Santa - Functionally Fat

Hey Everyone,

Walking to school in the mornings with 50km winds whipping at my face made me realize that Santa is rotund and rosy for a reason. Insulation.

Man it can get cold fast, but what keeps me warm throughout those frigid walks is the thought that a month from now I'll be warming my feet back home and working on increasing my own insulation via cookies. It's been eight months since I've been home, and let me tell you, I'm ready to come back. Although, there is the whole shopping thing to think about. Having to go to the mall, dealing with huge crazy lines, insane holiday traffic... oh wait. Wait. I don't have to deal with ANY of that this year. The downside is that my selection of gifts might be limited. I guess I can always pack up some of that arctic char or caribou that's still in the freezer. Of course, the people on the plane might not appreciate the smell when it thaws. Maybe I'll just stick with online shopping.

In any case, I'm about as excited as I've ever been at the thought of heading home for Christmas, and to answer the question before it gets asked, I want clothes. Lots of shiny new clothes (Metro shiny please).

Anyways, I have to head off to bed here, but I promise that the next post will come a lot quicker than this one did. And Bernie, if you ever take a second out of your rock-star schedule to read this, call me and tell me what you want for Christmas cause I have no clue where to even begin.

Later,

Markus

A Small Community

This week was supposed to be a crazy one for me because it is the dreaded report card week. Even more dreaded because it is my first attempt at writing report cards. However, it has turned out to be rather quiet. I am still working away on my report cards which, in this school board, are all done by hand but I only have 13 to do so really I cannot complain.

The reason this school week hasn’t been crazy is because an elder passed away in the community. Everyone is affected when someone dies in a community of 1200. Especially since family sizes are large here it feels like everyone is connected to the person in some way. As a result, the school is closed for the morning and will likely be closed again on the day of the funeral.

On a brighter note, Markus and I have gotten confirmation of our flight back home. Weather permitting we should be arriving in Toronto on the 22nd of December! Wahooo! Watch out Ontario I've got some shopping to do! I never thought I would be the one to say this but.... I miss shopping! That will probably last all of five minutes when I meet the crowds in the mall but I really can't wait to be able to pick out my own groceries.

How About Pictures AND 1000 Words

We’ve been looking for our camera cable for over a week now and finally found it. That means you’re all in for a picture extravaganza.

Colleen and I have really started to settle into the life and community up here thanks mostly to a particular group of people we’ve been hanging around with on a regular basis. I figure Halloween is as good a time as any to introduce some of these new faces. Most of the pics are from a fantastic Halloween party we went to last weekend where the costumes were imaginative, the food was plentiful and the games were hilarious.


This is Vicky who had an amazing costume. She lives just one house over from us and makes us jealous with her brand new StarChoice satellite dish.



Amilie made most of this costume from scratch. She’s also one of the bravest teachers in the school since she teaches the French secondary 2/3 class which, from a behavioral standpoint, is probably the most challenging in the school.


This is Colleen who you all know and love posing for an 80s glamour shot.


This is our friend Dorcas who also lives right next to us and teaches special ed. As you can see, she’s dressed up as Dorothy while I was clearly dressed up as Wolverine, although without the claws, everyone thought I was dressed up as John Travolta. Guess I didn't see that one...


This is Ben (Dorcas’ fiancé) enjoying his beverage NTV style. That’s Newfoundland TV. Ben teaches grade 3 English and somehow miraculously remembers the names of every single kid in the school.


This is Stephanie, who is either cheating or being ingeniously creative in the oh so popular wiener & bottle game. Steph is a gym teacher at the school and decided to take the easy way out by wearing her fiancé, Patrick’s, police uniform for Halloween.


Here's Colleen playing another fun party game where you have to knock one orange over a line with another orange wrapped in pantyhose and tied around your waist. Peeking out from the kitchen is Khan who knows just about everybody in Inukjuak and plans pretty much every school event that exists up here.


Last but not least, here's the insane amount of candy that we had to give out to kids. The scary thing is that it was almost all gone by the end of the night. Did we mention that Halloween is a big deal here?

I guess that about does it for the Halloween pictures that are suitable for posting. The show’s not over yet, though, because we had two more exciting events this past week. The first was our inaugural bingo game. Bingo is absolutely HUGE in this town since there’s not much else to do. They call the numbers out over the radio, and even though there’s only 1000 people in the town, the top prizes are still really great. This week a skidoo was up for grabs, so we decided to give the bingo thing a go. The only problem is that everything is in Inuktitut, so we needed a translator. Luckily, we had Nancy Mina come to our aid and we ended up having a lot of fun, even if we didn’t win.


The second big event was our first northern fondue party. We had a great spread of meats and sauces which included caribou, moose and the more exotic beef and chicken. Here’s a great picture of the group we’ve been hanging out with on a regular basis (except for Sasha who’s taking the picture).


From Left to Right we have: Brandon, Colleen, Me, Ben, Patrick, Stephanie and Dorcas.

Lastly, I want to use the blog as a therapeutic medium through which to talk out a very traumatic event. You see, after the fondue everyone ganged up on me and insisted that I get my mop cut. As there are no barbers in town, they decided to take matters into their own hands by unceremoniously bending me over the sink and treating me like a sheep. I’ll let you decide whether it was a good idea. Here’s a before and after shot.





Let me know what you think.

Markus