Issues

On Wednesday morning, I recieved a phone call from our principal asking if I could fill in for her as she wasn't feeling well. The day was chaotic due to post Christmas behaviour issues but we got through it. That evening, our secretary called me. "Did you hear from our principal? She was taken to Slave Lake by ambulance." Sure enough two minutes later, her grandson is at my door confirming the Trout Lake rumour.

The next morning I recieve a phone call from one of the teachers at school. She will be late because some of the community members, including a student of mine, decided to party at the principal's house well she was in the hospital. They refused to leave, the cops were called and some things in the house were wrecked.

That day at school was more subdued as staff and students were worried about their principal and as we dealt with the other happenings that night, such as pulling the principal's car out of the ditch and talking to the cops. At the beginning of the morning, we heard that our principal had a heart attack and then there was speculation about whether or not she would be able to come back and work. I had a sick feeling all day with worry. This is the last thing our principal needed and the last thing our school needed - another year with mulitple principals, another student involved with the cops because of indiscretions while drinking. All the worse case scenarios were going through all our heads. That evening we found out that the doctors don't think it was a heartattack. She should be back by Thursday and in the meantime I am in charge.

I still am worried - not only about the principal but about the student who is no doubt feeling remorse. Hopefully, as teachers we will be able to forgive this breach of privacy and trust and convey our forgiveness to the student. Without our forgiveness, the student will ever be able to forgive himself and will turn to alcohol again to cover up his anger at himself. That is the heartbreaking pattern here. I have seen it happen before with this student and am worried that we are going to see it again.

The Lonely Road

Last night I drove back up to Trout. It was dark already when I left Slave. Driving in the dark in the bush is a lot different than driving in the dark in the Prairies. In the Prairies, you see the light of the distant towns and farms. In the bush, there are either no lights in the distance or it is all blocked by the trees. The only light comes from your headlights which create a small tunnel of illumination with darkness pressing in all around. This trip it seemed like I was the only person heading North. For over 250 kilometers I passed only one car and only one car passed me. There was a lot of traffic heading in the opposite direction but there were no headlights in my rearview mirror and no glimpses of red tail lights in front of me. It was just me and the Northern darkness.

For the short times when I was close to another car, their lights gave off additional illumination. The darkness didn't seem so overbearing and I felt relieved at having a fellow traveller along the lonely winter road. The companionship though was shortlived.

Is this somehow a metaphor for my life?

Bring on 2007

Happy New Years everyone. It is still good to be home with the family. I saw some friends in passing atchurch but I did not get to greet everyone, unfortunately. So many people so little time.

So you would think that since I am home that I would have lots of outings and coffeetime with people. Well since this is my second blog entry since the Christmas hoiday, one could guess that my Christmas holidays were not the social event of my year. It doesn't help that I have a horrid chest cough and a raspy voice. I can't really call people up and say, "Hey want to go for a coffee so that I can breathe all my sick germs on you."

In fact my most intimate moment this holidays was with my optometrist yesterday. I have not had a male gaze into my eyes for quite so long. In fact we sat nearly nose to nose and I had to answer all of his questions in my deep throaty voice. "Yes I have been thinking about contacts" "OK I will make another appointment with you at Easter time to get contacts fitted." I found a lot of humour in the situation.

Anways may all of my readers (there might be 5 now) have a blessed new years and find true intimacy and lots of adventure in 2007.

Ahh Christmas

I am at home enjoying a much deserved Christmas break and life is grand. I love Christmas and other family celebrations. I am lucky to be in a family where everything is celebrated and that philosphy is being handed down to my nieces. The oldest niece celebrates everything with you. "Yeah Jen you got the top off of the jar of salsa. Hip Hip Hurray." She is the biggest cheerleader for everyone. The youngest niece finds joy in everything and spreads that joy to everyone. "Den, Chrisa mis lights." So needless to say. opening presents was a lot of fun and took a very long time.

This Christmas though was tinged with bittersweet sorrow. First, there was my cousin Wendililly who is off galavanting in Europe and having a difficult time being alone. We missed her presence alot. The strategically placed pictures of Wendy and the surprise phonecall did not ease our longing for her. Then there was my sister, who is having another difficult pregnancy. She can't keep any food down and is losing weight. Her energy is at an all time low. She had to be taken to the hospital on Christmas to get intravenous fluids given to her. It was hard for me to see my normally vibrant sister struggle to smile and laugh. Then there was my brother and sister in law, childless and waiting with hopeful expectation for a mother to choose them to adopt her baby. You could sense their enjoyment of the nieces tinged with something else. Then there were all the other private sorrows and struggles.

