ExtraCurriculars

I know, I promised pictures of the apartment. I had a friend staying here for a week, and now it just needs to be cleaned and reorganized. Project for tomorrow night - and then pictures. I took some when I first moved in, but now I have things like a coffee table, and a bookshelf, and those such things. Definitely nice to have. Even just the inexpensive bookshelf makes it feel much more homey. The next task is things to put on the walls, but I'm horrible about making decisions like that. There are tons of nail holes that I can use to hang things. Currently it's a textured slightly-off white-ness.

This school year has already been pretty busy. I'm having a hard time believing that next Friday is the end of the first quarter already. I was gone quite a bit last week (some personal time, as well as the jazz band performing for the State Superintendent's Conference and then some training on the new evaluation system). I'm gone again this Friday, and then just four days next week.

I'm gone a decent amount during the school year because of extracurricular things. Last year I was an assistant coach for Drama, Debate and Forensics. This year, after our head coach moved to Kwethluk, I became the head coach. You can read an amazing article about the team here. We have five meets in Anchorage, one meet in Homer, and then the state tournament up in Anchorage. Practice is twice a week after school, and tournaments last Friday morning through late Saturday night (including the drive time to Anchorage).

I also get to do extracurricular type things for band. There is an Alaska All-State band that students audition for, as well as Borough Honor Band (which I get to host this year) and middle school Mass Band. Mass Band is a really neat idea (they do it for choir, too). They take all the bands on the Kenai Peninsula and combine them into one band. It's nice for the students in smaller schools to get the experience of playing in a larger band, and it's also nice for the other students to get experience with different conductors. There are a lot of different opportunities for band up here, which is nice. There's also Solo and Ensemble in the spring. We also do pep band for home football games (we had two this year), and for some basketball games. The community has really been enjoying having the pep band, which is nice for the kids to know that they're appreciated.

I like keeping busy. I think that's one of the reasons that the darkness doesn't get to me quite as much. I drive to the middle school and back to the high school when it's light outside, and I normally get to school and leave after it's dark. Difficult sometimes, but even last year it never really bothered me. I've got some amazing people to spend time with up here, and that really makes all the difference.