Visit from the mentor teacher (and hairdresser)

My mentor teacher, Bernadette, visited today to help me out with all of my first year teaching difficulties. At the end of our meeting, she asked me, "Is there any thing else I can do? What are my next steps for you?"

I looked back at her and simply stated, "Can you cut hair?"



And voila: A neat and tidy haircut with the help of Jake's trimmers.



Bernadette did a very nice job, wayyyy better than I could have hoped for had I been on my own with a pair of scissors. Plus, I still have both my ears and not even minor lacerations!



Things are a little bit different here in Alaska. Not only did I get a haircut, but we were almost eating delicious ptarmigan soup last night. An (arctic?) (snow?) ptarmigan landed right on the store right across the street from the school. Here's the "majestic" bird with Christmas Mountain in the background:



Here's the ptarmigan up close, I crept up until I was right underneath it:



If only Jake hadn't missed! During our 10-minute break the science teacher ran home and grabbed his bow. He took a shot from our back porch, aiming high so he wouldn't hit the store. WHOOSH! Unfortunately, the arrow sailed just over its head (and subsequently into the river). We didn't have any ptarmigan soup that night, but it's still awesome to see the Alaskan wildlife.

Here's a final picture I took during school a few days ago. The sun rises at about 9:30 now so I can't get any sunrise pictures before school. I like the grainy texture of this one: