Glitter, Emory, and Frosted Glasses

Today was my first day at Nasivvik High School in Pond Inlet and I'm happy to report that the high school is lovely, as are my students, the student body in general, and my cooperating teacher Leslie. Our day begins at 8:10am and is divided into four 80 minute blocks, although one is split in half by lunch (which takes an hour). Interestingly, the schedule doesn't rotate: we always have Guidance first (helping students apply for bank cards, work towards graduation, and develop a plan for after high school), then our two English classes, and, finally, Esthetics (hair styling, manicures, nutrition, and examining beauty as a concept/construct). Leslie's classroom is warm and inviting and students work largely on independent work, especially in classes with intermittent attendance (which is many of them).

The Esthetic students today -- four girls in Grades 11 and 12 -- were capping off their unit on nail care and manicures by giving Grade 7 girls manicures. One student brought in, I kid you not, her entire collection of at least 60 bottles of nail polish of all colours and varieties; she quipped that walking to school had been a struggle with all those stashed in her purse! It was a wonderful class to observe: the interactions between the older and younger students were lovely, and the Esthetics students were professional both in demeanour and in execution of the manicures. Very cool, both for its real world applications and its multi-age community building!

Those are some fancy nails (paint spatter 'glitter,' crackle, other glitter, shiny top coat...)
... and some very pleased Grade 7 girls.

The students have been receptive to my arrival -- the younger students in junior high are incessantly curious and enthusiastic, the high school students, who are more accustomed to student teachers (Leslie has had a couple!), are also pleased, but in a much more subdued way. They are fairly impressed that I've managed to figure out their names so quickly, and I'm looking forward to getting to know them all as I'm here longer! It's always slightly daunting to enter a school in which you know no one -- none of the staff, none of the students -- and to try to build relationships from the ground up. It happens, but it does take time... but I must say that my welcome, both to Pond Inlet and to Nasivvik High, has been very warm so far.

The lobby at Nasivvik High.

These lovely ladies volunteered to model outside of Nasivvik at the end of the day.

After school ended, Brooke and I headed back to our Pond home, where we decided to trek out to the iceberg with Dave in a quest for more delicious iceberg water. We also wanted to test out our snow gear. Before we left, we took a few photos: the first is a shot of one of the dogs who wait on the ice (in the distance), plus a raven overhead (yes, a raven! in Pond Inlet! scruffier, but otherwise familiar); the next is to satisfy my brother Ken's challenge that I make the iceberg look small.

The sounds these dogs make are pretty incredible. I have a video of it to upload later.

Thanks, Brooke! Now I'm the master of the iceberg.

Afterwards, we headed out across the ice to visit the iceberg. It's about a 10-15 minute walk out and, although I was toasty and warm from toe to head, my cheeks and nose did get cold. Then again, that's what you get in -38C. Really and truly, it doesn't feel that cold, and pulling my balaclava over my face to give it a rest helped a great deal. The rest of me was very comfortable, even if my camera wasn't too impressed with what I was asking it to do!

And the sights were worth the chilly face.

Brooke and Dave survey the dark side of the iceberg (i.e., the side facing Pond).

Edging toward the distant side -- you can see that it's really been harvested (read: chipped away at) by residents.

Iceberg adventurers!

And, for scale, here are a few photos that Pat snapped from the house whilst we adventured.

On our way (I'm in the red parka in the middle, Brooke is on the left, and Dave is on the right).

Those tiny black dots? Us.

On the walk back, my sunglasses really started to fog up as I spent more time with my face mask pulled up, huffing warm air into my hair and up my face. It kept my cheeks cozy, but presented other challenges -- like frost. Not fog. Frost.

Kind of makes the whole seeing thing a challenge.

Lesson learned. Next time, wear contacts.

We moved on to other adventures afterwards (a hip-hop club/group at Nasivvik, where I met a group of incredibly enthusiastic and incredibly cool kids, who were very patient with teaching me dance moves and who managed to keep their laughter to a bare minimum during that process), but I'll save those for tomorrow's blog entry.

For now, I'm going to enjoy drinking a little more of that iceberg we harvested, and then it's off to bed and on to the next day and the new experiences it will bring.