Happy February!

This blog needed a change. What do you think?

Time has flown by and 2010 is already over. This year was the first successful year out of the last three that I didn't get food poisoning in January. I've broken the curse! Or maybe I confused the curse since I celebrated New Year's a day early, being on the 'other' side of the dateline and all.

If I celebrated New Year's a day early (relative to the normal time), and celebrate it normally (a day late, relative to the early), does that mean I'm on the verge of time-traveling?

Some of the things I plan to do this year:

- Pass the toughest classes I'll ever take.
- Learn to knit.
- Eat more vegetables and fruit.
- Work hard and play hard.
- Get more exercise.
- Get more sunshine.
- Learn yoga.
- Learn pilates.
- Read more fiction.
- Allow more distractions into my life.

I have life updates too. I went to New Zealand and got harassed by storms, keas, cows, and sandflies during my camping attempts. And to think I used to say how relaxing camping in NZ must be since there aren't any bears to be worried about...

I've received an incredible opportunity to cruise in the Healy again. This time to the Chukchi and Beaufort Seas with oodles (most definitely more than 24 hours worth) of fieldwork on the sea ice. I've been instructed to purchase hip waders for wading through melt ponds. I'm still not convinced I'm actually going, because wading in melt ponds seems too good to be true! Of equal excitement, I'll be doing some really neat data collection with some really smart people. This is an understatement; I've read their names millions of times in papers... now I get to spend some quality time with them on a ship. Poor them! Woo-hoo for me!

And now my next missions are to:
- Find a place to live (as my lease is up while I'm on the cruise).
- Find a masters (something about me needing to get a degree? Hm?).

That's it for now since sleep prevails. Here's what New Zealand looks like after a sleepless night of keas harassing you:

Snow Day

OK! I have made it halfway through my first quarter of grad school. Good work, Melinda. Only three more weeks and I will have a blissful Christmas vacation.

But first, I have a Thanksgiving break which I'm fairly certain is placed precisely in the middle of the academic quarter to curb students' pending insanity. I'll take it.

My quarter began with the utmost enthusiasm, like I could actually conduct noteworthy science, with what, an eager brain and an insatiable appetite for knowledge of all kind. I was training to be a rockstar.

I soon learned that this was very wrong perception, and my learning abilities ebb and flow, but usually just ebb under homework-due-date conditions. Also I make a million mistakes every day, which makes it difficult to be that inspirational perfect young scientist that once impressed professors as an undergraduate.

These million daily mistakes range from simple grammatical errors, to full-on explosions of embarrassment and failure. For example, my first-ever committee meeting was deemed to be perfect (by me). Instead, most everything went wrong (broken projector, late start, etc.), especially when I was asked what was probably the first "curve-ball" question of my educational career.

By Genius Committee Member: "What is... The Science in this?"
(I'm pretty sure his voice echoed when he asked this question.)

In my head: "I got this! My research is so blasted important because it's so darn useful!"
Me talking: "My research is relevant on many levels. For one,... etc. yadda yadda important yadda etc."

Committee's Response:


That was probably my most accurate reality check in grad school. That and failing my fluid mechanics exam.

Now after experiencing a multitude of failures and mistakes within a month's time frame, I have learned how to embrace (openly) my incredible ability to not get things right, and to correct my perception of grad school to this:
Graduates

The end (for now).

ps. It's a snow day.
pss. Here's a sea ice photo from my cruise.

Under Construction.

I need a change.

Savoonga

The last escapade took place out of bounds of what I had always thought to be "Alaska." Alaska is huge. We reached every end of the US Earth, and potentially some ends of the real Earth too. Because of this, (how many times have people told me not to start a sentence with "because"...? Hogwash) I'm allocating each post to an in-depth description of a 12-hour travel period.

What better way to start than with our arrival into Savoonga...


We flew from Nome, Alaska early morning and set west, south-west. We were already at the ocean-mainland border in Nome, so it was necessary for the senile pilot to mention a few safety reminders about the inflatable raft.

"Don't forget to blow this thing up on the outside, and not the inside, of the plane. Also, you can tie it to the plane once it's outside so it doesn't blow away."

It was hard to believe that anything like that could happen in such a beautiful spot over the ocean. The cloud cover masked everything except for a minor break over St. Lawrence Island. Beneath this opening, the ocean displayed the strangest deep royal blue color that I'd ever seen. Along with the royal blue were darker streaks from strong winds. We had originally aimed for Gambell which, as U.S. territory, is actually closer to Russia than the mainland U.S., but the cloud cover was too low and terrain too high for the senile pilot's liking. We shot for Savoonga, smaller in population and more in the middle of St. Lawrence Island, instead.

An airliner (very small) had landed just before our arrival and gave us the heads up that half of the gravel runway was closed. We heard this at the 500-foot warning while battling a strong cross-wind.


Minus some frazzled nerves, we had landed! Right next to the airstrip was a cemetery.


We hadn't even opened the plane door when a handful of people came out to greet us. They were friendly and very surprised to see a group of people visiting with no reason. Some of them wanted to sell us ivory and we politely declined. We had to get a permit to visit the town. If we wanted to go outside of town, we'd have to pay 50 USD per person for a land permit. We decided to stay within town and make the most of what we could in our limited tour.

It was very windy here. And dusty. Two in our party accepted a ride on the only car (truck) into town to pay for our town permits, the scruffy kiwi and I opted for bicycles as our mode of transportation on the dirt roads. Everyone got around via four-wheelers. Town was composed of a few streets crisscrossed together and houses lined with silver tubes - it had just received its first sewage system.

After perusing the grocery store (the chauffeur had to track down a man so that we could buy our town permits) and taking mental notes of prices - 6 USD for a small box of cereal, we were let loose! More people tried to sell us ivory, either walrus, whale, or mammoth.

The senile pilot and I decided to go on a very windy, very dusty bike ride to the beach. We weren't allowed to pick up anything and take it off the island, so says land permit, this included any rocks on the beach (unfortunate for me). We passed two windmills along the way - one completely lifeless in the howling wind, the other spinning so furiously out-of-control that it caused the entire structure to shudder. We came back to our bikes (after setting them aside with their kickstands) to find them blown over by the wind.


We found the beach near the cemetery and next to the sewage discharge area. It had bones, pumice, and large, smooth boulders with tiny pieces of pumice eroded away by wave action.


The entrance of the cemetery was set by two whale bones.


Returning back from the beach, we stopped by a type of bone-and-machine yard. Rusty graters and whale bones, both looked very pretty in the sunlight. It was still really windy and our bikes had blown over again.


We decided to fly on to another destination. It was windy, dusty, and slightly scary flying out of Savoonga. It seemed like the wind had picked up even more as we were loading the plane. We made our bumpy way off the gravel runway and into the turbulent air.

And that was Savoonga.

------
The senile pilot found a very good article on Savoonga a couple of weeks after our trip. This describes Savoonga better than I ever could: Washington Post's Savoonga

Norway again

May 31st, 2010.

Day 1 of IGS conference.

What a peculiar day. It started out being wide awake every other hour from midnight until five, progressing with an unanticipated Norway-bound phone call at 5:30, and ending… I guess it still hasn’t ended if I’m still writing now.

I “perfected” my presentation and poster at six a.m. After seeing today’s talks, it drastically needs more perfections.

It was nice to see familiar faces around; otherwise, I would have felt like one of those out-of-place kids, not that I’m not.

We found the correct bus and arrived to the conference in due time, minutes to spare really.

We survived the first full day of the conference in the end, took the right direction to the bus stop with a guru scientist questioning my friend and I’s opposite hand signals. We made it fine, took the stop with an intriguing music concert that ended in a strike, joined the strike since it was going in our direction, saw the closed Polaria and the boat on fake ice enclosed in a glass cage, and lastly arrived to a train bar. It had train seats inside, red with faded gold numbers. I was 42 and 43. The bartender was wearing a light blue train personnel’s suit. We didn’t get the bartender’s train jokes until realizing that we were, indeed, in a train bar. A very friendly drunk Norwegian, well… not as drunk as he was about to be, bought us vodka shots because he “loved” my friend’s accent. The locals are always so friendly! Our new friend left immediately to pick up his electric guitar out of a taxi van. We relaxed and confirmed at how surreal everything was while watching snow fall. They played okie cowboy music on the radio and random electric guitar wails came from the new friend sitting in the back. Locals slowly filled the bar, we thanked our new Norwegian friend with multiple hugs and went out into the rain (it had stopped snowing). I made it to Amalie and it was still daylight.

1:27 p.m. Seattle time. 10:27 p.m. Tromso.

Sign off.



June 7th, 2010. I need to call my brother! It’s his birthday.

Later on in the week, we discovered that the train bar, was considered one of the sketchiest bars in town and that “only fisherman and sailors go there” during their times in port. That explains much of what we encountered early on in the evening.

The conference became a blur in the end but was riddled with fantastic speakers. I managed to survive my presentation although I accidentally kept looking at the hour hand instead of the minute hand to pace myself. I finished right on time.

Cod fishing was Wednesday. They take a wooden device with tough string wrapped around it with a lure/hook attached at the end. No bait was needed; the dumb fish were caught immediately, along with the million other fishing lines from everyone else on the same side of the boat. It was fun, cold, drizzly, but we didn’t get to keep the fish. Beer was free – the lowest rate in town has been ~10 USD. Fish chowder was served and the random internationals grouped around outside to make fun of Sarah Palin. We ended up at the Driv, the student bar, for a last drink. I was knackered.

We went to Sommarøy Thursday evening, an island that would have been spectacular in the sunshine. Aqua-marine waters in depths that a person could wade in. If only there was a kayak available… After filling our bellies with authentic Norwegian food (whale) and listening to the many versions of “cheers” (different languages), we went for a wander around the waterways and over the hill past the children’s obstacle course. Spread before us was a place with glaciated peaks with the “real” ocean breaking waves kilometers away. I’ve got to sail here one day.

Friday night was another odd and awesome night. After failing the last exam of my undergraduate career, we went out to find our friend’s house. He was out sealing off the coast of Greenland, but told us to drop by anyway to meet friendly people and find out fun things to do. So we did. We found ourselves transported to a countryside with horses and potatoes. We knocked on all three doors of the house which we were hoping was his… finally an answer at the last door.

We ended up spending the evening with the local grad students, eating, drinking, and speaking mixed languages. We finished up our meal with a drink of coffee and a splash of their home-made brew; I think it was everclear. We even learned new rude phrases which we shouldn’t use in the south.

We then went to a concert; not being the folk music that we thought it was, it was a bit of a surprise to hear Bach being played by a small orchestra. It was pleasant to mellow out because soon after we made our way back into town where it had become party central up and down the streets. And the kebabs! They come out of the woodwork; cheap tasty food. These trucks are even called “Good Food.” Why aren’t these food options here during the daytime? 75 kroner, each.

We ended our night with a drink at Circa – one of the more popular, relaxed bars of Tromsø.



Saturday, I recovered from the night before, worked on my thesis, and ate a delicious chicken sandwich at Blå Rock. It was raining and snowing again.

The next day, I finished my thesis and went for a proper play in the snow on top of a mountain. It was wonderful!! The sun broke through the clouds in random spurts and highlighted the surrounding hills. We saw a paraglider doing turns at insane speeds and then remaining afloat. It was a nice way to spend a final day, especially with the amount of rain and snow fall throughout the week.




Now I am in the Oslo airport, wondering what the next 24 hours will entail in Bergen.


June 28th

I’m excellent at updating this thing.

Bergen was beautiful weather; I got my first tan of the year. I toured around with the scruffy kiwi, the ultimate assistant expedition leader, and got a fantastic deal of delicious food, absorptive historical information and saw some of the most beautiful parts of the town including a short musician’s house on the coast. Landing into the area was a reality check of absolute beauty (it really does exist!). Glaciated islands eased their way up through the ocean, specked with trees, hidden fishing huts with flowered roofs and dinghies spotting the ocean. The water was a mix of a milky turquoise and dark royal blue – seawater and fresh water. I landed as the sun was basking low on the horizon so the lighting made the scene even more idyllic. Of course, I took no pictures.

I left Bergen and arrived to the bustling city of Oslo. Turns out that I got to stay in one of the flashest hotels I’ve ever been to in Norway, directly across from the Opera House, which, just so you know, has a very high albedo. The hotel had an opera theme and the stairwell that nobody took except for me was decorated accordingly. The view from my room overlooked the city center with 1/5 the Oslo Central Station. Trains in Oslo are cool, fast, and very comfortable.

The IPY conference was a fair contrast with IGS. For one, it was magnitudes larger and the rest of the differences ought not to be mentioned.

Afterward the conference, however, was loads of fun. Other than coming to the fact that I’ve played more video games in Norway than I ever have in my life doesn’t mean much, but Norway is genuinely a very fun country. I began my final* night with a delicious Vietnamese cuisine and drinks. It progressed to a slobbering IPY field school reunion at Mono, a trendy bar in downtown Oslo, and ended into the unknown. None of us remember how it ended. But it was great!

The next day was spent in bed, recovering. Granted, the World Cup was on so it wasn’t entirely wasted on being hungover in bed, plus a healthy shower and a meal at 9 pm helped in the end.

The next-next day was more interesting. That day was my tourist day! We were blinded by the Opera House and then went to the sculpture park to mimic the statues. I think this may be one of my hidden talents – mimicking statues, that is. Along the way I knocked on the door of the Nobel door (after Alfred Nobel, Nobel peace prize, etc.). Then we jumped and I broke my foot.

