Tuesday, March 27, 2012

Heavens to Betsy's, THE THAW IS COMING!

A spring time hello to all down in the balmy lower 48,

I am happy to report that spring time seems to be here to stay in the last frontier! The temperature will be in the 30s all week, and even though there is snow in the forecast, this the locals tell me, is a sure sign that Spring has Sprung and that the bitterly cold snaps are done! Which you definitely won't hear me complaining about, I am rebelling against winter anyway that I can- not wearing my snow pants, leaving the house in (insert gasp here) just my TOMS, wearing sunglasses to tempt the sun to stick around. And my hard work is paying off- today I was actually HOT! I even wished that I was wearing less clothing, definitely thinner socks! To end this joyous note of Spring time poking its head around the corner, the town of Fairbanks has even scheduled the GREAT CLEAN UP DAY! for May 5th. This is a day that everyone in town pitches in and cleans up all the trash that has collected in the ginormous mounds of snow (some are literally 20 feet high)over the past nine months of winter.

But in other news besides spring flirting with us frozen choosen, I have gotten to experience a couple "only in ALaska" experiences since I last wrote. This weekend I was lucky enough to not only visit the World Ice Carving Championships once, but twice! This competition brings professional ice carvers from all over the world for 72 hours to make an art sculpture out of either a block of ice or multiple blocks of ice. They were phenomenal. I was completely blown away by the minute details and time that the artist were able accomplish in under 3 days! There were also slides, an iceskating park, and a kiddy land. It was all pretty remarkable. (Pictures to follow)

The second big piece of news is that I have started the process for apply to graduate school. I had no idea how much goes into this. Besides completing the basic application, I have to take the GRE (not a simple task), find recommendations, write essays, track down and pay for my transcripts (this is the only time I have ever wished I didn't study abroad), prepare for interviews, apply for funding.....the list goes on and on. The good news is that because this is a "professionals goal" of mine, I get to count the hours of studying, writing, and tracking as work hours- not a bad deal for me!

Besides running around crazy for work and planning my young mothers' wellness groups this summer, I have been enjoying the sun and northern lights. I hope you all are still enjoying the balmy summer weather and know that I am still very jealous of you! miss you all!

Wednesday, March 21, 2012

The Frozen Chosen

So I am up to about 2 months in the arctic tundra and things are definitely not heating up.  All the locals swear that summer is literally right around the corner and that I will never want to leave AK after experiencing the intense 24 hour days of summer bliss, but I am starting to get skeptical.  Every morning I am woken up to the chiming bells of my alarm clock, I hope that when I look at my iPhone, the temperature will be out of the negative, because then at least by the afternoon it will feel semi-warm (balmy 16 degrees anyone) but alas, this is not the case- it's -11, -15, or some really hard mornings, -22.  I normally let out an exasperated sigh and slowly roll out of bed to hit the showers and start my day- bundled up of course!

But other than living in a wintry wonderland things are slowly starting to pick up here.  My youth program has had at least 10 participants every day and I am busy working this week on recruiting more.  I have been charged with the task of making a shuttle to Access Alaska more entertaining so I am think of throwing a bus party or a "do whatever you don't do on a normal school bus" event.  Definitely still working out the kinks in that one but hopefully I will have some fun and entertaining stories to report next time I blog about this process.


In the mean time I hope everyone is enjoying their unreasonable warm springs! Know that the frozen chosen up here are very jealous of the sunny days, sun dress weather, and all things great that gets rolled into summer.

Hasta la Proxima Vez