Back at it Again

Summer has passed (in a strange mix of all too soon and good god why did that take so long) and the fall semester starts once more.  I'm all nicely settled into my new apartment, have all my classes situated how I'd like them to be, and am ready to let the schooling begin!

It's been requested that I take more photos, as I don't seem to do that nearly enough, so I've just randomly taken pictures as I wander the campus.  I shall sprinkle them throughout this post.  Like the following:

Sunny blue skies in pleasant 60 degree weather the first weekend I got back.  This is a eastward facing shot of campus, three quarters of the way down the hill from Upper campus to Lower campus.

As I said before, I am pleased with my school schedule setup.  I'm taking 16 credits this semester, French 101, Animal Physiology, Genetics, and Wildlife Diseases.  I am super stoked about that last class, as its only offered once every six semesters or so, and thus far seems like it will be a class well worth waiting for.  First day we were instructed to buy rubber booties and coveralls, as we would regularly be elbow deep in some animals innards and we needed something that could be easily cleaned/sanitized.  We will be conducting necropsies as the lab portion of the class once a week at the newly refabbed necropsy suite in the Biological Research and Diagnostics Facility on campus.  The animals studied will vary, depending on what crops up as available (ADF&G calls if a dead animal shows up from car accidents and such).  The first necropsy will be Stellar Sea Lion pups.  Freakin amazing!  There will definitely be birds (waterfowl, ravens, raptors), moose, caribou/reindeer, and a canid of some flavor.  So. Stoked.  Any class where they have to hose you down afterwards to get rid of gore can't help but be utterly epic.

New room, pre-unpacking.  This is my side, Becky's is to the left.

The rest of my classes look like they will be alright.  French should be just peachy, animal physiology will really be a review of stuff I've already learned (and I am a bit bummed that all our labs use humans as test subjects...I know we are animals too, but really, I'm not in this field to test humans), and Genetics will be, well...genetics.  Not precisely looking forward to that one, but we shall see.

Wooded path from hill that separates Upper and Lower campuses to my apartment.

Other than that, not much else is going on.  The weather has been rainy on and off, and yesterday was downright chilly.  Our nights have lows around 40 currently, and on clear nights I am able to see the aurora from my bedroom window :)  I'm rather happy about that.

Picture taken from my window behind me as we speak.  The rain just let up for a little bit.  The aurora dances above that treeline on clear nights :)

I'm working again as well, student assistant in the Dean's office at the Rasmuson library.  Easy Peasy Lemon Squeezy work there.  And now, I shall bury you in a flurry o pictures...

New building coming up for us science majors

Summer is definitely gone, fall colors starting to show all over

Best game of Ticket to Ride I've ever played.  High score of 204, and I was purposely trying to not win as I was introducing it to new people.

And the rain started back up again and it's pouring.  Time for cozy blankets, hot tea, and new episode of Doctor Who!
I will try to keep up on this...but don't expect much if I decide things are boring :P Oh, and by the by, packages are still welcome, and I have the same PO box ;-D

Back in Alaska!

Hello folks!

I have had an extraordinarily crazy mixture of insane busyness and lovely laziness since the last time I posted here in the beginning of December.  Last semester wound down quite nicely to finals week.  I worked like crazy, with papers and exams crammed all into an insane few weeks, and managed to get great grades all around for a 3.79 GPA (stupid NRM class ruining my perfect GPA).  In the midst of all that busyness, I was told that I could have a spot in the Cutler Apartments on campus if I wanted it, which I immediately grabbed onto.  The only problem with it was they told me in the middle of finals and I have to move all my things on the VERY last day I was in Alaska (I bless my darling friend Becky for the use of her car....lugging all my junk across campus up a hill was not going to go well without her).  I just managed to move all my stuff, clean my old dorm, check out, and dash off to the airport for my trip home!  It was such an exciting day for me, I don't think I slept for 48 hours or some such.