We left that evening, ~22:30ish via train and traveled on a 8ish hour journey into the night towards Stavanger. In the beginning, I was facing forward on the train. When I woke up 8 hours later, I was facing backwards and panicked that we had missed our stop. I can be a dummy sometimes.




Our lovely Norwegian friend had arranged for us to crash at his family’s place for the entire week – we couldn’t have been luckier. It was a dreamland – placed snugly into the fjord with a view of glaciated hills across the fjord.



We hiked Preikestolen, went fishing again and caught cod, mackerel, and a single mystery fish, saw the oil museum in town, visited Kvitsøy and Storhaugen, had a glorious sailtrip to an island, and partook in the family’s solstice party. There were 12 nationalities attending the soiree.




It was very hard to leave Norway this time again because of friends and the country. The next flight was to London Heathrow where a mad adventure of Scilly sailing was about to occur.




This will certainly take more time to type up...

Grad school paranoia

Jesus! April 15th is NEXT week!

Panic is setting in.

Here or there?

5 years or 7?

Atmosphere or Ocean?

Mountains or Coast?

Sea ice or Ice sheets?

Did those other schools forget about my application?


One week to decide... No, I need to send off my decision this weekend. That's ~72 hours to decide. What will happen once I make my decision? Will I make enemies? Friends?

Do these grad school advisers actually care? They must get a kick out of prospective students' stress. I sure would.

But they're not me.


Bugger.


Ice is stressful.

Fruitfly

Finally.

A moment to type, relax, procrastinate finals week exam studies, and ramble.

It sounds like the university is forcing me to graduate. I'm willing... After all, I can't imagine what it'd be like to study something other than a 101-this or 101-that. I've already been scoffed at for thinking how wonderful grad school will be; don't people know what it's like to do your undergrad in 6 years? How couldn't grad school be wonderful compared to that?

I visited one of the schools I was accepted into. I loved it. Never in my educational career had I felt like such a rock star. Don't they know who I am? (or who I'm certainly not??) These schools didn't even force modeling* upon me. My gosh.

Though I haven't made any concrete decisions yet, I'm concocting a half-trans-American roadtrip this summer. Now that I have a taste of what to expect, I can plan my hiking and climbing trips accordingly, without the stress of having to secure a new home in a mad dash. The adventure possibilities are endless! What's even more fun is suckering people into tagging along.


In other news:

- It's set in stone that I'm presenting in Norway in June. No pressure.
- Polar Science Weekend is fun; children are nuts.
- I can make a mean lasagna, via my very own recipe.
- I'm thinking New Zealand is in my future for Christmas, 2010.

In other, other news:
- I'm still employed.
- I followed my dad up a mountain and am alive to tell about it.


Love,
Melinda


*I find modeling difficult.



Photo of some day!



Here is me on another "10-minute" hike on North Star Mountain with the senile father leading the way. And yes, I'm warming my hands up on my belly because it was below freezing.

Busy as an Apis dorsata laboriosa

Apis dorsata laboriosa, or the Himalayan honey bee, is the largest honey bee of the honey bee species.

The reason I bring up bees is for three reasons:

#1 There's more daylight outside, some of my plants are starting to grow back, and it just might be getting slightly warmer which means gardening can commence! And with gardens commencing, bees will be back in business. I love honey bees.

#2 I've been very busy.

#3 I'm craving summer.


The New Year has brought a lot of wonderful things already, minus the first few days of food-poisoning (is this a new-found unconscious habit that I'm fueling? see last new year's blog entry).

The last few months have passed at lightning speed.

- I went to my first conference/workshop in Victoria, Canada in November. I gave one of the lousiest presentations of my life. Quite similar to my first Glacier Bay one.

- I completed final exams in retro-style by having the flu during finals week again. I got A's again! I'm beginning to think that there might be some benefits with the flu...

- I climbed like a mad-woman. I took my first lead-climbing and scared the crap out of myself by taking a large fall, on purpose. No injuries.

- I spent Christmas in a blizzard in Kansas with horses, cats, fish, a dog, and family.

- I went to Oklahoma. Kansas. Colorado. New Mexico. Texas. Minnesota. Washington.

- I got my senior thesis approved! Now to write it...


Writing-required school papers can be fun, but it also takes a lot out of being able to write freely in a blog. I mean, here, right in this spot, I can write without a single reference and create a run-on sentence about my senile father's driving habits that nearly made me puke on the way back from Colorado through the sand dunes where we climbed to the top where one side was completely frozen and the other was perfectly wind-blown and it was neat.

