these are the days of september

It has rained almost every day of this month. The few days when the sun was out, you can be sure that I was out with it. There were times, though, that the sun was out and it was still raining, which made for interesting walks.

Mostly this week I have been all about work. I have been at school late almost every day. One evening I was there until 11:45 in the p.m. - crazy, I know. Sometimes I am not alone, though. Carrie, the math teacher and right next door to me, is sometimes there, as well. It's a good time, I tell you what.

I'd like to tell you about all the fun things I did this week. I'd like to tell you a grand story about my life here. I wish I had a grand story to tell you. I've really just been working a whole lot. The weekends are really when my life happens, unless for some off chance reason we decide to do something cool during the week. Yeah right. Anyway, Friday was pretty fabulous. It was gorgeous outside. I was wearing a t-shirt, the sun was out, it was nice and warm (ish). Jake had gone to Nome for business during the day, so we made orders for Chinese food and he brought it back for us. I totally gorged myself. It was great.



Before we ate I went for a walk on the beach, just because I couldn't stand being inside for any length of time. If you were in this weather, you wouldn't want to be inside either. That little black dot with the tail there is my dog.

We ate inside so we could heat up the food. Afterwards, we hung out on the beach for a bit strumming some tunes, chatting, being cool. Normal stuff.



It was such a beautiful evening. This time when Janelle got my camera she got some really good shots of the beach. This is my favorite place to go. The only down side: Starr likes to roll in beachy things, so by the time she gets home she smells like dead fish. It's pretty neat.



Afterwards we all dispersed, and I decided to go for yet another walk. This time I went into the tundra. I hadn't gone out that-a-ways in a while. The last time I had gone there the puppies wouldn't stop following me... so I took a break. This time, no puppies. And it was pretty spectacular, visually aesthetic if you will.



This is at the bridge over the slough (pronounced sloo) facing downstream towards the village. Over the bridge and through the road construction, towards first hill, and there it is, probably the 17th rainbow I've seen here. They never get old. Once I saw an entire arched rainbow - it was awesome.



Saturday was kind of lazy. I didn't really feel like doing anything. I took a few walks, of course, up the beach, down the beach, around town. I went in to work for about an hour to get some things done, but I didn't feel like working. I played violin with Sierra, which actually went really well. I went over to Patty's to invade for a little while, which made me sleepy. Her house is so dang relaxing. Saturday evening Janelle was having a book club meeting for those people who want to read and discuss a book, for those people who at least think they have time to read a book. I like to pretend that I do. I would like to. Anyway, Janelle was cute because she didn't expect me to come, so I got a grand welcome. And then I ate a lot of snacks. I also watched March of the Penguins on Saturday - I don't so much need to see it again. Good, but holy crow, long.



Lots of pictures to share tonight. This is okay, though. There's not much people photos up this time. Oh well. This is the beach facing south, looking at the mountains.

On Sunday, well, this evening, I went berry picking. Last night it frosted a bit. This morning I took the dog out for a walk and it was 32 degrees out. That's the coldest it's been in the mornings. Anyway, the sun was out all day, no clouds, so although it was still cold, it was a perfect day to go out for berries. The low bush cranberries are ready just after the first frost. We had to dig a little to find the patches, which made our hands cold, of course, but it was worth it. We weren't out for long, but I got some pretty good berries.



This is the sunset over the Norton Sound. I was glad to finally get some good pictures. It's pretty unbelievable, pretty much everything I see and learn about being here. Sometimes I forget that I am not just here on some camp-like stay. I live here now, and I need to start thinking like I live here, like I am building a life here, because I am.

Remember that you can click on any of the pictures if you want to see it bigger than it is on here. Remember, also, to post comments. I like them.

i remembered my camera

Saturday was mad busy. I got a call in the morning at 10:45 - Janelle woke me up because she needed to use my oven for the muffins she was baking to sell at the cross country run today. So I got up, took the dog on a quick walk, and frantically cleaned my house - it went from "who lives here?" to somewhat acceptable in about 20 minutes. Anyway, there were people in and out of my place before the race, and I got a call from my Dad, so it got a bit nuts, radda radda ra. I was helping out with the run, so my job was to stand out on the trail in the tundra to help mark the trail for the runners. I had a pretty sweet view.



