Conversation with Molly

             Recently all of the English 12 classes had a Skype discussion with Molly, a Marshall alum, about her blog Confessions of a First-Time Mom, college, The Lovely Bones, and everyday life. Molly's blog is about her raising her son Liam, and balancing being Liam's mom and being her own person. One of Molly's recent posts was published on CNN and we got a chance to ask her about that.

Picture Thanks to Ms. Kosmatka 

           Before we started talking to Molly some people in the class were nervous. Nervous to talk to her, nervous that there might be technical difficulties, and nervous about possibly getting a bad grade. I thought of it as just talking to another person, and the worst thing that could happen is I get a bad grade (compared with some of our fishbowl discussions it couldn't be much worse).
           Once we actually started talking to Molly things got much better. The first group went a little slow and looked a little nervous, but Molly was such an easy person to talk to that after that it seamed like the question and answer turned into a genuine conversation. She told us her thoughts about the book, her experiences at Marshall, and her fight to be her own individual instead of just Liam's mom. Molly told us how she doesn't want to be the mom that cleans up all of Liam's messes, she said that he will need to learn to pick them up himself.  "People grow up by living" and that is just what Molly is going to let Liam do (19).   Her stories about Liam and her time with Dr. Nygaard were very amusing and made the class period fly by. Before the class we were fighting to come up with questions to ask her, but as the conversation her her flew by you were fighting to ask your best questions in the 10-15 minutes you had.

Ping Pong

Later in the day after our "Failed Trip", we had a ping pong tournament. My dad started the fire in our garage as soon as we got back from ice fishing. My dad and i spent almost the rest of the day and night in the garage; we finished cleaning the garage and kept the fire going. While my dad and i were in the garage my mom and sister were in the house making supper. They made taco meat with chicken and re-fried beans for tacos and made Swedish meatballs and cheesy chicken wings. Many people came, including Pierce and his parents, and the whole day and night was spent talking and playing ping pong until one in the morning.

Basketball

           Now that basketball is over I had a free weekend for the first time since early November. Slowly i have been getting more and more tired and sore. Going into the weekend I told myself I was going to do something productive and fun that i wasn't able to do during basketball, something like ice fishing or walking around our property in waist high snow with my dog. What actually happened was much different I woke up at 11 am when the night before I fell asleep at 10 pm. That set the tone for the weekend because that night the same thing happened, I fell asleep at 10 pm and woke up around 11:30 the next morning. That is 26 hours of sleep in two nights. It turned out all I did over the weekend was sleep, eat, and watch television. Even tough I didn't actually accomplish anything it felt good. I had no commitments, and could do whatever i wanted. Yes, I miss basketball the after school practices and of course the games, but one thing I will never miss are those Saturday morning practices that make you wake up early and put a kink in your whole day. The sleep and rest felt really good, my body and mind needed it. Now on Monday i am not groggy and sleepy like most Monday mornings during basketball season, but instead i'm awake and attentive.

Failed Trip

            My mom wanted everyone out of the house so that she could cook for the party we were having later that day. My dad, sister and I decided we would go fishing to get out of the house. When we woke up everyone got dressed to go fishing in the cold weather. What my dad and I didn't know was that my sister only wore crocks and two pairs socks under my dads slip on boots. Then me and my dad loaded the ice house in our truck and we went to the bait shop.
        At the bait shop we got two dozen minnows and wax worms, some of the cheapest minnows we bought from anywhere. Grand Lake is only eight minutes from our house and we got there in no time. We were planning on walking 300 yards to get to where we wanted to fish. The second we got on the lake we knew it would be a challenge. The snow was up to my knees and for my sister and dad it was almost impossible to walk through.
         Half way to our spot we finally noticed my sisters boots; there was snow in them and her feet were frozen. My dad told her to walk back to the truck and warm up while me and him drag the sled back. It ended up just being me dragging the sled back as he was having trouble just walking in the snow. When i got back to the truck i was exhausted, it was probably the biggest workout i had all year so far. Things didn't happen as we planned but my sister was fine this wasn't our first failed fishing trip and unfortunately wont be our last.