Graduate school application season is over for U.S. schools, excluding Alaska. Next is Norway's, Australia's and Alaska's applications.

These applications are the potential gateways to new endeavors/significant changes in life. The best way I've found to cope with filling out these powerfully tedious documents is with a glass of wine, ~941,421,214 proofreads, and a hug. There's nothing quite like grad school limbo to keep you on edge...

My next scheme is the potential European tour I'm concocting. Now all I need to do is make it happen, although I'm not sure if convincing chairs of departments to let you take final exams early is always an easy thing to do. BUT, the symposiums ARE a legitimate case. Let's hope they think so too. I'll find out this week, I hope.


What the food-poisoned sand-dune hike felt like:

White Christmas

It's supposed to snow tomorrow.

And the next day.


I'm headed for the mountains.

Summertime

I wore my sunglasses yesterday for the first time in two weeks. What does that mean exactly? It means the rainy season has begun in the Pacific Northwest. I think the fly stuck at my desk window is as frustrated as I am at the rather abrupt change in weather. At least I'm keeping you heated, Bug!

But c'est la vie! Why complain about the weather when I know fully-well the routine? Maybe I can pinpoint the frustration to a lack of snow... the elongated time between summer and winter, when all the colorful leaves have dropped and it's just simply wet and dark.

But what's weather matter when you're underground? That's right. In a cave. Last weekend I went on my first "real" lava tubing experience at Mount St. Helens. It was fun and I can now understand the urge to do unintentionally-stupid maneuvers and get stuck in a hole; there were so many nooks and crannies to explore! And being a rather petite person, this was my element. I'm going back in November.

The following days delivered a differential equations exam, which in all honesty, provided some comfort in being tested in a plug-n-chug method. No thought required.

The subsequent days brought about a research cruise through Puget Sound and the abominable GRE. The cruise was more fun. I poked at methane bubbles in a sediment core, watched someone squeeze a peanut worm, and lost my interest in zooplankton yet again.

I did not study for the GRE this time. It was a decision made both due to despair and lack of time. It turns out that combination increases math scores.

I celebrated that night in attendance of a potluck and party. The end-of-the-week cognitive-deprivation was felt the next day at 7 am for an early morning hike. It was crisp and sunny. We saw turkeys and grouse.

And I now feel 50% better about my personal statement for UW.

The end.

Verbs!

Saturday morning, I left my apartment to participate in a $190 exam that would weigh my future in getting into grad school. After nearly crying after the quantitative part, I continued on with the verbal. I thought I aced it. What's nice about this GRE exam is that you immediately receive your scores.

I rejoiced. I did MUCH better on the math than I thought! And acing the verbal? Maybe I didn't do so hot.

Then I went home brain-dead and packed. In 30 minutes. Then I walked around town for hours.

Then I went to the airport the following day in the drowning rain. Not sure what to do with myself after being accustomed to stress-study-for-your-dear-life mode, I had a beer with a lime that was way too large to squeeze into the bottle. I put up a decent struggle and realized I had an audience. Then I hopped on a plane and slept for 6.5 hours for the first time on a flight. Is this how it's normally done?

I woke up in Heathrow for brunch and it was sunny! Well mostly cloudy with holes.

My Fantastic English friends were already on their way to pick me up - how wonderful it was to bypass the tube, bus, or train with my luggage and to see them immediately. We toured Oxford, where truly remarkable stone structures are called schools, and "Keep Off the Grass" signs are littered everywhere. It was beautiful. How do students manage to stay off the grass?

Approximately two hours later, we shot stuff.

Much to my delight, I am a great shot with my eyes shut. Then we ate a Norwegian Flag of bread before a magnificent feast. So the Fantastic English, much like the majority of the world, know how to use a knife properly during their supper time. Needless to say, I think they were impressed with my cutlery skills, or lack thereof. At least it provided some entertainment for my hosts.

The following day, we said our goodbyes to the Fantastic Englishwoman headed to America-land. Godspeed, though I secretly knew she'd be fine if she lives with that much arsenal.

The remaining Fantastic Englishman and I had oodles of time - a whole day! So what do you do with free time? Head on over to the Safari Park of course!

We found rhinos and marmosets, and promptly sat in the sunshine for a solid 359,124,412 hours in sheer animal bliss, reminiscing the Arctic. Then we saw an extremely violent film for fun. It was a treat.

