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Have not had time to update - I just got back this afternoon. Feeling worn out and just need a lot of rest. A big part of Cree culture is to be able to laugh at yourself. I'm too tired to laugh right now but enjoy this video.

Four More Days

The science exam starts at 9 am in the morning. I've prepped them as much as I can. My work here is done. Tomorrow, I'll be in at 8 am cooking bacon, eggs and toast to help encourage them to be here on time. Some of them will intentionally miss the exam. Next year they will repeat Grade 10 for the third time. Others will hope that this is their ticket out the door and will work harder than they have in all the years they've been to school. I cross my fingers and wait for the results.

It's been quite an adventure the past four months and I'm ready for a break. There are a lot of people who say to me, "You've got a tough job" and I laugh. I never thought it was taxing, maybe because I fit well into my role. It didn't feel like work. I did it and I knew it had to be done.

But the reality of it is that I'm worn out. Not physically nor mentally but just in my heart.

I work with kids that rarely show appreciation. On a daily basis, I could hold a door for students without getting a simple 'thank you'. A lot of them won't talk to you or show any emotions in their face. I am often turned down when I make a simple request. Sometimes, I'll be ignored outright when I ask a question. I make appointments a lot and if I am lucky, the student will show up 45 minutes late. Half the time, I am stood up despite pinky swears and promises. I've even made batches of cookies for no one, even after knocking on the doors of houses, only to have parents tell me that the student is sleeping in after coming home at 9 am in the morning from drinking and partying. I spend a lot of time having high expectations, only to have them lowered repeatedly, time and time again.

Being the Optimist in everyone else's life isn't easy.

And it's definitely not a job that many people can do well. Yet what comes out of it has been amazingly rewarding and worth all of that. There really isn't a secret to it. You just have to do it to figure it out on your own, if you haven't already. I appreciate everything that I've learned up north and feel lucky to have had such wonderful experiences up here. But I'm also happy to be headed home in 4 days as I finish up my contract.

I can't give anymore love right now. My heart just needs a break.

Safety

Reading about the shooting at the Eaton Centre in Toronto, I'm appreciative of the extremely low crime rate here in Whapmagoostui. I've left my iPad with little kids at the gym, as they sit on the bleachers and play games, come back to it as it sits in my backpack (hockey sticks are more likely to be stolen).

So no, this never happens to me up north!

Teaching electricity

Three more weeks before my job ends. 

Exams are coming fast and soon! We're not getting a lot of students coming out to our after-school program to prep for exams. My lessons need to be more engaging, so I went through some supplies at school and made this awesome matching column quiz with a few basic materials:

• wire-cutter and wire-stripper
• 9-volt battery
• wires
• metal paperclips
• bulb
• cardboard

I worked with four kids after school. Only two stuck around long enough for me to show them this. We stayed until 6:30 pm. It was a long but extremely pretty productive day.

 ABOVE: The front of the matching-column quiz. Students have to place the two wires to the correct answers for the simple circuit to work and the bulb to light up.

ABOVE: I couldn't find a nice cardboard sheet so I rummaged this scrap box from the kitchen! The back of the board, where you can see which wires are connected to each other.

Groceries

Today, I paid $6.59 for the tiniest box of blueberries and $4.19 for a single avocado. Other fruits seemed better subsidized; a bag of mandarins only cost me $4.89.

At work, we are given an additional $300 to help with the increased cost of food up north. Looking back at my monthly expenses on Expensify.com, this actually works out just right:

March $310.74

April $268.73

May $318.27

I don't buy any junk food except fair-trade, organic Camino chocolate at $4-5 a bar. My breakfast granola is made in organic and produced in Quebec, jam-packed with vitamins and keeps me full until lunchtime. I rarely buy processed food - although I admit I ate a frozen pizza on the weekend - and cook for myself nearly every day. My lunch was a bowl of soba* with some bok choy. Tonight I made my fried rice from veggie sausage, frozen peas and corn and an egg. 

You don't survive well up here unless you take care of yourself. There aren't many restaurant options on these isolated reserves, unless you count the cafeteria or the cafe next to the airport. While you may balk at the prices, look at it this way - there is more value in the avocado than a $2 box of Kraft dinner if it means that I will finish eating my value pack of romaine hearts. I'll feel more energetic when I go to work. My health is not compromised and I'm proud to say that I've slimmed down to a healthier body shape since being up north the past three months. 

Our diet is an investment into our personal long-term health. I just wished more people realized this!

(Maybe that's why Rob Ford got back onto his weight loss challenge?)

*Japanese buckwheat noodles

Fear of Apathy

I went to the Secondary IV class today to work with the substitute teacher, but sadly, I didn't get to teach any of the students as I had hoped. Not a single one showed up. They knew that their science instructor was away in Montreal and skipped the morning classes. I ended up chatting with the supply teacher, K., instead. This was his first teaching job out of school, after graduating from North Bay. He said that likely, they will be looking for a Grade 2, 3 and 6 teacher next year and there'd definitely be opportunities for me. It seems that every other day, someone keeps encouraging me to take a job here. It's nice to know that I am welcomed with open arms.

Thinking back to my walk with A. last week, I remember telling her the thing I'd fear the most about working up north is falling into bad habits. I see it here and it scares me. There are many teachers, that you can tell, are probably brilliant and amazing. Yet when you walk into the classroom, you can see that it's fallen into disarray. Garbage on the ground, the sink is cluttered, books are scattered around and even the teacher's desk itself is cluttered and disorganized. It's sad to see when there's no pride in how the classroom looks*. 

And I do not ever want that to happen to me.

To fall into apathy. To no longer give a shit about the state of my classroom because I am too stressed, too fatigued, too overworked, too dispirited, too overwhelmed by the issues that I'd face on my job. I am just as human as the next person and easily susceptible to the environment around me; why should I think that I wouldn't suffer the same fate? I'd already burned out from my first teaching job and it took me more than a year to recover. My mental health is important to me and therefore, I am extremely careful about where I want to end up next.

My current job isn't sustainable in the long run and it would strain my relationship with Snoopy. Travel is fun for a bit and I get to meet different types of students and see how schools vary from one to another. Ultimately, I'd still like to have my own classroom and some routine for a year. A classroom where I have my own system of organization, decorated with diagrams, posters, student work and word walls. A space that both my students and I would share and take pride when we learn, experience and create together. 

But not a classroom up north. It's hard enough to set in habits and build on basic numeracy and literacy skills when two-thirds of your class have missed half of the classes by December. How do you execute your long-range plans when kids regularly disappear for weeks at a time and show up again with no notice? You might learn how to deal with misbehaviour in the classroom, but I'd be hard pressed to say that any of us in teacher's college was ever taught how to deal with absenteeism. 

On the flip side, would it be better to be overwhelmed? To be in a room full of screaming kids throwing chairs and yelling profanities? I'm not sure which environment I'd do better in. However, I am happy that my appetite for teaching has returned and that I am ready for the next challenge. I hadn't always felt this way the past couple of years. I don't know what the next year will look like but I will look forward to it with high hopes.

*I'm one of those people who will organize a room in every spare second I get. This applies not only to my own classroom, but sometimes someone's room that I am visiting. I don't have OCD although sometimes it appears that way!

**Quebec equivalent of Grade 7

Brrr

Bird-watching on the Hudson's Bay this morning with the biologists. I finally got to ride an ATV out, about 5 km. It was beautiful - sadly I did not bring my camera this time. Spotted some glacous gulls, red-breasted mergansers, black scooters, juncos, sparrows and scaup.

Standing there with binoculars, I heard, "Min Min! Min Min! What are you doing?!

Little kids from the gym found me again!