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About Me
My name is Sophie and I'm a senior at West. I've lived all my life in Alaska, but summer is definitely my favorite season. I like to run, hang out with friends, and travel. I also ski and go on kayaking or rafting camping trips with family and friends.
About My Family
I'm an only child. My mom's name is Barbara and my dad's name is Tim. I have lots of aunts and uncles, but only three cousins. On my dad's side, all my relatives live in Colorado. On my mom's side, they live in New York, California, Massachusetts, and Germany.
Daily Blog
04/27/2010
I left for California right after I got back from Shishmaref, which made the difference between the two places really apparent. It also made me miss the village a lot. I loved walking everywhere instead of driving. It meant that I could stop and take a picture every time I saw something beautiful instead of just glancing at it through a car window. I also missed the small community and how much closer that made everyone. Of course I also missed the people, but some of them have been texting me, so I know what they're up to and I still feel connected to Shishmaref.
04/17/2010
Mollie didn't wake us up this morning either because we were up so late last night that she wanted to let us sleep in. I felt such warmth for her when she explained that to us, but we didn't want to miss anything, so I put on my running shoes instead of Sorels this morning and ran to school.
We went to the home ec room first thing, but the women there didn't need our help so we went out to Angie's portable to work on the videos for our areas of exploration (Davide, Janelle, and I made the food/subsistence one). We had burritos in the cafeteria for lunch and then we went back out to the portable to hear from Albert Ningeulook, the local Shishmaref historian. It was interesting to hear about the effects of the erosion and how the village has changed. This afternoon was the Spring Carnival, which filled the school gym with booths where you could win tickets redeemable for either more games or little prizes ordered from the Oriental Trading Company.
We had our closing circle an hour ago, and it was pretty emotional. I'm going to miss our partners in the RURE program, but I'll also miss the entire village of Shishmaref. They've been so incredibly welcoming, sharing so much of their culture and daily life with us. There is a huge sense of community here. I would love to come back and see them all again.
Oh yeah, they gave us our Eskimo names today. I am Pizukaagzruk (pi-zu-kach-zhuk), which means arctic fox in Inupiaq. They chose it for me because I have blond hair and an arctic fox is white.
04/16/2010
Last night, we stayed up late (until 12:30 AM) in a portable at school finishing out kuspuks. We were all getting really punchy and acting goofy. At 11, the Shishmaref boys told us that the Snack Shack was open late tonight, so we walked across town to get some soft serve ice cream. When we got there, it turned out that they weren't serving ice cream or smoothies that late at night, so we had to walk back empty-handed. As we we were walking out of the Snack Shack, Helen was waiting outside on her Sno-Go to say that she had dropped some Blueberry Delight (blueberries, Cool Whip, and a sweet walnut crust) off at Mollie's for Tia and me. Tia and I took a shower, which was exciting because we were a little grody and Miss Morell and Angie scared us right after we got out. By the time we got to bed, it was a very late night (but not by Shishmaref standards, because they stay up really late regularly here).
This morning, I overslept and quickly ate some Froot Loops again. I finished my fishhook by tying on a lure and wrapping it up in paper towels. All of us Anchorage students keep getting really hungry a while before lunch because we're used to having school lunch two hours earlier. Today, Maegan, Tia, Henry (but everyone calls him Toast because he's darker), and Henry (everyone calls him Little Henry for fairly obvious reasons) went back to Mollie's house for an early lunch of leftover spaghetti and garlic bread. Yum!
During the actual lunchtime, we got dressed in our warmest gear to go out sledding at Five Mile (sliding=sledding, and Five Mile is actually five miles up from the mouth of the river, so combined with crossing the lagoon to get there, it's more like Ten Mile). I rode in a sled with Helen and Janelle and we screamed and laughed the whole way there. Miss Morell's and Angie's sled sunk into slush and they had to get carried out. The stretch of slush was right in front of the hills to sled on, so we weren't able to go sledding and we had to turn around and go back.
Mollie made us hamburgers for dinner. Mollie left to watch the basketball game and Tia and I fell asleep. When we woke up, we went to the Snack Shack for some soft serve ice cream. We just got to the school a little bit ago and as we walked through the gym, we saw Frieda playing in her team's basketball game on her very hurt ankle!
Right now, we're in Angie's husband's (Steve) classroom for a Wii night. People are playing Guitar Hero and Dance Dance Revolution right now. I'm really pumped for the Craisins.
It's sad to think that we only have one more day in Shishmaref. It's gone by very quickly. Everyone here is so friendly--when we walk through the halls of the school all the little kids say hi to us by name. A few minutes ago, a little girl named Willa snuck up on us and grabbed out backs. I met her a few days ago when learning about Native Youth Olympics. I'll miss Shishmaref when we leave.
04/15/2010
Today Tia and I didn't feel like going to the school for breakfast, so I had Froot Loops! It was pretty exciting. There aren't regular classes for the rest of the week because of Inupiaq Days, so we spent the first half of the day in the bilingual classroom carving fishhooks (hand-held fishing rods). Maegan and I went out in the hall to interview Stan Tocktoo about Shishmaref falling into the ocean and relocation plans. We also went across the hall for a while to watch people cut up a seal carcass with ulus.
