangirsujuaq were a couple of kids and a loving relationship with their mother. I guess I just hope that some of the other relationships that I've made will endure the distance as well.
People say they will visit, and I say I will stay in touch, but there is a part of me that wonders if Kangiqsujuaq and I will cut off our ties to each other the way I cut off my beard today. I hope not.
Tuesday, June 07, 2011
Our First Last Year: The Best of Times and the Worst of Times
Our third year was the year we began playing the game of cat and mouse which has taken over my consciousness and has had me spilling my thoughts onto the page for the last month. Our third year was supposed to be our final stint in the North. I had forgone my permanent position as the grade 7 teacher to move into the secondary side of the school and do a six-month replacement for a teacher who was on maternity leave. Then, that was supposed to be it. We were done. It was a done deal. We told all of our friends that we would be moving back to Montreal.
Of course, after leaving in March, I came back to replace another pregnant teacher in May to finish out the year, and then replaced her all the next year and then took another job this year, but that's beside the point. Our Northern journey was coming to an end, and what a year we had to end it.
2008-2009 provided the best and the worst that the North has to offer. In a school that has ample staff and available replacements, a principal would never let a permanent teacher take a replacement contract for part of the year. They could just as easily find someone to fill in the holes. Being a principal here, as far as I can tell, is not unlike sticking your fingers in the dike to plug the holes as they appear, and using every available extremity to delay the inevitable flood of discontented parents and students who understandably are confused as to why there is no teacher for such and such a class.
That year also humbled me as a teacher. I remember painstakingly trying to help a student to simple arithmetic in a secondary 3 Math class only to look up and see that the rest of the students, who were much quicker than the one I to whom I was devoting all that attention were asleep; tired of waiting for me to get to the point. All of these boys have since dropped out, no doubt in part due to having had their patience tested for so many years. It was at that point that I began to really appreciate how teachers' will to leave no one behind often pulls everyone down and drill holes in the hull of an already sinking ship. Since then, I've tried to raise the bar and have the students grab it instead of lowering it so the weakest can hurdle it while the strong students couldn't be bothered to leave the starting blocks.
On the plus side, another teacher and I organized a graduation trip to Rome and Athens without really thinking about it. We asked for money, and it came (one-third of it came six months after we had taken the trip, but that's splitting hairs, right). We asked to go into the Vatican Vaults, and they let us in. I was supposed to go on a leave of absence on the day I left Wakeham to go on the trip and I asked to get paid. To my utter surprise, the school board paid me to go to Europe.
The North also offered up enough money for Sophie and I to use the break between my contracts to go to Cuba and cycle around for a month. And what a month. But even during our tropical sojourn to Cuba, we felt a little sub-arctic village pulling us back. Mid-way through the trip, we called our neighbours only to find out that our favourite student had killed himself. I know we're not supposed to have favourites, but anyone who taught that boy knows what I'm talking about.
To be brutally honest with you, the part that I found most frustrating was that I wasn't here when it happened. I'm not so naive as to think I could, or better yet should, have done something to stop it from happening. My motives were much more selfish than that. I wanted to be here for my own grief, for my personal closure... and to not miss it. I needn't have worried. We arrived back here only to have another student take her own life a couple of weeks later.
Finally, upon coming back to Nunavik, Sophie became pregnant with Evie. I mean it. Upon arrival in the North, Sophie became pregnant. I'm not sure if there's something in the water here...
What a year. No wonder we decided to come back for more.
Of course, after leaving in March, I came back to replace another pregnant teacher in May to finish out the year, and then replaced her all the next year and then took another job this year, but that's beside the point. Our Northern journey was coming to an end, and what a year we had to end it.
2008-2009 provided the best and the worst that the North has to offer. In a school that has ample staff and available replacements, a principal would never let a permanent teacher take a replacement contract for part of the year. They could just as easily find someone to fill in the holes. Being a principal here, as far as I can tell, is not unlike sticking your fingers in the dike to plug the holes as they appear, and using every available extremity to delay the inevitable flood of discontented parents and students who understandably are confused as to why there is no teacher for such and such a class.
