Spring Dance

     I'm currently sitting in Chicago's O'Hare airport, waiting for my fourth flight in the last 16 hours, reflecting on my first year of teaching in bush Alaska and anticipating the summer ahead. It's been an exhausting last week, wrapping up classes and final grades, and moving us out of our house in the village to our new home by the school, all while Christina has been back in PA, moving us into our summer apartment and preparing for her baby shower (which starts in about 2 hours).

     What was good about being so busy was that I didn't have much time to think about missing my wife and (soon to be) child. After dropping Christina off at the airport last Friday, I headed to the school to finish setting up for our Spring Dance. If you'll remember from a previous post, rather than spend $6,000 to fly a DJ out to Goodnews, I suggested that we just buy the necessary equipment for the school. Our principal pulled the trigger, and so I found myself preparing to DJ my first ever school dance. In all of my enthusiasm in the equipment idea, I realized I didn't mention that I've never actually DJed a school dance before! Weddings, random parties, but no school functions. 

     Fortunately, the dance was a big hit, thanks to the efforts of all our staff. Teachers (with the help of some students) decorated the gym, cut up fruit and vegetables, made punch, manned the doors and tickets, and even got down on the dance floor. I was really disappointed that Christina wasn't there to see her Kindergarteners tearing it up on the dance floor- they were at times adorable, at times hysterical, all times vastly entertaining from my perch on the stage. 

Ben manning the limbo stick.

They were fascinated by the fog machine. What they didn't realize is that I had a remote control for it- it was funny to watch them try and coax the machine to shoot out fog and the rush up to play in the smoky haze. 

We spent the last week of gym class hiking up Little Rocky. I'm certainly going to miss views like this over the summer.