I am back from my whirl-wind trip to Anchorage for the ASTE convention. It was a great experience to get out there in the tech/ed world of innovation. So glad to hear that teachers aren't trying to reinvent the wheel, but they're simply digitizing it. Everything from blogs to podcasts to iMovie versions of book reports was being displayed with pride. Who would have thought 100 years ago that in Bush Alaska there would be this type of technological advances? Amazing.
I was proud just to have been able to make it to the event! Friday, our island lost power - literally the entire island experienced a blackout. We found out later that there was a short in the system - no kidding! We were without power for close to 6 hours. By the time they fixed everything, our flight was long gone. Next time, add the runway lights to the backup generator.
Saturday rolls around. We were hoping to be able to get on a flight that was schedule for 8:30pm, but due to the entire fleet of PenAir being grounded because of contaminated fuel, we were stuck for yet another day on St. Paul Island. Sunday offered yet another opportunity for our faith to be tested. We were put on standby for the 4:30 flight, but either way we could leave at 12:30am. Standby means to literally standby the ticket counter because it doesn't seem to matter that a phone call says you aren't on the flight. Our trusted leaders were at the airport and were able to be put on the 4:30, despite us being told that there was no room at the inn. Thanks for looking out for us.
12:30am turned into 2am take-off time and 4:15 landing into Anchorage. We slept a few hours, cleaned ourselves up and made it to our presentation on time. Yahoo. I returned home on Tuesday afternoon, arriving at my from door at 9pm. Was it worth it? Probably not. I could have gotten the same information in a podcast on iTunes, but the fact that I got my name and face out there was a plus.
My darling husband is still in Anchorage, attending yet another conference until Friday. It'll be nice to have a quiet house, but then again, I'd rather a little noise be there along with him. A three-day work-week and then conferences on Saturday just about wraps up my week. There will be a union meeting as well as a pep rally before the last basketball game for our SeaParrots. Just like having an MIA husband, I like the quiet of an eventless week, but I would take the chaos 100 times over. It means that there's a purpose for all the hard work that we put in everyday. The joy and progress of our students, that's what I live for. So bring on the hectic schedule - they're worth it.
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