That year also humbled me as a teacher. I remember painstakingly trying to help a student to simple arithmetic in a secondary 3 Math class only to look up and see that the rest of the students, who were much quicker than the one I to whom I was devoting all that attention were asleep; tired of waiting for me to get to the point. All of these boys have since dropped out, no doubt in part due to having had their patience tested for so many years. It was at that point that I began to really appreciate how teachers' will to leave no one behind often pulls everyone down and drill holes in the hull of an already sinking ship. Since then, I've tried to raise the bar and have the students grab it instead of lowering it so the weakest can hurdle it while the strong students couldn't be bothered to leave the starting blocks.
On the plus side, another teacher and I organized a graduation trip to Rome and Athens without really thinking about it. We asked for money, and it came (one-third of it came six months after we had taken the trip, but that's splitting hairs, right). We asked to go into the Vatican Vaults, and they let us in. I was supposed to go on a leave of absence on the day I left Wakeham to go on the trip and I asked to get paid. To my utter surprise, the school board paid me to go to Europe.
The North also offered up enough money for Sophie and I to use the break between my contracts to go to Cuba and cycle around for a month. And what a month. But even during our tropical sojourn to Cuba, we felt a little sub-arctic village pulling us back. Mid-way through the trip, we called our neighbours only to find out that our favourite student had killed himself. I know we're not supposed to have favourites, but anyone who taught that boy knows what I'm talking about.
To be brutally honest with you, the part that I found most frustrating was that I wasn't here when it happened. I'm not so naive as to think I could, or better yet should, have done something to stop it from happening. My motives were much more selfish than that. I wanted to be here for my own grief, for my personal closure... and to not miss it. I needn't have worried. We arrived back here only to have another student take her own life a couple of weeks later.
Finally, upon coming back to Nunavik, Sophie became pregnant with Evie. I mean it. Upon arrival in the North, Sophie became pregnant. I'm not sure if there's something in the water here...
What a year. No wonder we decided to come back for more.
Monday, June 06, 2011
Skis
I packed my cross-country skis today. Up until last week, I thought this year was the worst ski season ever. We hadn't really had any snow since February, and the bay was glare ice. I had been able to run across it a couple of times this year, but found it too icy to ski for more than a few minutes. Last Sunday, Sophie asked me if she could pack the skis. I said that I wanted to go one more time.
The next morning, I took them out and skied down to the bay. I had to dodge the bare patches of land on the way down, but when I arrived, I found the best ski conditions I've ever had. I skied all the way across the bay and back, a distance of 10km round-trip. It took less than an hour. I went again on Wednesday, and skated all the way there and back. 47 minutes. And again on Friday, 44. I'm not exactly and expert skier, so I have no idea if that's any good. Let's see... google 10km cross-country ski race times... In the 2006 White Pine Stampede 10km I would have been about 60th. If I was 45 years old, I would have been close to the lead in my age group. Which is to say, not better than mediocre, but it was fantastic for me. Once, one of my iPod earbuds fell out, so I started gliding, took off a glove, put the earbud back in, put my glove back on, and I was STILL GLIDING. However the sun had been beating down on the sea ice all week, so it wouldn't be long before there were puddles on top of the ice, thus rendering skiing impossible. I knew my time was limited.
On Saturday night, I was baking bread (I know, my life is that interesting. Jealous?). I went into the laundry to get my apron. The closet door was open, so as I was walking by, I pushed it shut and kept walking. One of my ski poles was stuck in the door jamb and the door bounced back.
A sudden pain rushed to my temple as my glasses fell to the floor. I went to touch it and found myself weak in the knees. I fell onto my back and stared up at the stars (I was inside). I remember struggling with all of the concentration the door hadn't knocked out of me, desperate to not lose consciousness. I saw myself get up and dust myself off, but it didn't actually happen; I just laid there on the floor, holding my head. After what seemed like an eternity, I felt the pain rush back to my temple. I couldn't tell if I was bleeding or not, so I stood up to take a look in the mirror. I foresaw a nasty gash and some stitches, but instead just found a measly lump protruding from underneath my eyebrow.
I took it as a sign, and as soon as I found the courage to venture near the closet, I grabbed the poles and put them and the skis away. Well that, and now there are puddles on the bay. At the very least, Kangiqsujuaq saved its best ski conditions for the end.
Wednesday, June 01, 2011
Cut my finger
Sorry all (seventeen of you). I cut my typing finger. It's not too bad, just painful while typing. Actually, I use four fingers to type, but blogging and reminiscing will have to wait a day or two. It's okay, I was looking for an excuse to take a mini-break. It's hard to be productive every day. I realized that the quality has been going downhill, and I probably need to recharge anyway.
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