The next morning we woke up very early, much to the Fantastic Englishman's delight. I was kicked out at Heathrow again so I could make my way north and find Bergen. And I did! I arrived that evening in a daze, found my accommodation on the first try, and even found my Awesome Norwegian Friend who gave me a whirlwind tour of Bergen at night. Simply great! So great, I even wore flipflops.

I went to the Bjerknes Centre for Climate Research the following day to meet with contacts that I had hoped would offer good news on a masters program. Luckily for me, Bjerknes was on the opposite side of town so I got to try out my navigation skills and sight-see along the way. I took a shortcut, got lost, asked for help, and sprinted in the hopefully correct direction to make it to my appointment on time. After perhaps 6+ hours, I found out a whole lot of good news and made my way back through the town in a refreshing downpour of precipitation. I was wearing flipflops this day too.

I had to return to Bjerknes the next day to meet with one last person whose office proved to be evasive. Of course, I had forgotten his name so I ended up finding every crook and cranny at Bjerknes except the Unknown Last Person's office. It was well past our appointment time when a colleague showed me his office. We met for 25 minutes.

Returning back into the hordes of precipitation, I discovered penguins and lovely little parks along the way. This day I wore proper shoes; they were soaked through and through.

But enough of that day, I had to prepare for tomorrow! I was going on my Awesome Norwegian Friend's Glacier. What should have been a cake walk to get there proved to be madness, but thankfully I made friends with the loveliest bus driver in the world, Tøre. He looked like a jolly wizard.

There was an accident in a mountain tunnel which delayed our trip, making us miss the boat across the fjord, which then decided to wait for us, but then decided to skip Herand (where I needed to go) so I took another bus to Tørvikbygd and caught a ferry just as it was leaving for Herand, where the Awesome Norwegian Friend immediately picked me up and we teared up through the mountains with a firm grip on the "oh sh*t" handles in the vehicle. She was a good, fast driver.

We arrived with tourists geared up. It was pouring rain and windy, but I didn't mind. Glaciers are fantastic any time of the day unless you're lost, hypothermic, hate glaciers, dislike ice, etc. I loved it. It felt so nice to have crampons on.

That night stretched on with Norwegian and American beers and great company. We scampered together around noon the next day to head out into "the islands" for a day of international rock-climbing.

And Jesus! It was sunny!

Clear, blue sky. Some wind. Simply beautiful on smooth, glacial landscapes surrounded by the sea. My final day couldn't have been better, enclosed by stunning surroundings, sticky climbing rocks, and very lovely friends.

As soon as we returned to Bergen, we raced up Mt Fløyen for a pleasant view of sunset. Evening was spent with a lamb kebab and a final stroll around town before an early morning out.

Then it was hard to leave, again.

The Norwegian and English Adventure

What a wonderful trip.

More to come.

Comfort Zone Syndrome

Oh the sounds of Norwegian cd lessons in the morning...

I have approximately 15 days until my trip to check out the university in Bergen via London. Along with English (GRE material), I thought it necessary to learn some Norwegian other than pick-up lines and rude slang today.

Ever since I've been back from Norway, I've been on a nonstop roller-coaster in figuring out the next 24 months. It can be slightly or entirely overwhelming to have so many options - how do you make the best decision? Which benefits your brain the most? What about mentally? For instance, I could not see myself living in New York City but I could, however, see myself living (happier) in some hole somewhere in the Arctic, "as long as I was getting a good education" rationality says.

So moving on with grad school and possibly away from Seattle... brings me back to moving to Seattle. I didn't believe I'd actually do it. I had lived in Oklahoma my entire 21 years. The first two weeks seemed like vacation really; I drove with the scruffy kiwi to Colorado where we tried mastering the mountain range from various angles. Then I was off like a poof of wind! Or rather, like a very cautious but excited young girl trying to navigate her way through the western U.S. yet arriving in Seattle on time to catch a flight to another land.

This is how it was. Sunny. It didn't rain on me once. I drove through the windy roads of the western Rockies, slipping out into nothingness with tired semis and vacationing minivans on a hot cement road that would supposedly bring me to arches - and not McDonald's.

I stopped by a riverbed for lunch and ate a sandwich. Everyone there was either with their families or friends. I left shortly after consumption, wondering what I was doing here.

I checked into a typical hotel on the outskirts of Arches National Park. I had driven for 7 hours but there was still time to get out to the park for sunset. I drove, explored, climbed and brought my then new camera for company. I'll never forget driving along the park at sunset with fuchsia boulders rising up on either side of me. I was on my own and it was neat.

