Claire's Evaluation

Hello all. Tomorrow is Claire's evaluation. She has been preparing for quite sometime and is ready for it. We have prayed daily for it and she is confident. All will be well.

This week Scott Haines and his wife came to the school to test the students on basic movement skills. He is the Team Ontario coach for the North American Indigenious Group (NAIG) Games. They brought with them a variety of track and field indoor equipment for the students to try. As well, on Monday and Tuesday night he ran a certified coaching clinic for those interested. I was too tired to make it on Monday, but caught up with the workbook and went last night. I have completed the introductory course for Coaches of Canada. I really liked the guy and enjoyed talking with him. I am sure we will meet again at future seminars.

This is one thing that I have valued working and living up here is the many people that come through Deer Lake. It seems that on a weekly basis someone comes to the school. They all bring stories with them and sometimes advice for us Northern rookies.

Last night, Amanda's house was egged. It turned out to be three of her best students and all girls. They had dared each other to do it. Actually surprised it took this long for something like this to happen. We have heard stories about other reserves and in some the teacherages are behind fences in a compound. Further proof that we lucked out in Deer Lake.

Tomorrow the students are will be going to the Nursing station for a career fair. We will try to take some pictures (we apologize that we haven't posted any lately) of the students. I asked the students in both classes if anyone knew what they wanted to do with their life. Only 1 girl in grade 8 had a career goal. She wanted to become a writer. No one else knew. 1 girl joked in grade 9 that her goal was to work at the Northern. All joking aside, for some of them, a simple job like that will be more than some of them will ever have.

Realized too today that students haven't experienced some basic things many of use have taken for granted. I don't remember if we have written about this before but most of our students have never been in an elevator. In fact, the idea of a staircase is foreign to some of them. The Northern store has five or six to get in, but stairs inside a house is a sign for them of the rich.

We have been blessed with a warm spell the last couple of days. We had a high of plus 2 on Tuesday and 0 today. It apparently won't last, but the forecast calls for lows of -18, -19, and -20 for the next 14 days. All this warmth isn't good news for the winter road though. The transport trucks really have come yet with all the fuel and big shipments for the school. The road still isn't thick enough for the big trucks.