Hurry Up...and Wait! No, HURRY UP!

Just a quick blog about how things work up here.....

Time can sometimes be referred to up here as...."Shishmaref Time".....meaning that it will happen....when it happens!  For me, coming from the Lower 48 and being very geared to timelines and written schedules....it's taken a bit of getting used to.  It doesn't happen all the time but it happens enough to make a person smile...and to just take a deep breath and not get your underwear in a bunch over something not happening when YOU THINK it should happen.  On the other hand, things can just as easily happen quicker than you thought so you always have to be on your toes and ready.

For example, I am at an inservice down in Stebbins.  We've been here since Wednesday night.  We were originally scheduled to be here from Thursday through Saturday.  Then we received notice from our building principal that plans had changed and we would now be adding an additional day of training and would be leaving on Wednesday.  Pack your bag a day sooner in order to haul it to school in the morning.  Ok...

On the day we were to leave, we were originally told we'd be flying out at 3:00 and would need to be at school by 2:40.  Ok....I had time to get to the post office.  It's a good thing there aren't restaurants in Shishmaref where I might have stopped off for a cup of coffee....because I no sooner return to the ECE building and a phone is being handed to me.  The flight is coming in sooner and we have to be at the airstrip.  Hurry up!  Get moving!  Ok....

Now we're in Stebbins and I'm excited about the training because I am going to have the chance to be with some of the other ECE teachers and our District Office "guru", Julie, during this inservice.  But....when we finally get together, we're told that we have to "tweak out" some time for us because Julie wasn't "officially" scheduled into the mix of presenters.  Seems we'll have to "wait" our turn.  Ok....

We manage to do that the best we can with FINALLY getting an afternoon of uninterrupted time on Friday to go over so many things we haven't been able to cover.  I am walking to our little corner room for our 1:00 session and I hear Julie's name being called over the loudspeaker.  Ok, I'll admit it....I didn't hear anymore than that so when I arrive in the room, Julie is frantically packing up her gear with the help of one of our other ECE teachers.  I casually say, "Are we moving to a different room?"  No, we weren't.  The loudspeaker announcement for Julie (had I listened to the rest of it) was summoning her to the office because her flight out of Stebbins was 14 minutes away from the airstrip.  Hurry up!  Get moving!  So much for our long-awaited ECE session.  Bye, Julie.....!  Ok....

There are so many things out of your control that can happen up here that will have an effect on when and how something else happens (or doesn't happen).  You might be expecting a delivery from Nome on some flight....only to have the flight cancelled due to the weather which can change quickly.  You might be in the middle of a video teleconferencing session with someone down in Unalakleet (or beyond)...and the equipment won't work....or the scheduled time has run out and the feed goes blank!  You might plan to make a batch of cookies and realize that you have no eggs in the house and there are none to be had from either of the village stores...for another week or so....depends on the weather.  You might have a sink load of dishes but you can't do them until the water tank is filled and you can't do that because it's too cold out to haul the tank which can freeze so quickly.  Oh, heck....you get the picture.

I'm learning to "hurry up and wait" but being ready to drop everything and run....now!

On a very sad note, how things happen up here can also depend on real life events.  Over Christmas, a villager had passed away.  The Christmas Week activities had to be delayed a day because of the funeral being held on the Monday after Christmas.  Had there been school, we would have had an early release from school that day, too, because funerals are attended by so many in this close-knit community.  Today, at our inservice, we received word of another death in the village.  Sad....so very sad.  Two of our staff members are waiting to fly out of Stebbins to return home to be with their families.  Life is so predictably unpredictable here.  My thoughts go out to the family and friends of the young man who passed away.  God be with you all.