Pokegama

           My mom said that this year she wants to enjoy winter instead of waiting for it to pass. She said she wanted to go snowshoeing and skiing. Another thing she wants to do is go ice fishing. My mom loves to fish during the summer but she has not gone ice fishing since she was a kid. She is never on the ice for very long; once she hears the ice crack she usually gets off quickly. On the warmest weekend of the winter so far, my mom decided she wanted to try ice fishing. My dad and I loaded a sled filled with ice fishing gear in our truck and my mom and dad left to go fishing. My sister her friend and her friends dad met them on the ice. I left later in my own vehicle because I had basketball game that day and would have to leave early. When I got out there all of the holes were drilled through the ice and my dad was working on setting up the ice house. I got rods ready for my mom, sister, and her friend and they got to fishing right away. Very few fish were caught but everyone had fun throwing a football and enjoying a unusually warm winter day.

Lake of the Woods

My dad, uncle, grandfather, a family friend and me recently spent three days near Baudette Minnesota at Lake of the Woods. The first day we took two vehicles up to our cabin we were staying at. We left at four and finally found the cabin at nine. When we got there it was much more than we expected. When we walked in it felt like it was someone's house, a full kitchen, living room, bathroom and five beds. When we got up the next day we got to our ice house at about eight. The first fish of the trip was a Tullibee. On the first day we caught around 100 fish between the five of us, most were Walleyes or Saugers. My uncle and I caught 5 Tullibee and I caught a 12 inch perch. The first day we caught six fish over 23 inches my dad caught the biggest walleye of the trip at 29 inches. The last fish of the day I caught on a bobber I left in the whole as we were picking up all our stuff getting ready to leave for the day. It was a 25 inch walleye my biggest walleye of the trip.


My dad's 29 inch walleye

My 25 inch walleye



 We got off the ice an hour after sunset and drove back to the cabin. We kept 20 fish the first day and once we got back to the cabin we cleaned and cooked the fish, after we were finished eating we still had extra fish we ate the next day. In the morning of our last day we got to our ice house 30 minutes before sunrise. The first fish of that day was an Eel pout the only one we caught all trip. The last day of fishing was slower than the first but we caught 10 fish over 20 inches, including a 33 inch northern that tangled up every line in the ice house. We had to cut all of our lines to untangle them and after all that we had to release it because it was in a protected slot. It took us about ten minutes to get all the rods how they were before the northern. We left the ice house at four and came back to our cabin to grab our gear; we left our cabin at five and got back to Duluth at 11:30. 

What I learned from the Sherman Alexia project

             Sherman Alexei is a poet, writer and performer. He is the author of the book we are reading in class, Flight. I was in a group with Jack Baker, Jake Serrie, Dan Kulas, Stefan Granados, and Hanvit. Sherman was born 1966 on the Spokane Indian reservation. He attended school outside the reservation where he was the only Indian. He currently live in Seattle with his wife and two sons. Our group also learned about the Ghost Dance and the Sand Creek Massacre.
              A Ghost Dance is an important ritual in the messianic religion that many native American groups used to summon spirits to help them with cultural revival. Two other ways to describe it is , as a plea for supernatural intervention in their lives by people whose culture has been destroyed, or as an effort by a minority to regain power and dignity that will give them a sense of meaning and stability to their lives. Jack Wilson or Wovoka was the prophet that had a vision from god. In That vision god told him the earth would die and come back alive; all the white people would die; and all Native Americans dead or alive would be reunited free of death, diseases, and suffering. For the prophecy to come true Native Americans would have to follow Wovoka's Doctrine of pacifism and take part in the sacred dance Wovoka taught them. Wovoka went from a prophet to the messiah and the religion he created spread to multiple other tribes. Wovoka's prophecy never happened and tribes that followed his religion were forced onto reservations.


Sources
Alexie, Sherman. "Fiction and Poetry Award Winner: The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian." Horn Book   Magazine [Plain City] Jan. 2009:      25-28.
Print.
McLoughlin, William G. "Ghost Dance Movements: Some Thoughts on Definition Based on Cherokee History."   Ethnohistory 37.1: 25. Print.