Home So Soon!!!!!!

First off, I know it's been ages since I've posted.  I think I say this every time, so you all must be accustomed to it by now.  No whining :P

Second...I come home in 16 days!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!  Can you tell I'm excited?  If not, hey, you, reader..I'm excited!  I debated adding a few more exclamation points, but I didn't want to go overboard :)  My longing for home has been months in the making, and it's finally only days in the coming.  And just in the nick of time too...we've experienced a weather drop in the past week.  I know you Californians have been shivering in your 50F weather...and some mornings were 36ish!  Holy cow!  My mornings average around -30F.  Did you notice that negative sign out front there?  Yeah...66 degrees below your above freezing temperatures.  I can feel each and every single degree of difference :P  I thought -5F was bad...but wow the difference feels exponential for each degree colder.  Which, seeing as temperature is not a value that is considered in normal terms of doubling and such, it very well may be an exponential difference.  The "nights" get even colder, dropping to the -40s or more.  I say "night" because it goes from 3:30pm to 10am...the sun has become something I vaguely recall and rarely see anymore as I'm always in class when it's out.  I've been extra grumpy lately, and a friend pointed out that its most likely due to lack of solar exposure.  She told me I'd better get a "Happy Light" for everyone's sake (a happy light is a UV light that is supposed to keep the evils of grumpiness at bay).  I am skeptical of it's claimed powers...

Anywho, grumpiness doesn't stick around too long since I have so much happy for coming home :D

My life, as always has been the case for the last semester, is centered around school.  Grades are still rockin in every class.  Most of my papers are done, and I've only one large assignment left for the year (10 page research paper on environmental issues for English).  Everything else that was big was all due in the beginning of this week, so my brain now has permission to turn off for the next few days.  It's ever so happy to have that allowance.

The Thanksgiving holiday turned out to be super awesome fantastic, and not the lonely pathetic experience it could have been.  Classes got cancelled for the entire week due to a wickedly nasty ice storm that blew through town.  We had a warm/moist air flow come up to Alaska, super unusual for late November, that brought temperatures up from sub-zero to hover just above freezing.  So instead of snow, we got ice-rain.  This led to super slick roads.  The rain came down in liquidish form, but as soon as it touched the ground, it froze.  This made the snow less snow-y and more slush-y.  And the roads had an inch to two inch thick layer of ice form over them, which made driving impossible.  It's the first time classes have ever been closed for three days in a row in Fairbanks, especially in November.  It just doesn't get icy slushy here.  It was lovely to have a whole week of nothing (mostly).  I was invited to a party put on by a fellow student, Margaret.  She and her fellow roomies (she lives in an apartment on campus, I am filled with envy) decided to make their own dinner instead of going to their various homes for the holiday, and invited me to be part of the experience.  I was in charge of stuffing and a dessert.  We spent all day Wednesday cooking together, and our food turned out so incredibly delicious.  We were so proud we took pictures (and no, I won't post them, thats silly :P)  I had a most wonderful time.

My bird from several weeks ago (Coopers Hawk) turned out AMAZING once I was done with her.  Every little feather was washed and dried and fluffed/placed just so.  Super awesome experience, I just wish I had more time on my hands to be able to volunteer to continue have fun with the birdies.  Mayhaps next semester.  I had fun also with my thrum knitting mitten experience.  When its turned inside out it looks kinda like a catctus, kinda like a noddly monster thats gonna eat you.  Still not finished with them (again that whole time thing...silly school absorbing my whole life! *shakes fist at it*).

Classes have now officially ceased to do anything cool as of Tuesday this past week.  All is winding down towards finals, and all the profs are hurriedly trying to cover all that was missed from the cancelled classes.  Tuesday was my last ecology lab, and it was an easy fun one.  We went to a permafrost tunnel that chillaxes just outside of town.  It was originally dug in the 1960s (I think) by the Army Corps of Engineers to test out the best methods for digging through frosty bits of ground.  And then, they just kinda left it.  Because of the loose type of dirt in there, it does no good as a bunker (their original thought) as its super weak.  Thus we all wore hardhats.  Since the tunnel has just been left alone, it's amazing to walk through.  No archaeological or palentological work has been done, so theres all sorts of random plant and animal remains just chillin.  Literally chillin' as the tunnel is maintained throughout the year to stay at 30F for optimum preservation of said organic remains as well as the ice sheets/anvils.  This meant that it was 50 degrees warmer inside the tunnel than it was outside.  And it still felt coldie.  Brr, I say, BRRRRR.  Despite the cold, I had a fantabulous time crawling around, getting filthy, and touching actual mammoth bones.  So.  Freakin.  Awesome.  The next coolest part was that the preservation was so comeplete in some parts of the tunnel that there were plant remains of sedges around 40,000 years old that were still kinda green.  It was amazing to behold!  Below are some pictures, that I admit are kinda bleh, as the lighting in there was complicated for my amateur photography skills.

And Th-th-th-th-th-that's all folks!

Not much happening

Sorry it's been so long!  Life has settled into a fairly uneventful routine of eating, sleeping, and schooling.  Winter is well on it's way into Fairbanks, which to some extent has curbed any outdoor activities.

I pity you poor Californians with your crazy 90 degree weather.  The past week has seen a high of about 30, and lows in the single digits.  We are expecting below zero temperatures in the next few weeks.  I've been told this is one of the warmest years yet :)  It just makes me laugh.  We've also had snow, and plenty of it to go with this cold weather.  Big surprise for Alaska, I know ;)  I both thank and curse the heavens for a lack of a vehicle while I'm out here.  While it curbs the availability for activities, there is no way I would be able to handle the roads out here.  It's insane.  They don't clear the roads....people just drive over the snow guessing where the lines are.  Everyday a guy in a gravel truck makes a horrid noise of crunching gravel...said gravel spewing out of the back of the truck as he goes along to cover the roads and give the semblance of traction.  The buses in town are absolutely terrifying.  I have learned which drivers to go with, and which to avoid at all costs.  And have I mentioned the crazies on the bus?  I thought it was bad at home....but it's way worse out here.  There is no law against being drunk in public in Alaska, just drinking in public.  So there are people who do nothing all day but sit about bus stations drunk as drunk can be.  They terrify me more than the bus drivers.  Every single one of them is a native of Alaska complaining about how I (because they always direct their conversation at me...it's like I've got a big sign on my forehead saying "I'll be polite, come take advantage!") as a white person have completely ruined their lives, and don't I feel horrible for forcing them to drink all day?  It doesn't matter if I've got my nose buried in a book or talking on the phone, I am always singled out while I wait for the bus.  I politely listen, terrified to be rude because I have no idea what they'll be driven to do in that state, smile and nod my head.

My favorite bus crazy is not a native Alaskan though, and not drunk.  But totally insane.  He has a habit of riding the bus all day long, pretending to talk on a phone that is never turned on, or through a  headset not connected.  his conversations revolve around the oddest topics.  I usually become totally fascinated by what he says...last time he was talking about Vikings, atomic moon dust, and kryptonite.  He also never pauses for his "listener" to chime in.  I am always careful to not look like I am actively listening for fear that he'll think I want to join the conversation.  I really have yet to meet any normal people, minus college students, who ride the bus.

I've recently expanded my crafting hobby to include knitting.  I was in downtown and passed by this tiny little yarn shop called Inner Knit.  It carries luxurious yarns and offers classes, so I spur of the moment decided to pick up a knitting class, which has lead to a pair of truly ugly socks :)  Of course I don't picking something simple for my first project, oh no, I go for something that involves five needles and tiny yarn.  The gal who owns and runs the shop is totally amazing, and made a complicated task easy enough for me to handle.  She was super patient and her explanations made perfect sense.  I put some pictures up on my facebook of that particular adventure if you'd like to see it.  I already have plans buzzing about my head for future projects.  So much more can be done in the world of knitting as opposed to the crochet I used to do.  I'm excited, and have only held back from doing anything more because I have turned into a yarn snob, and don't want to use the cheap stuff anymore.  But natural fibers are not in a poor students budget, so all my plans must needs be put on a back burner for now, which is fine as it will give time for my creative genius to develop ;)

Classes for the most part got super busy with midterms coming and passing, and woohoo, I've A's all around.  Yay for me.  It's amazing what no distraction from friends and family does to one's grades.  I've no excuse for failing.  I do so miss having those distractions though.  I do what I can to keep the missing a bay.  Artur and I play Diablo II, which is awesome, so if you have it and want to play with us, I am so game!  I love phone calls too!  I finally have my phone back and running properly, thanks to my Artur-love.  He was super awesome fantastic in getting it fixed for me and yelling at the silly Verizon people.  Packages/letters from home have been super duper as well, and always warm my heart.

Exciting labs and  field-trips for my classes slowed for midterm, but are back on track.  I had a ecology lab this week that involved looking for animal tracks in the snow  in our forests behind campus and identifying them, looking for critters lying dormant in the leaf litter (so many bugs below the snow I was amazed!) and observing chickadee behavior.  My expedition to the Chena River was so amazingly fun a few weeks back.  I was so pro with my uber duck handling skills.  Unfortunately no pictures, as having hands full of mallards makes picture taking an impossible experience.  Just yesterday I had more fun with birds.  For my wildlife class we got the chance to do study skin preparations for the museum on campus.  As I waited til the end to do so, I got a really great bird.  They ran out of the ones that didn't matter with the prior groups :)  Basically, the museum is part of a group that prepares bird skins for distribution across the state for educational purposes within schools.  The ornithology lab is run by a fantastic set of people, Kevin (the uber genius bird specialist) and his two grad students Jack and Kyle (who were mega helpful and patient with us throughout the process).

 Now, if you get grossed out by dead things and what we do to 'em, I suggest you skip the rest of this paragraph now.  The bird lab has a giant freezer where they keep the collection of birds, gathered from around this state and many others.  The birds died from a variety of natural causes, as well as from human intervention.  Freeway accidents involving windshields and such.  No preservative methods are used on the birds other than the freezing.  The lab took 'em out the night before to thaw for us, and away we went with our scalpels.  I bless my zo lab at GWC that got me acquainted with this particular sharp and pointy object, as my hands are usually less than graceful and I didn't exactly feel like getting sliced fingers.  In short, what we had to do was skin the birds by making a single incision along their keel and down to the cloaca, and turn 'em inside out.  I got a Cooper's hawk from South Carolina, which was way cool.  She was super impressive in size (way bigger than the males, which I gather is normal as they are sexually dimorphic species) and her plumage was a gorgeous mix of cream, browns, and gold.  Due to her size, my three hour project turned into a five hour one.  The removal of the skin is a super delicate process, as you want to avoid ripping, but almost the entire skeleton had to be removed as we also wanted a partial skeleton preserved for educational purposes.  The hardest part was the legs, wings, and head.  Hawks have super long legs, and the skin had to be removed kinda like how you take off your pants, but in order to do so the joints had to be disarticulated without breaking anything.  One leg was removed entirely for the skeleton, keeping all the skin and feathers associated with it, while the other was left with all the meaty bits removed.  The wings were even harder, as the shoulder joints had to be disarticulated as well, and skin removal was made even more difficult as the flight feathers are attached to the bone, so they had to be broken off without making them unhinge from the skin.  The skin was removed down to the wrist joint, all the meat removed, the bones of one wing taken for the skeleton, and then the wings tied together in the inside by sewing 'em through the wrist joints.  The head was probably the ickiest part.  By this point the entire bird is inside out and you have the carcass on one side and the skin on the other, only attached at the head.  The skin is super delicate here, tears easily, and hawks make it even harder to remove the skin as they have a bony brow protrusion that makes their head super wide.  I managed to get the skin off without tearing, popped the eyeballs and cut off the beak to keep with the skin.  And tada!  The skin was all removed, and just needed to be turned right side out.  I think the hardest part of the whole process was keeping the feathers clean and clear of bodily fluids, which there was plenty of and we combated with cob dust (amazing stuff) and most importantly unruffled.  I did a super awesome job :)  I took way longer than the other people in my group, but hey, I was meticulous, the bird was huge and it looks good.    After the skin was done, it was put back in the freezer for the stuffing and mounting of it next week, and I moved on to the carcass.  Tissue samples had to be taken from the heart, liver, kidneys, and muscle tissue, the bird had to be sexed, and then cleaned out as best as possible and meat removed.  I learned how to adeptly fillet a breast, which was cool and way easier than I had imagined.  The carcasses were bundled up, labeled, and put on the "jerky tray" to await a really cool process for bone cleaning.  They take them down to lower campus to a beetle lab, let a particular beetle go to town, and presto chango you've got super clean bones without putting any work into it.  Very efficient!

 Since I took forever doing my bird and was the last to go, I got a tour of the museum lab, saw a complete set of baleen from a whale they have sitting outside (random and way cool) and even cooler I got to see one of the grad students pet project, a robo-grouse :D  Kyle had apparently shot a grouse, damaged many of the body parts beyond repair, so replaced it with robotic bits n pieces.  It had a red glowing eye, lower body and one wing/arm of metal, and it could move!  Very reminiscent of Robot Chicken.  I was super impressed!

And....that's been my excitement for the week.  I go back next week to finish the bird, and I'll be sure to take some pictures (it won't be gruesome).  I got offered a volunteer position with the bird lab to do more of the same, as they have lots of birds and not enough people to prepare them.  As I got along with the staff really well, I figure I'll give it a go, and working for a museum laboratory will look awesome on a resume to boot.

My adventures for the next few weeks involve learning to knit thrum mittens (super warm and perfect for the temps out here with its double layers), finishing my bird, and an unfortunate amount of essay research and writing.

And by the way....44 days til I come home :)  I've been keeping a countdown..and while 44 seems like a lot, its way better than the over 100 I started with :D

Yay for Moving!

Finally I have gotten out of a horrid living situation, into a wonderfully pleasant one.

My old roommate lost what was left of her marbles last week, made herself look mentally instable to the right people, and I got to move out of there ASAP.  Her mental instability all centered around a small fan.  To make what could be a long story of she-said-I-said short, I turned off her fan any time she left the room for hours at a time, as I didn't want it on and there was no point in wasting the electricity.  She went bonkers over me touching her stuff.  And then went into a rant about how horrible I've been (and here I was actually trying to be nice and not telling her all the horrible things I wanted to).  She screamed at me, cried hysterically, and demanded an "intervention meeting".  I was like, oh yeah, bring it.  The right people were brought in, she looked totally insane and childish, and they were like "lets get you moved out Now".  Hooray for me.  I didn't lose my temper once, and was acting like a super big adult ;)

It took a week full of glares meant to be threatening and a peaceful silence, both on her behalf, before they finally got me a new room.  Several new rooms in fact.  I got to meet all the girls and take my pick.  My choice: Valerie.  She's an English major, gaming bookworm just like myself, who also happens to have a twin sister that lives next door.  Match made in heaven!  Its only been a few days, but things are looking wonderful so far (as opposed to the instant hatred I had for the old roomie).

And that has been my drama for the week.  Nothing too exciting going on.....Except for the SNOW!  It has finally made its presence known in Fairbanks.  For a few days its been coming in fitful bursts that quickly disappear, but last night laid on a thick enough layer so its sticking around.  This morning upon leaving the dorm I was overcome by an intense desire to ruin the perfection of that fresh blanket of snow.  I contained the mad dash and squealing I wanted to do with a dignified tromp through it (I can't look like too much of an idiot).  But I was sure to leave as big of an impression in it as I could.  And I squealed on the inside :)

This next week will have more snow (surprise) and some activities outside for a few of my classes.  I've got a GPS lab for ecology where we get to tromp around campus on a hunt type survey thing tomorrow.  That evening I also get training for duck handling!  This weekend I will be helping with a duck banding survey on the Chena River, and I will become a certified duck handler.  I should be able to age, sex, and generally guess on the overall health of the duck by the end of the session.  Fun fun!

That's it for now, I love you all, enjoy the rest of your week.  Until next time!

Oodles of fun past week...

Hello all.

The past week has been a mixture of the good and the bad, luckily no ugly (unless you count my roommate....ooo...way mean, I'm sorry..kinda)

First, I went to the eye doctor on Wednesday.  I showed up early, and my doctor was running late....so my appointment was an hour later than scheduled.  That was way fun. Not.  Good thing he was super nice and knowledgeable, else I might have kicked him in the shins.  I haven't been feeling too terribly charitable the past week.  Anywho, eye exam went fine.  Turns out I have pingueculitis, a not uncommon condition of the eyes due to overexposure to UV light.  Its a bit unusual to see it in someone as young as myself, more common in people who have spend a considerable portion of their life in the sun, but its not totally unheard of.  I will have it forever, but it will usually only show as a yellow spot on the whites of my eyes.  I have three spots with this condition.  They tend to make your eyes easier to get irritated, and once that happens they will turn red and get imflamed and become an unsightly and slightly painful lump.  It becomes painful because the lump disrupts the tear/fluid film that usually covers your eyes every time you blink.  It basically breaks the surface tension, makes my eyes dry, and thus makes blinking ouchy.  The use of artificial tears and steroid eyedrops will make the swelling go down and hydrate the eyes back to normal, and tada! back to yellow spot.  As long as I take care of my eyes, wear my sunglasses everytime I go out, I should be fine and they shouldn't grow.  In some rare cases, the growth can become big enough to either interrupt blinking, or even cause vision problems.  At that point doctors recommend eye surgery, where they remove the lump and graft new eye tissue onto your eyes.  Some doctors actually use stitches, which I was amazed at.  Its constantly in your field of view, how annoying!  Other docs use a type of glue so there isn't that problem.  Luckily, I don't need this.  I really liked my doc and he was super patient with all my questions, and the receptionist even gave me a ride back to school as I was going to be late to class if I had to walk.  Alaskans tend to be uber nice people...all the crappy people here are out of towners like myself from the lower 48.  The eyedrops prescribed to me are working just fine and the swelling is gone, but they have a tendency to sting a bit and make my vision blurry for a bit since its a milky colored fluid.  It also makes the back of my throat tasty super gross (it drips from the back of my eyeballs through my sinuses and into my nasal passage from where it drips down the back of my throat.  It's so gross how all of that is connected!).

My other bit of bad for the week is that I broke my phone :(  Ultra saddening, I use that thing sooooo much, its my best connection to home.  I've dropped it a million times on hard surfaces...and here I drop it on carpet and it breaks the connection to the LCD (I think).  Basically the screen doesn't work, but it still responds to touch and the backlight comes on.  So I can accept calls and turn on my flashlight, but as I don't have a perfect mixture of tactile and photographic memory, I can't do anything else.  Verizon doesn't exist in Alaska, which is the Mega Ultra saddening part.....so there is no store to take it into to have it switched out with a new one.  Sigh.  I'm currently in the process of communicating with Verizon (idiots keep telling me to call them and I keep telling them they are idiots, I can't, duh, hence my problem) and thats just a whole bucket o fun.  Bleh.

On to better things.  We had what counts as a heat spell here for the past week.  Last week the weather reports all said to expect snow and rain and all kinds of annoying cold weather......and instead it raised up to almost 60 degrees all week!  Crazy Alaskans all broke out the flipflops and short shorts for the last hoorah of summer.  I opted for a change to a light jacket :)  I've acclimated, but not that well.  The rise in temperature didn't happen quite fast enough for my stream ecology lab to be warm.  We wore these super stylish waders and broke through the ice to get things done.

The scenery was beautiful, of course.  We drove to North Pole (the city that happens to be South of us), hiked down to a river, and did our stuff.  My group was in charge of measuring the flow rate of different sections of the 60' transect we measured out.  How to do this?  Rather fun actually.  With our waders on and good to go, we broke through the ice and tromped across the river with a measuring tape.  We staked out a 60' section of the river, measure the distance across it in three sections and marked those with string, and then......orange races!  We plopped an orange (which was starting to freeze through) and used a stopwatch to see how long it took to go from start to finish along the transect in three places equidistant across the river.  Simple and fun.  My feet started to get clumsy from the cold and I couldn't feel em for most of the time we were in the river, which makes for super awkward walking, and rather precarious too.  Being the graceful person I am (hah) I almost got a faceful of frigid water several times.  Oh man.  Other groups measured the oxygen content, temperature (which stayed around 0.5 degrees Celsius), pH, and identified the flora and fauna living in the river.  Mostly, it was bugs and leeches.  Gross.  We hiked back to the school vans, my feet getting clumsier by the second.  Upon taking off the waders, I discovered I got the ONLY leaky set for the whole class.  It was warmer under the water than out of it, which was why I didn't noticed it.  My pants were soaked from the knee down.  God Bless woolen underclothes and socks.  I was able to ditch the jeans and dry out in my longjohns on the car ride home.  This is as close as I ever want to get to joining the Polar Bear Club (Google it if you don't know, you'll be amused).  The rest of my week was pretty tame and dry, thankfully :)

Saturday was a mix of homework, phone breaking, and uber exciting visit from a owl handler and trip for my Wildlife 101 class.  We met in the evening for an owl survey, and got a surprise visit from Earl Gray, the Great Gray Owl.  He and his handler gave us an hour long lecture on owls and their habits/habitats and info on keeping an owl.  Owning an owl require a permit in the states (as opposed to the UK where you can actually keep 'em as pets...Harry Potter wasn't that far off with the whole owl thing!) and the handler had an education  permit that requires he to make 12 visits a year in presentations of different sorts.  This paricular handler does over 30, and Earl is a great specimen!  He is huge.  Probably a good two to two and a half feet tall, super fluffy, and only weighs 2 pounds.

Replica of his skull here...actual size!  He was all fluff.

After the presentation we hiked out to the back of campus and started our owl call-back survey.  Super simple, with results that are typical of animal tracking.  We played the call of four different owls (boreal, hawk owl, great gray, and great horned) and waited five minutes between to see if we'd get a response.  This was done at various locations in the 1000 acre wood.  Standing still for 20 minutes at a time got real cold, real quick.  As soon as that sun went down, it got frigid.  No owls responded, but since I got to see Earl, I didn't feel cheated out.

Today was fun as well.  The Wildlife Society (which I joined two weeks ago) had a hike scheduled today at Angel Rocks.  Originally we had a camping trip scheduled at Denali for this weekend, but it was cancelled since Denali closed it roads in expectation of the snow we never got.  It would have been great to go, but I would have missed out on Earl, and the hike was fun anyways.  It was a relatively short hike of 3 miles, and easy going for the most part.  It was a gorgeous day to be out, so we hiked to the top and ate lunch with a great view.

This was a lovely end to week 4, just ten and a half left to go!

Life Goes On...

Hello there and welcome back to blogtime with Sarah!  I've been absolutely wretched in performing my duties as your host, my humblest of apologies :)

Mostly, there really just hasn't been much happening so I didn't feel the need to post on here the menial little details of my life.  I can't just be like "Hi, I had salad for lunch.  Thanks for stopping by!"  It would get ridiculous!

Truly, there is not much to report on.  Artur left on the eleventh, and with him went my adventures too.  It is much harder to make oneself get up and get moving out in the wide world when you do it alone.  And that's as much as I am going to say about that sad little bit.

That being said, my classes do make me get out there at least a little bit.  Both my Wildlife and Ecology classes are going wonderfully, both with the field trips and in lecture.  I've heard from some fascinating people working for the Alaska Fish and Game Department in my Wildlife class.  Those guest speakers covered the human involvement in the changing ecology of Alaska, as well as an in depth discussion on Moose :)  It is absolutely superb to hear from people so passionate about their work.  I know most of you wouldn't find a lecture on the migration pattern of moose too terribly exciting, but I found it to be riveting.  The man who spoke was so enthusiastic about his studies that I think even you might have been at least a little interested (by you I mean the part of the world not making their life's work being the studies of animals and the intricacies of their lives).  My Ecology class spent a frigid morning earlier this week studying the different milieu of of trees within our own campus.  The North Campus has 1000 acres devoted to just being a forest, which can conveniently be used by the students for our studies :)  We learned the influences on the environment of being on either a north facing slope or a south facing slope (the south gets more sun and tends to be drier).  We started our wandering looking at some relatively young aspen that were growing in a section that had been cleared 50 years ago when the school was built.  Those trees grew so quickly that one couldn't tell it had ever been cleared (unless you knew that the aspen weren't the apex species for this particular environment [that comment is mostly geared towards you Travis as I don't think anyone else will know what it means :)  ] )  I thought it was cold when we started there. Ha.  It was about 42F.  We took a few measurements of slope and aspect, cored a tree, and moved on to the paper birch/white spruce mixed forest on a north slope.  Because it was on the north slope, it dropped about ten degrees.  We took the same measurements and moved on to an all white spruce section of the campus.  This area has been untouched, which was abundantly evident when compared to the previous places we'd seen.  And did I mention it was cold at the other plots?  Pft!  It went from cold to frigid as we moved further and further into the forest.  It looked like something out of a movie with tons of little hills and gullys making the landscape all humped up weird and creepy.  Moss covered everything making for a spring mat to walk on, and dead horsehair draped along the banks on either side of the path, lending an eerie quality to everything.  All we needed was a little fog and the scene would have been set for some haunting movie.  The further in we got, the colder it got.  I had noticed that I seemed to be extra clutzy, as my feet couldn't seem to stay put.  I finally realized that the wood chip covered pathway we were walking on had become frozen, and I was walking on something a little like cubes of ice :)  We reached the black spruce portion of the forest, the last part of the lab.  There were these crazy dips in the ground with the trees growing at odd angles or fallen over completely.  We found out that it was from the permafrost layer, which is normally six to twelve inches down, and rapidly thawed and the earth collapsed in those areas.  It was a cool 25F or so in the black spruce forest.  Needless to say we took our measurements in a jiffy and made our way back to the sun as quickly as possible.

This upcoming week for Ecology we are going to do a stream ecology lab that involves wading out into a river about an hour drive from town.  The instructors are graciously providing us the use of some wader....but I don't imagine those will do much to insulate!  If I thought this past week had gotten cold....this upcoming one is only getting more so, which I suppose is the nature of the changing season.  Tomorrow we may be getting some snow by noon!  If not tomorrow, then it is definitely expected by the end of the next week.  I am so not ready for that experience yet.  I mean...come on....it's still September!   I've got all the clothes...but my brain just hasn't wrapped around that concept yet.  I get to test my booties though, so I'm a little excited for that.  They are mega awesome ;)  I cannot imagine trying to do my streams ecology in the snow....we don't get waders for our hands, and those have to dunk in the water to take our readings.  The professor told us our hands will be happier under the surface of the water than above it, as it tends to be warmer if you have to break through ice as its an insulator...but I do eventually have to take those hands out!

Other than school, there isn't much going on.  I eat.  I sleep.  I do homework mostly.  The roommate drives me insane, and I'm desperately searching for a way out to a new and potentially better living situation.  If you haven't yet heard my rant on the idiotic being that I have to share living space with, don't ask.  You'll get more than an earful.  I'm currently looking for a job on campus, to try and soak up some of the free time I have.  Hmm...what else?  Oh!  If you're squeamish, skip on to the next paragraph.  I've been having problems with one of my eyes lately.  I finally got my glasses, life was good and I could see what the profs were writing on the board!  And then the irritation starts out of the blue earlier this week.  My eyes periodically get red and irritated, as does everyones I'm sure, which was why I didn't think anything of it when it started.  When I woke up in the morning, my eye would be fine, but by three in the afternoon it would start to get irritated, by six it would be super red, and the later the night progressed, the more it felt like every time I blinked my eyelids were scraping my eyeball.  I finally took a close look at my eye, and noticed a small (2-3mm) off white bump on the whites of my right eye next to the iris (colored part of my eye)  I freaked out.  But, as it was 1 in the morning, not much I could do.  I decided to give it a few days, see what would happen.  The same pattern would go on for the next two days, and unfortunately it has noticeably doubled in size and is now starting to grow over onto my iris.  I went to see the doctor on campus, and she was stumped and so referred me to a local eye doctor.  I called on Friday, and of course no appointment could be made until Wednesday.  Sigh.  I mean, come on guys, this is my eye!  Important to me, I'm rather attached to it, and you can't see me til Wednesday?  The lady I talked to didn't sound worried..but really, what does she know about growths on eyes?  She's a freakin receptionist.  We'll see on Wednesday what the doc has to say...meanwhile its growing. Ugh.

