Teaching and life

Hello all! I realize I haven't posted in a while so I thought I would give an update to what's happening with me. Sadly, my ankle is still buggered. What drives me crazy about the whole being injured thing is that the ankle splint (an aircast) that the nurse said I needed to wear is nowhere to be found in Nunavut. The splint allows me to walk and move without putting pressure on the sides of my ankle. Without it, every time I moved I risked re-injuring it. So, in the end I had to put out $150.00 to buy and have one shipped up from BC. My mom was kind enough to pick one up at a local pharmacy in Grand Forks and mail it up. Even with expedited shipping it took 7 days to get it. Thankfully I had an older aircast splint from a previous injury I packed and brought up. Sometimes I get vivid reminders about how isolated we are up here. Most days it is becoming normal living here. We have our things and a nice home. There are stores and so many places to buy goods online with free shipping. It's not until you need something that is not here and you need it NOW that one remembers how much time and effort is put into keeping this community going.

On other news, I was trying to install quicktime 7 pro on my new macbook and in the process destroyed all of the quicktime software which runs most of my programs. This would not have been such a big deal if I had my install software disks and our external hard drive, but, the disks were packed and being shipped up in our moving things and the external hard drive was in BC with some friends. So I asked a friend down south for help and after numerous attempts to revive my macbook we realized I needed the software that it came with. In the meantime, my computer was pretty useless. So, midweek I found the software needed but I had to take everything off my computer to ensure it did not get erased during the update. I have alot of music on my computer from the years being a DJ and such. We digitized all our albums before moving up here (about 900 or so) and somehow it made 2 or more copies of every song in every album. I have slowly been going through every file and deleting the duplicates but it has been a slow process. Well, since I had to move 120 gb of files to Margot's computer I thought now was a good time to take this on. So, I spent 14 or so hours working on sorting files and transferring to contents of my computer to Margot's using two 2 gb memory sticks. GRRRRRRRRRRRRR. It was so tedious. Then I installed my software and everything seems OK now. Computers are great when they work, but when they go wrong, they really go wrong it seems.

My teaching week went well. My students are pretty well behaved and are quite a group of characters. I laugh alot at school. We generally have a good time and are easing into the academics. Just like Margot, I am weaving my way through what curriculum I am supposed to follow. It is very frustrating that this is even an issue as I feel this information should be supplied to us at the start of the school year. Oh well.... what are you going to do?

The school's big construction projects are done and now it's just getting all the details and somewhat minor projects done. I am still waiting for a computer, smart board and white boards in my class. We have no computer lab or Internet. No phones in the classes. No library that is usable. The teaching resources are scattered all over the school and there is a large portion of the gym that is missing drywall, but otherwise all is good.

I am looking forward to the snow coming as it is raining everyday and turning the hamlet into a large mud pit. It will be nice when things freeze up and I can get to school on our snowmobile instead of taking a taxi everyday.

In the news up here there has been alot of discussion over the status, use and laws around liquor in Nunavut. We adopted the Northwest territories regulations when we became a territory. Now, there is a committee that is working on gathering public opinions/concerns about liquor in the hamlets. Some communities are dry (no booze), restricted (you need a permit, then you can what you want every week up to a set limit) and un-restricted. Iqaluit is Unrestricted and has a bar, Cape Dorset is restricted. In my opinion the problem with prohibition is that it doesn't work. There are always people who want to drink and will do whatever it takes to do it and those willing to supply them. The problem then becomes the lack of community/police control over who is drinking, when and how much. It also puts money into the hands of criminals who don't care who they are selling to (children, known alcoholics, etc...). Apparently the majority of violence in Nunavut stems from alcohol use which is terribly sad.  I have worked around alcohol for years in liquor stores in Calgary and bars in Rossland and have seen the damage it can cause to a minority of people. But, they are the minority. I don't condone iresponsible alcohol use but I do think that allowing people to partake in a responsible way is O.K.

- Richard