Home.  It was so absolutely awesome.  After being on a plane or in an airport for 18 hours, I was met by Artur, Kelly, and Papa.  There was much hugging and crying (at least on my part).  And Mama being the wonderful person she is had a home cooked breakfast ready and waiting for me as soon as I got home.  I was SO starved for good food, and she knew what would precisely make my belly happiest :)  I was completely spoiled the whole time I was home with awesome food and much love.  The following month I had at home flew by, as time tends to do when one is enjoying herself immensely.  I alternated my days with supreme laziness at home with my loved ones or going out on adventures with Artur (sometimes even both in one day!).  The holidays at home were of course wonderful, and I was ever so stoked to be able to see a bunch of my family.  Heather and Avery even came for the last two weeks I had at home.  I had such fun with the both of them :D

As all great things are wont to do, my time at home ended.  January 19th I flew back to Alaska, leaving behind 80F temps for -40F temps.  I felt EVERY single degree of that 120 degree difference.  I think I was the only person in Alaska with a sunburn (30 mile bike trip with Artur to the beach before I left, I was a lobster).  Luckily, the temperatures warmed a bit and I once more grew used to my environment.  And Artur?  My new jacket is so freakin awesome fantastic.  I wear it every day and its perfect!

Anywho, my new semester is started.  I've 12 units, maybe 15.  I've rearranged my schedule at least three times since I got back to campus, trying to make everything work.  My favorite classes this semester are my Ornithology class and lab, as well as Practices and Techniques of Wildlife Management.  The professors for both are absolutely amazing men, and the course materials are right up my alley.  I get to learn how to shoot a bear in the safest way possible, general gun/rifle safety, and field training!  What could be better :D  My other classes consist  of Political Economics, World Literature, and maybe Environmental Law (still trying to get in to that class).

As if I wasn't busy enough with those classes already, I have two jobs on campus (thankfully easy to get to).  I am once more working for the Dean's Office in the Library, office assistant to two lovely ladies.  I either get to muck about with old books or do general office work, both of which work great for me. My other job is to assist in the ornithology lab at the Museum of the North.  Already we've had a Duck Wing Party!  Last Friday I helped get a multitude of ducks prepped and cut up, as we needed heads, feet, and wings saved with a few tissues samples.  Here we are below, with a before and during picture:

A bit gruesome perhaps...but tons of fun

Now comes the virtual tour of the apartment, as requested by a few of you readers.  The apartments are located right in the middle of upper campus, which is great since I'm not too far from any of my classes.

My desk upstairs in my room

Bed next to desk, I love my quilt Grandma Lita

Bathroom

More bathroom

Stairs to lower floor

Kitchen!

Living room

Mudroom

Front of my apartment

My "street" to the left

And to the right

Thats my bedroom window

View from the front door

The path to classes

Woo, it's a parking lot!

We have stairs, but never use them as they tend to be encrusted with ice, hence the snow pathways

Back side of the apartment 

View from my porch

Kitchen!  I love this room!

My favorite part of the kitchen, I can finally cook!

My knitting supply drawer...it's a foot deep and two long and crammed full

My other craft drawer

My view as I'm sitting here now writing this

My other view if I look to the right of my desk

And that's the apartment!  You can catch your breath now, I know that was an exciting, action packed photo tour adventure!  I believe that if you click on the pictures, you will view it larger to see all that lovely detail :P   Anywho, I am very happy to be in the apartments.  My roommates are all friendly and nice people and we get along fine (yay for no crazies!)  I am so happy to have a fridge and stove and microwave.  No more cafeteria food!

My next few weeks are going to consist of school and work, nothing more.  Sometime in February I am planning on heading to Denali with Becky and Margaret for a snowshoeing adventure, which I'm sure will be epic.  The weather has been ever so nice, we've even had positive tempertaures!  Yesterday was a whopping 13F, positive.  I didn't need a beanie or scarf or gloves or undershirt, I was so excited.  I'm told the weather will flipflop with a vengeance, going from these pleasant positives to -40 and back, so one never really knows what to expect, and snowmelt is not expected for months yet, however much like spring it may feel for now.  

I'm off to get me a belly full of spaghetti (I made enough two days ago to feed 12 people, I love leftovers!) and a cup o tea.  TTFN.

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!