The next day I was off again, but this time I had a mission to meet up with my senile mother and her friends in Salt Lake City. This was nice... not just because it cut my driving time down, but because there was familiarity after the first 24+ hours alone on the desert road. And there was beer and stories.

I left Salt Lake City with a bold plan to go slightly off the beaten track to John Day National Monument to see the Painted Hills. It seems that not many people have heard of this area which made it a real treat to see on one's own. The Painted Hills were not the only attraction it turned out - every region of the monument had its specialty. Blue hills, dinosaur fossils, layers of colorful sands and rock everywhere. I had largely underestimated it's size... I ended up driving for the longest stretch of my life. Getting there was simple enough but leaving nearly took me into insanity with steep, windy concentration-needed roads for hours and hours and hours.

I nearly reached my limit but I was unsure of how safe it'd be for a girl to sleep in a car on the side of the road in these not-too-wild hills. I decided not very and drove until fields of wind mills appeared. I didn't think I was at the insanity point of envisioning Don Quixote but they were there - lots of them. Yellow flowers filled the ground below them and stretched on forever. I didn't know where the heck I was but it was pretty special. Just in time for sunset too.

I think I ended up staying in Pendleton or Kennewick. I was exhausted at this point and checked into the motel I had booked the previous night. Usually I'm not too particular about where I sleep, but for the first time in my life, I was extremely aware that I was the only female in the motel area... which turned out to be a stop for semi-trucks on their long-haul across the states. I double-locked my room that night and high-tailed it in the early morning.


My last sight-seeing stop was to be Mt. Rainier National Park that day but not without driving through one of the longest desert roads in the world, I think. I was on top of a hill cradled by two larger hills on either side that stretched beyond the horizon. I stopped the car, stood outside and breathed. I forget how nice it is to do that sometimes. I got back in the car, barely pushing on the accelerator to see how fast I could go with gravity. I loved that moment, minus running over a ground squirrel.


I was soon in the National Forest with random views breaking through the trees of Mt. Rainier. It was stunning. For the first time on the trip one of my plans didn't work - the national park roads had been damaged by floods earlier in the season so I was sent off to the Emerald City sooner than planned. I had no other options - I could have happily turned around and gone back to the deserts which is what I nearly did. I had to find a place to live, I guess. My two-lane road suddenly turned to five. There were more cars than I had ever imagined. And then there was the city in all its gloriously intimidating manner.

Over two years later, here I am, wondering what's next.

Svalbard Spiel

It's been nearly a week since I've been back from Svalbard. It was a true, once in a blue moon, amazing experience. This is where I hit a block in trying to describe why the trip was so fascinating, how it impacted my brain, and what actually happened.

To get around this conundrum, I actively kept a journal while I was there! I'll just add excerpts that may translate my high latitude attachment... enjoy.


"30+ hours later, here I am, Longyearbyen. What a trip it was to get here, between final exams and getting credit logistics worked out, I finally made it one piece. I'm beginning to think I'll get very little sleep on this trip already..."

"...I'm awake! I woke up amazing refreshed and slightly panicked that maybe I had accidentally slept in. The clock says 3:00 am. Bugger..."

"...Tomorrow is dooms day with rifles, but we get to go swimming in immersion suits too. After the first intro day, I think it's safe to say that the program coordinators selected a pretty dang good group of people with outlandish experiences and backgrounds beyond normal. Let's hope I can keep up..."

"...Today was a beautiful and relatively warm day. I was completely out of it this morning but the lectures were again, amazing, especially the geology and glaciology. The field work today reminded me of a mining camp - we marked 4x4 meter squares and threw all of the contained rocks in a pile to weigh them. All of this occurred on an avalanche slope. It wasn't too terribly entertaining except when a tiny avalanche occurred directly above us..."

"...yay another night of sleep soon. Today was a day of permafrost and avalanches. We took an excursion to Endalen, close to where the Rock Festival was held a few days back. We checked out the permafrost depth and ice wedge research. It was very sunny, cold and the valley stretched for miles with white plateaus at the end and even more impressive mountains and glaciers off in the far distance. Now that is a run-on sentence!..."

"...We started at 8:30 with fog and freezing at the top of Sugarsomething Top. We split into 3 groups - I stuck with the fast group which turned out to be the best thing since we were able to go to so many peaks and finally find the sun along the ridge. My hip's destroyed but it was definitely worth it. There seems to be a fancy dinner awaiting us at the SAS hotel which is perfect after building up a monstrous appetite. We slid a good and fast distance along the snow on the way down, which was probably the best part. And yes, of course there was a snowball fight..."

"....bloody solstice..."