It's safe to read on now if you skipped over the last paragraph :)  I'm done with the icky story.  I went to the biggest bonfire I've ever seen tonight on campus.  Today was an event called Starvation Gulch.  I've no idea what the story behind the name is.  Anyways, the student body gets together on this day, takes donations of pallets from the local stores in the community, and builds giant structures out of them.  At around 10pm, they light em up.  They are judged on appearance pre-fire, post-fire, biggest flame, and longest burner.  The fire department helps thing along with some fuel accelerant, and whoosh!  Big fire!  It was 20F even when I left my dorm, all bundled up as best I could, but I wasn't cold for long.  I stood maybe 100 feet away from the blaze, and the fire made wind that whipped my hair all over the place, and geez it burned!  My face felt like it was shriveling up.  There were four separate structures, and their flames easily reached fifty feet in height.  It was amazing, and incredibly smokey.  I left once sparks started flying about, as I didn't feel like having my hair burn.  I'm rather fond of it.  There were also way too many drunk people out, and I'm pretty sure drunk people and fire usually don't mix very well, so I skeedattled.  That brings me here, typing to you now.  I miss my family terribly.  I love you all.  Artur, I miss you most of all (sorry family) and a little under three months seems like far too much time to wait.  my wait has been made better by some love sent from home.  My best of friends Trista and Zach sent me a care package that was much appreciated.  You two know me and my likes so well, and the loved was most definitely felt.  I basked in the glory of it all the way up here :)  I adore you both!  I know you love me most as your  package got here first ;)  Soon to follow was a care package sent from my loving family.  My eldest sister Heather wrote on the outside of it to make sure I knew it was mine in the post office, and she succeeded in make the PO lady laugh.  I do make all the male moose go Whannhh!  As a note to any future package senders, I suggest sending it by USPS only to my PO Box, as shipping with fed-ex and ups make things difficult (they can't ship to po boxes).  If any of you miss me terribly, call me!  Text me!  I'd love both.  I'm starved for any and all attention :D  And with that, Good night, I love you all!

Denali

Life has finally settled into something resembling a routine.  I had two whole days of school before a holiday weekend.  So tough ;)  Most of them look to be promising.  My English class I cold do without, as my instructor happens to be this pompous hippie type who annoyed me upon opening her mouth.  It was an unpleasant first class that was spent writing an essay the whole time.  Blah.  My Friday was tons better, as my more interesting classes were then.  My principles of Ecology is taught by the most adorable middle-aged man on the planet.  Biggest science nerd, so excited about his topic, and so nervous in front of people.  He tried so hard to convey his enthusiasm for the topic without stuttering and umming too much.  Adorable.  I am very much looking forward to how this course will unfold.  The labs sound super intriguing, and 8 of the 12 are field trips to places of interest for ecology in Alaska.  And our professor promises that the labs will be brought indoors if it gets below -20 degrees, as that is the same temperature that they cancel recess for the elementary school kids.  Good grief!  How is that normal?  I went out and bought myself some Caribou booties that are good for forty below.  Can't wait to try them out tromping through the snow.

The class that looks the best though is my Wildlife 101.  There are no lectures, just guest speakers from various and assorted wildlife biologist professions come to talk about their jobs.  We've got activities to do every Saturday that include duck banding, telemetry, behind the scene tours of the large animal research facility, and study skins (the skinning of a bird and learning how to mount it properly for a museum).  I realized how much of a science nerd I was when I tried to show Artur how exciting it was, and he was just kinda grossed out by it.  

This past weekend was awesome fantastic.  Artur and I rented a car on Saturday, took care of the necessaries in town (I found the barnes and noble!) and went to Denali National Park on Sunday.  The picture above was taken there.  In the past week everything that can has started changing into its fall colors, which has just been utterly amazing to watch.  I've never seen the colors change before!  Daily my campus has been turning more golden and orange.  It looks beautiful mixed in with the still vibrant green of the evergreens.

On to the most exciting part of the whole trip!  I had my first Moose Sighting!!!!!  I have been eagerly awaiting a glimpse of these huge creatures, and had been disappointed thus far.  Lo and behold, as we made our two hour drive into Denali, there one was!  Right there on the side of the road!  And alive!  It was a cow just munching on some leafy things next to the black top, calm as can be with a car driving right next to her.  Way awesome.  We saw a few other critters while in Denali, what I think was a ground squirrel, a wild Dahl sheep, and one measly little fish that looked like a mix between a lion fish and a sucker fish in the river.

Once we got into Denali, we stopped by the visitors center, grabbed a few maps, and started the 15 mile drive out to the Savage River.  We were told it was a great place to hike through some more open country.  We were not disappointed.  The Savage River is located right at the end of the public road through Denali (they only allow a select number of tour/shuttle buses through after mile 15 for reasons they list as being "eco-friendly'.  What it really means is that they make you pay to be able to see Mt. McKinley since you cannot see it before mile 15. It happens to be the tallest peak in North America.  Bastards).  The hike we opted for was along the river.  There was a path the was maintained for the first mile.  It was nice and easy and pleasant.  The first thing I did was play in the water of course.  It was sooooo cold (outside was about 48).  My shivering in my light coat soon turned to being pleasantly warm from the non strenuous hike.  We reached the end of it in a short amount of time, and instead of crossing the bridge and coming back down the other side, Artur and I being the adventurous sort of people we are decided to see where the river went.  The was a trail (kind of) that went on for a bit, so we thought it would be easy-peasy.  Hah.  My pleasantly warm soon turned into hot n sweaty.

Parts of the hike made me feel more like a little mountain goat than a human.  This was the point at which our "trail" really just turned into game paths (when we could find them) and tromping through the landscape whichever way looked easiest.  The views we got along the way definitely made the hard trek worth it.  I just couldn't get enough of stopping and staring (which I suppose is the point of the whole hike.  you kinda forget sometimes to look up and not at your feet)

Now Mom...if you're reading this please do not take notice of how close to that precarious looking edge of rock I am.  The view from it (you can see it below) was wonderful!

