Thursday November 13th

Today we got the kids to write their letters to Santa, i.e. Me. They get to choose a gift from one of the catalogues that is of 50 dollar value, which one of the 11 year old girls, the only academically inclined one, Alisha, called "cheap." They also complained that they had to write the letter because last year they did the entire thing online.  and then i vomited a little bit......

Apparently it takes the letters too long to go all the way to the Canada Post volunteers and back so we will just write the replies. I made the judging ballots for my karaoke nights, they are very cute, big coloured elementary looking numbers. Unfortunately it had to be cancelled this week because everyone was leaving for hay river Friday after school. including I. Even more unfortunate that no one told me, luckily I asked who was coming. The rec director will soon loose her job to a relative of a band member. She married into the reserve and is therefore considered a outsider no matter her involvement with the community and its children. Her daughter is in my school and is often mace to feel like an outsider by the other kids. She has stared hyphenating her name to have her mothers german name and her father's Slavey name on the end to up her status. Terry tells me that there is a scapegoat family in each community consisting of people that either married in or are of family lines that clash with the founding families of the community. The rec directors family is such and she will be kicked out at the bands convenience. The girl replacing her is the casual teaching assistant at the school who will soon be replaced by a permanent person and loose her job. It is especially unfortunate because she took the rec job as a favour to everyone because no one would or could fill the role. Blood lines are so binding.