For a while I was by myself. Since I was out there anyway I took bags to pick berries. Too bad it was super sunny and nice when we got up there, I started picking berries, but then it started to rain and it put me out of the mood to pick. So I stood in the rain with my back pack's rain cover on my head reading a book. I looked awesome, basically, since it's bright yellow. But then after a while I went up and stood with Adrianna and Dan. It was still raining, but they had a much sweeter view.



There were three races, so we were out there for about three hours. I rode up on a four wheeler with someone, but her rig started smoking weirdly, and Carrie was walking down, so I decided to just walk with her. Since the race was over, of course, the sun came out again and it was beautiful. It was a nice walk down, nice to be outside, nice conversation. My dog had gotten out in the craziness of everyone and their sister being in and out of my apartment, so she was out all afternoon in the rain. She got a bath.

Speaking of Carrie, she made an interesting observation about my blog. She noticed that all of my blogs are about me with Jake, Janelle, Adrianna, and Dan. She's like, you really spend a lot of time with them. I said, yes I do. And this is not a bad thing, but I do have more than four friends, although I do spend most of my free time with them, and actually, I hung out with Carrie on Friday night. It was a good time, I like her - we just forgot to take pictures. Fortunately, on Saturday evening we were also both at a foot party thing where this lady was selling stuff for the Body Shop, and we all got to have smoother feet skin and cool lotion and stuff, plus super amazing food from Patty (who I also hang out with sometimes, but I have no pictures of her, either), among other people, but I don't have any pictures from that yet. (Will you send me some?) Afterwards I was getting restless and everyone wanted to sit around a table and chat (which is OK) while Adrianna and I were gearing up to build a fire on the beach. Some people said they would come out if they saw a fire (liars), but whatev. So we go out to Jake and Janelle's to see if they are up for it, or one of them since Daniel was already in bed, and I realized that I locked myself out of my apartment. Awesome. (Jake brought tools and broke me in after the fire.) So we went and built a fire on the beach. It was so sweet. It was so dark outside. We poured gasoline on it a few times because the wood was all wet, but eventually it started to burn on its own. Anyway, Carrie ended up coming out, which was great. Fires are always better when there are more people, I think. I mean, I like small groups better usually, but some things just need lots of people. So this is my photo of more than just my four "bffs." Okay?



(There is another photo of C and I from Friday night, but I don't have it yet.)

I don't know why Adrianna is hiding behind Carrie and me. But if you want to know why my had is sideways, it's because I wanted to look up at the sky without the visor in my way. It was awesome - the sky was so clear, we saw the milky way, and about a billion stars. I saw a shooting star and a satellite. Plus our fire got pretty nice, even though most of the wood was wet - I took a video, but the fire had started to die down a bit by the time I shot it. Ach so.




Sorry you can't see people very well in the video. I'll try to take more of them for later. Anyway, I'm annoyed because it is Sunday, it's frankin' gorgeous outside, and I have to be in school doing work. Boo.

Happy birthday to my mother on Saturday. :)

Life is grand. Comment on my blog and it will be grander.

maybe i shouldn't get a four-wheeler...

Do you ever daydream about bears in the tundra? Yeah, me neither...

But about those four-wheelers: Let's use our imaginations since I didn't document the situations with photographs. They would have been worth the film.


Adrianna and I on another boat ride.

We went berry picking on Friday. Uneventful boat ride, as shown above and below. We saw bear tracks. We made, oh wait no, Janelle and Adrianna made cranberry pumpkin bread with our berries, and it was fabulous. All I did on Friday was mope and eat bread and play Wii. And I walked my dog. Oh but I covered this.


Janelle and Daniel - he just loves his life jacket... I think Adrianna and I were taking a picture of them at the same time, so Janelle didn't know who to look at.

Saturday - crap, what did I do? Sierra and I played violin at Janelle's, who was playing her basoon, starting up the quartet, although we are still missing our viola. We went berry picking again on Saturday evening. Patty told me to come by, so I took them some of the good bread I did not bake, and they gave me a loaf of homemade cheese bread and a half a loaf of potato bread and a jar of blueberry jam. I told her I wasn't going to come over anymore if she was just going to keep giving me stuff.

(Side Story: One time at camp, I looked up at the menu for breakfast, and it said, "Homade Pancakes." I pointed and laughed out loud, and it became a joke, though I felt a little bad for the person who wrote it. True story.)

Anyway, I told Mark and Patty that we were going berry picking after dinner, so they decided to join us. Ended up that Jake and Dan kept Daniel and just played Wii while we faced the bugs and the bears and the berries in the tundra. Jake and Janelle have two four-wheelers: the good one, that's the yellow one, and the old old one, that's Big Red. Big Red has no brakes; he's a little stitched up, so he looks like Frankenstein's monster; he tends to be a little unreliable. Janelle didn't want to drive it. Being the dumb one of the group, I gladly, bravely volunteered. No big deal, I'm a good driver, whatev.

Blah blah blah, we picked berries for a bit, but the bugs were redonkerous, so we went to go somewhere else. Unplanned as we were, we were stopped somewhere for whatever reason, went to drive off again, and Big Red wouldn't start. Of course he wouldn't start - I had been driving. In the end, there's me on Big Red steering, being towed all the way back from somewhere off in the tundra by Patty and Mark's super cool rig, all the way through town as people ogled at the stupid new white girl on the broken four-wheeler. It was fun waving at my students.

Hmm, that was Saturday. Sunday I worked all day. Monday I went to the post office. That's today. Jake and Janelle gave me a ride. For whatever reason I did not give myself very much room on the back of that four-wheeler, because in the end when Jake was approaching the post office, he made the turn, and I fell off. You might think I make this stuff up, but I don't. I slid off and kind of rolled, feet flying through the air over my head, I'm covered in dirt, I roll back onto my feet (it was really very graceful), and I jumped back onto the four-wheeler, much closer to the middle this time.



This is a big boat.

I have a parka, snow pants, snow boots, and ski goggles on their way to me now, plus some long johns. My parka has fur around the hood. :) My boots are neat. They have fur, too.



They both also float independently. It's very cool.

a whole month in, wide awake

Let's not talk about school. It's fine, but it's Friday, and I want to not talk about school untill...

I am feeling lethargic today. We went out on the boat and went berry picking, but we didn't stay for lots of reasons. One, Daniel was tired and fussy. Two, it was cold and windy. Three, I at least was not feeling it. And four, there weren't a whole lot of berries at this spot to be picked. Also, I am not a very good berry picker. Adrianna made the comment that I'm not a long term kind of berry picker. I said, "I'm not a long term anything." It's true. I am horrible with long term sorts of things.

I do have a lot of pictures of the village. I am teaching my journalism class (well, trying to teach anyhow) about photography in journalism, so I want them to start a photo journal, plus have a lot of really cool pictures for the school newspaper.




Ben Harper and Brandi Carlile are playing in the background. Sara Britt sent me a message and it made me smile. The rest of the group, my new bffs, are preparing Janelle's cranberry pumpkin bread. They are bringing it over to Dan and Adrianna's to bake because Jake and Janelle have a bum oven. Also, I love my dog.




I think it's about time to go upstairs to make bread. I am so tired, and I think I might be a little grumpy, or cranky, or whatever. I really want to curl up and watch a movie and fall asleep. The other night my dog layed down next to me at bedtime, like she always does. She's so cute. Anyway, she put her head on my shoulder, and I'm thinking, awww, she's so adorable. So what does she do? She burps in my face. It was great. She thought it was hilarious. At least she's comfortable. Whatev.



This is Adrianna and I hanging out at Jake and Janelle's (where else would we be?) hanging out (because that's pretty much what we do...) with folks for a game night. We had a few beverages. Jake totally spiked them. Tequila made me sick. Stupid tequila.

Anyway, I went to bed last night after lounging on that couch you see in the last picture. I slept for a long time, which is good. The date on this blog will say Friday, but really it is Saturday morning. Should be a good day.



We were watching a movie one evening (Pride and Prejudice, the Kiera Knightly version, which personally I don't like... even with the good cinemetography), and it was like, 10:30 or something at night, and we looked out the window and saw this rainbow, so we ran outside to take pictures. When I say "we" and say no names, usually I mean Adrianna and Dan and me, just fyi. Anyway, with the sunset it's kind of cool. We saw a double rainbow, too, but those photos aren't as good. So here, you have lots of village pictures. If you want to see more that my students took, you can go to unkjournalism.blogspot.com and see a whole bunch of really cool ones. Hopefully they'll keep getting better as they post what they write and they're pictures.

Alaska is still breathtaking. You really should come and see it for yourselves.