After much poking from branches and unexpected scrambling down slippery rocks, we came to this.  The both of us just stopped and gaped at it for a good five minutes.  Breathtaking doesn't even begin to describe what the landscape was like.  Artur did what he could to take amazing pictures (which he does a truly Fabulous job of) but to be there in person is sooooo much better.  The hike down the slowly zigzagging river was somewhere two and a half miles, only one of which had a regular trail, another half mile had an ok trail, and another mile of just pushing our way though.  It took something like three hours to get to this point.  I was ever so grumpy and sore and dreading the trek back and so perfectly happy all at the same time.

No trail in sight!

We stayed on that last ridge overlooking the next valley for twenty minutes or so before heading back.  I was ever so thankful for the long days of light out here.  It was six when we turned around, and the hustle back to the car took two hours and we still had plenty of light left.  We were treated to an amazing sunset on our drive home, and three more moose!  A bull this time with two cows.

When at last we got home around eleven, I was pretty sure every single muscle in my body had been used during the hike, down to my fingers, as they all hurt.  The hot shower that followed was heaven, both for the amount of filth on me (it was sprinkling on and off all day, which made for much mud and slippery falls into said mud!) being washed away and the soothing effect it had on my poor abused body.  My bed, lumpy and small as it is, was bliss.  I slept for eleven hours and it was glory :)  Today I've done a whole lot of nothing, despite my best intentions.  I even managed to get a three hour nap in there too.  Hopefully tomorrow I will be fully recovered to start with the school routine again at 8:15 am with my ecology lab.  Want more pictures of Denali? Check out my facebook, the link below should take you directly to the album with all 33 pictures in there.  Its to bed for me, so good night!
http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=73966&id=1073527832&l=ad888cab61

Trying something new.....

Alright, so I've never tried blogging before.  I figure its a good way for me to keep in contact with all of you, my adoring fans! :-P  I had enough people telling me I had to make one that the idea stayed lodged within my skull and I actually followed through!  I won't make any promises concerning this blog and how often I update anything.  If you find that there are things missing that you'd like to see or hear about, tell me and I will do what I can.  Anywho, on to something you actually want to hear about.

Alaska.  Its huge.  And can't decide what it wants its weather to be like.  And beautiful.  The pictures above are views from the east and west sides of campus.  The flora is so very green and vibrant and I find myself amazed at the variety of life Alaska is home to. 

But I'm getting ahead of myself.  This wonderful trip up here started with some awesome fun time in San Francisco with my mom and pops and Artur.  We spent two days there, and saw just about everything there is to see (way too many hills for my liking).  Our hotel was right in the most perfect spot, tween downtown and the Golden Gate Bridge.  We could walk or bus to anyplace in town we wanted to.  We basically went nonstop the whole time.  It was so much fun to explore the city with my folks and my artur-love.  I know we could have happily spent another few days there, but my plane ride was calling!

Artur and I left from SFO with many hugs and a few tears (I won't say from whom) and flew off on a mostly deserted plane to Anchorage, AK.  The plane easily would have fit 150 people, but only had around 30.  The joy of being able to stretch out and not kick someone was great.  If only those damn seats would have reclined more than the half inch they do, it would have been perfect.  After landing, we had a ten hour layover (blargh) before moving on to Fairbanks.  I never want to stay overnight in an airport again.  They've individualized all the seats, so laying down comfortably was nigh on impossible.  We made it through with fitful napping and hours of playing Civ IV.  We arrived to the airport below, Fairbanks International

So freakin small!  There's one door for arrivals and one for departures, and most of the planes were little puddle jumpers. 


We rented a car, we settled in and explored the town a little.  For one used to Southern California, the place is so spread out it barely feels like a town at all.  Everything is so quaint.  I'm loving every bit of it.  The Chena River and the campus are my favorite parts of it.  UAF is nicely nestled in the middle of a forest on a hillside overlooking everything.  Whoever designed the campus did a great job with strategic tree removal for amazing views.  There are so many trees, and the place is overflowing with flowers vainly struggling for every last bit of the summer light.  The colors are so vibrant and my senses reel every time I take a moment to absorb it all.  Here I am in the middle of a university, and it smells like nature.  I mean, wow.  Its all so clean and fresh.  No matter how high you climb, there is no smog to block your view!  you simply can't beat that.

Not all is peaches and cream.  My dorm leaves something to be desired, as its lower three floor is male dumb drunk jock central.  I've already lost count of how many times I've heard variations of the word penis shouted at all hours.  The showers are just plain scary looking.  I am never going to touch that floor or walls with bare skin.  But, school starts soon and I won't be in my dorm hardly at all and I'm just going to make the best of it.  I don't have much choice ;)

I've written more than I meant to for the first go-round, so I'll call it a day.  If you're looking for more pictures, go to my facebook page, or Artur's while he is here with me, as we will both be regularly posting them up there.  Adios, til next time!