For lunch, I went home with Helen. Her mom, Mary, cooked us grilled cheese sandwiches and we dipped them in tomato soup. She showed me her baby album and her mom told us some stories about her family. Their house was very full of people because she had family in from Brevig Mission and Nome. All the little toddlers and babies were so cute!
We spent the second half of the school day sewing kuspuks. Afterwards, we went to watch one of the basketball games because Tia's and my host sister, Frieda, was playing. Unfortunately, she fell on her ankle and had to go to the clinic. Now she's on crutches. When we went home, we had leftover spaghetti for dinner. Yum!
At 7:25, Helen came and picked Tia and me up on Sno-Gos to take us to the school to finish our kuspuks. Right now, I'm blogging because SOMEONE is hogging the sewing machine and even though I have like two minutes left I've been waiting for it back for two hours and they even unwound the bobbin that I had spent fifteen minutes winding by hand. Serious. (Miss Morell said I have to add something here so the RURE people know I'm not actually angry, that I was laughing when I wrote this.)
04/14/2010
This morning, Mollie came in to wake Tia and I up. The last thing I remember was thinking that I should probably turn the light on before I fell asleep again. 45 minutes later, Frieda came in to wake us up. We had 15 minutes to get to school and we missed breakfast. We got to Angie's class on time, and she had snacks, so everything turned out just fine.
We spent the first two class periods in Angie's room. Esther came in to help us cut out our kuspuks using a pattern. Then, we ironed all the pieces and pinned some of the edges to make nice hems. My fabric is green with dragonflies and it will have a mustard yellow ricrac trim.
Afterwards, we went to to Nayokpuk Store to interview Percy, the owner. Everything there was so expensive! Percy gave a really interesting interview about how having a store and a school changed the subsistence lifestyle some. He also talked about the dangers of living on a barrier island and global warming. Unfortunately, the battery on the video camera died near the end of the interview and the video didn't save.
After lunch, we went to bilingual class for the rest of the day. We could either carve caribou antlers or sew. I chose to carve a small forked piece of some antleres to look like a tree. I carved a curlicue vine pattern along the front of the antlers with leaves on the tips. I tried to carve a base, but it just tipped over so John Sinnock (the guy in charge of the bilingual class) carved a small mastodon peg to make it stand up. I also carved a small heart out of another piece of antler, but it didn't turn out very nice since I got a little to aggressive with the small Dremel bit.
04/13/2010
I got a lot of sleep last night, but I was still really tired all day. We went to breakfast at Clifford's. He made us sourdough pancakes from batter that was started 92 years ago. He also went through a dozen eggs and three pounds of bacon. When I asked for someone to pass the pitcher of orange juice, it turned out it was Tang, which was funny.
After breakfast, we went across the street to the Shishmaref School. School doesn't start until 10:30 on Mondays. First hour was Angie's student government class. We made a plan for our areas of focus: arts/culture, language/communication, subsistence/food, and relocation. Next, we had English class, where we cut fleece to make little pillows for the upcoming festival. In science, we learned about sound and loudness.
At the beginning of lunch, Tia and I were really confused about what to do because we didn't have money for anything. It turns out that the school lunches here are free! We has tuna fish sandwiches, soup, and canned peaches. Afterwards, there was a little parade around the gym. There was a guy dressed in one of the girls' cheerleader uniforms (skirt, top, and pompoms).
Because of the overflow from the lagoon, it wasn't safe to make the big trip out to Serpentine Hot Springs. Instead, we went ice fishing out on the lagoon. We rode out in wooden sleds behind the snow machines. Once there, I helped chip one of the ice holes. Once we had chipped two all the way down to the water, two of the guys took out the gas-powered auger and made two more in just a few minutes. Henry caught three fish and Maegan caught one. No one else caught any, but we still had fun. Renee and ran out farther away and took pictures kneeling with our hands out in front of us to make it look like we were holding everyone in the palm of our hand. We also played a game called munna munna muh, which was kind of like capture the flag. I ended up spending quite a bit of time in jail. It was really hard to run over the snow because everything was white so you couldn't really see any changes in its level like lumps or ridges. It would also squish down abruptly under us, making me fall a few times.
Back at Mollie's house, I worked on my English homework for a while and Tia and I talked with Mollie. For dinner, she made us chicken, Ricearoni, corn, and stuffing. Then we watched part of an episode of House on her GIANT television (she also has hundreds and hundreds of DVDs).
Right now, we're sitting in Angie's room blogging on the class set of cute little mini laptops. We're going to start making our kuspuks afterwards. Later this evening, Tia and I will shower at the school. Super excited.
04/12/2010
Today I woke up super early in the morning with barely any sleep. My parents drove me to the airport for the flight to Kotzebue. From there, we flew to Nome and then on to Shishmaref. We were starving in the Nome airport because the cafe there is closed on Sundays. I am staying with Tia at Mollie's house. She has a daughter our age named Frieda. They are both really, really nice. Frieda, Kelly, and Gussie took Tia and me around on a snow machine tour of Shishmaref. We sat in a wooden sled hooked onto the back of the snow machine. After hanging out and napping for a while, we went over to Angie's house to do a photo scavenger hunt. I was partners with Helen. She took me to her house to meet her family and then we rode around Shishmaref meeting other people and taking pictures of them and their possessions to fulfill items on our scavenger hunt checklist. I learned that amuking is carrying a baby around on your back. We just finished a potluck with some Shishmaref families. I tried some new foods and they were all good.