Truly real joy is found in the midst of heartache and pain.

Reasons

OK as I promised here are some pictures showing you the reasons why I love Trout. (I never knew it was so easy to post pictures. I will definitely be doing this more often.) UM yeah that was written before I tried. Dial up and uploading just don't mix well. Oh well I will get a few Christmas cards written - multitasking is where it is at.

#1 - Spawning Fish. Both in the spring and the fall, the creek just below my house has fish battling the current and predators to lay their eggs. This fall, the bottom of the creek was carpeted with fish. The creek is shallow enough that the fins stick out of the water. The locals love it. They will bring down their families, quads, nets, sticks, rocks and baseball bats to catch a load of fish to smoke. This will feed them for the winter.

#2 The Predators. I teach science so here comes my lecture on the food chain. If you have an abundant food source, you will have an abundant number of predators. This shows a healthy ecosystem. Well, not only do we have a carpet of fish in our stream, we have a family of eagles living right by the creek. At any given moment, I can look out my window at the tall tree across the creek and see an eagle or maybe two. They are bald eagles but last spring I also saw a golden eagle. It was so beautiful. My favorite Trout moment is when I was going for a walk and within two minutes I saw a bald eagle, a blue heron and a pelican fly right over my head. People pay big bucks to see this type of wild life in an isolated setting.

#3 - OK that is all the pictures I have folks but there are many more reasons why I love Trout but for legal reasons I can't put their pictures up - I hate FOIP. But all those other reasons make it so worth while to be up here. And what is better, I think they are finally coming around and realizing that I mean business and even maybe possibly respecting me for it. I haven't been sworn at personally for over a week now. Things are definitely improving. There have been no major tragedies this year in the community. Yet this peace is tenuous at best. At any moment, another straw could enter my students lives and start an avalanche of issues. I pray that the peace will hold. Not for my sake but for the sake of my students who have seen way more than they ever should and who have endured such pain. I pray that the peace will hold so that they can rebuild their self-esteem, regain hope and relearn the beauty that life offers.

Forgotten but not gone

I knoe it has been awhile and I know that I have yet to post the promised pictures and I know that I really don't have any excuses but I am going to try to make them up anyways.

Excuse #1: Dial up internet. I get so frustrated with the slowness that I only set one day aside to do all internet business. Sunday is my day to read e-mails and explore the internet and I have been busy for two weeks of Sundays.

Excuse #2: Television. It is both by bane and my joy. Yes it does while away the lonely hours in Trout but I find that I don't do anything anymore except sit on my butt and watch TV where as before I would sit on my butt and surf my excurtiatingly slow internet.

Excuse #3: New Trout Technocrats. You see before, back in the day, it just use to be me surfing the net so the dial up wasn't so bad. But now the locals are buying computers and connecting to the net. I have no idea how this fits into my excuse for not updating my blog but it is a useless piece of information.

Excuse #4: Big Brother. You see we have high speed internet at school but it is very closely regulated. A lot of sites are blocked and um "they" watch what you are doing. I really don't want the powers that be knowing I blog because often I talk about them.

Excuse #5: Family Reunions. Two Sunday's ago I was in Saskatchewan celebrating my Grandmother's 90th birthday with the rest of my family. It was worth missing my blog for because in celebrating her we also celebrated God's faithfulness. He has been faithful to her and to her family. I hope that faith is a legacy that will continue on for many generations in our family.

Excuse #6: Those damn Liberals. Last weekend I let my geekiness show and watched the Liberal Leadership Convention all weekend. I put up my Christmas decorations to the intrigue and politiking of the liberals. I find politics rather fascinating. Yes I am a geek.

Excuse #7: Banking. I need to go do my banking and then teach myslf how to post photos - rather exciting. I promise that those pictures are coming and that I am still alive and very well.

Tune out

The other day I had to turn off the news. It wasn't because I couldn't handle yet more bad news from the middle east or another story that shows the absolute depravity of man. No it was because I couln't handle the fact that Tommy and Katie's wedding was newsworthy enough to open the news broadcast. "Finally TomKat is married. The dream wedding of the year in Rome." GAG!!! Maybe this does show our depravity - a million dollar plus wedding when there is starvation all around. Focus on annoying celebrities instead of the world's problems. AHHHH!!!

OK now that I got that out of my system - Today is a day of cleaning up computer files and backing up information. So thrilling I know. Then hopefully I can compress my computer files, put on new picture files and maybe even try to post some pictures that show the reasons that I love Trout. So stay tuned . . .