So I am a HUGE slacker with this thing... My last post was during Week 4 of school, and Week 9 just ended. My bad.

A lot has happened in the last 5 and a half weeks...

The long-term sub job was offered to me full-time for the WHOLE YEAR! Of course, I said I wanted it. I had to email the superintendent and tell him I was interested in applying for the position, and I had to interview for it this past Thursday. It's been challenging... Although it helped a lot that I started as the sub. One of my requirements through my contract is to move down to the village and live in the school district's duplex on the school property. Once things get settled in the district office and the job is officially mine and all procedures have been followed, I'll move into the duplex. It'll probably be this weekend when I finally move out there. I went up to Fairbanks last weekend and bought a whole bunch of stuff thinking that I was moving down there this weekend, but it had to be pushed back to next weekend, so now I have all this stuff just hanging out in the back of the Suburban.

I made it through the first quarter and got all the grades in and all that. I made it through the First Quarter Fun Day at school, and parent-teacher conferences. I was so nervous about those... I felt like I was going to yak before the first one. But I knew the parent pretty well because she works at the school, so that made it a lot easier. I didn't have that many parents show up, so I got to spend a LOT of time in my room moving things around and hanging stuff up. I took out a table and a couple chairs and there is SO much more room now. I bet the kids are going to flip on Wednesday when they walk in. I can't wait to see their faces.

Michael deployed at the end of last month or the beginning of this month to Afghanistan. His tour over there should be about 7 months long... Hopefully they won't extend it and keep him over there for a long time. He seems to be doing well, and likes what he's been doing. The care packages we send over to him take FOREVER to get there. He celebrated his 20th birthday over there... I thought we weren't going to get to talk to him, but he called that night. Mom was in Kansas for an instructional coach conference, and Dad took up most of the 30 minutes he was allowed to talk.

Exactly a month after I got here, while I was driving to school, a moose decided to jump out of the trees and run in front of the Tahoe. Of course, I hit him. Thankfully, the damage wasn't too bad. I clipped his back end and spun him around before sending him off to the ditch. He took out the headlight on the driver's side and dented the hood and fender, and he also broke the driver side mirror... I think that part happened when I spun him around -- his snout must have gotten the mirror. Anywho, I had to call the AK State Troopers when I got to school and report it. Mom had to pick up a form that I had to fill out and mail down to Juneau. Luckily I don't get penalized in any way for hitting a moose. We just got the Tahoe back from the auto-body place in Fairbanks this last week. While Dad was up there picking it up, he had some extra high beam lights (commonly known as "moose lights") on the front. That makes me feel better about driving out to Northway, especially since that's the car I'll be taking out there this year.

Harley is still doing well. I think I'm going to make an appointment for him at the vet pretty soon. I need to get his prescription for his food transferred up here and he needs his nail beds checked out. I'm starting to think his swollen nailbed issues are not a result of allergies. And if they are, I think I need to get another allergy test done. The allergy test that we did in Auburn was based on common allergens found in the Southeast, not Alaska. And just about everything that he's allergic to isn't found up here... So his allergy serum is pretty pointless. I need to find out if there are things up here that he's allergic to. And if there aren't, this nail bed thing needs to be figured out.

I guess that's about all -- dinner is almost ready, and I guess I should do some grading. I have a massive stack of papers here.