"...A field day! And an improvised one at that. We started off earlier than usual, only to find out a cruise ship was blocking our research ship. But today proved to be really fun in the end. We were late to the biology field work where we found bugs and dug up a lot of dirt. It was also pretty damn cold for a cloudy day. The sun broke out during the oceanography bit and we had a wonderful/stunning ride back in a huge zodiac. The BBQ topped the day off..."

"...We're back from Kapp Linné and it was a pretty fun trip. The boat ride was by far my favorite, and the hiking was fantastic. My hip isn't sore! The geology was amazing - so many millions of ages of rocks and some of the oldest I've ever seen, as well as loads of fossils. We saw the cliff where they found dinosaur tracks too. The hungover boat ride there wasn't nearly as awful as I thought it would be - lots of fun, and lots of photos. I've finally seen an Atlantic Puffin and walruses! Very cool. We had a major hike yesterday. I was carried across a few "raging torrent" rivers but my boots still got soaked. Funny place, we weren't allowed to walk between the buildings alone and without a rifle due to polar bears. We posed in 900 kroner bath robes with a rifle at midnight. We stopped in Barentsburg this afternoon and ate some pretty unique food. The place looked completely run down - once colorful buildings with cracked woods and sooty windows. It's an old Russian mining community. It's hard to imagine living there, I hope they have a choice. The cliffs of Spitsbergen remind me so much of the Aleutians - simply beautiful..."

"...The last evening was the absolute best. My abs are sore from laughing. It's such a shame that the field school was so short. There are quite a few people that I'll never forget from this experience. Bloody hell, it's only 9:00 and my flight's at 1:00. I'm in desperate need of a shower; probably not the best time for wearing long underwear in record high weather at the Olso airport. One of the best memories of the night was getting a great view of Longyearbyen as the sun came out, pretty special. The entire IPY crew had such good energy, it was really difficult to say goodbye. There's a lot to carry on for future experiences I guess. Man, am I out of it. And stink. This journal is ridiculous."

Holy moon.

My gosh. Tonight is the first time in my life that I've seen the moon in 3D without a telescope. My brain's been registering it in 2D this entire time.

What a treat.

I successfully made Gazpacho for dinner. It was a balmy 81.5 degrees out today which means my apartment will turn into a furnace shortly.

Friday was an excellent walking day. I walked for a few miles for errands and to shake off the intentional failed exam yesterday morning. We can drop the lowest out of three, that was mine.

Ah yes, pre-final exam week. It's like the calm before the storm. My body is wearing itself out before it's getting its workout. I've paced around the apartment, did my homework, did lots of reading, played some music, cleaned, cooked, cleaned, did more reading, and thought a whole lot.

...and I went on the most wondrous bike ride too. It was my first ride in possibly 8 months. My body rejoiced. I sweated! I got the better half of a runner's high on my uphill way home. I absolutely can't wait to do it again.

But that's a bit of the problem for bursitis so I've contained myself from physical exercise for the next few days to be polite to my hip. It can be frustrating sometimes. We've had three solid weeks of beautiful weather and rolling around on the floor doing physical therapy exercises doesn't seem to be quite as fulfilling.

Departure to Svalbard is approaching. I've scoured the internet and discovered these fantastic links:

Longyearbyen

Svalbard

Longyearbyen

Yay!!! It snowed there over the weekend. I find packing most difficult when the weather is 180 of what it is at my current location. I am, however, definitely packing a swimsuit.

The last time I was there, I can't even remember if I knew we were going there beforehand. I went with my senile parental units and the Bigottos, whose father is actually as senile as my father. My father was the only one who went swimming that day. My warmest clothes were cotton socks, tennis shoes, and a cotton hoodie purchased during a summer trip to South Carolina. We didn't see any polar bears. Half of us crossed a "raging torrent" of a river via a very friendly Norwegian's back and discovered a multitude of large fossils. Then we had a cup of tea. I think Longyearbyen was the place where I ordered Arctic Char and received a menacing-looking fish with sharp, pointy teeth on a plate. I've wanted to go back ever since.

I think I'll bring a frisbee this time and ditch the cotton.


Here's a link to our trip from ages ago. We went via Greenland, Iceland, Lofotens to Svalbard. Don't worry, it's all photos.

North of Northern Europe

.

Where to?

I'm still not adequately studying. I did, however, open the powerpoint lecture notes and give them a quick lookover, meaning I looked at the pretty pictures and ignored the words.

After a holiday on Monday my brain has become permanently on vacation. I'm already carrying out plans for summer extravaganzas. All of the gallivanting begins immediately after the biology final where I'll vacate the country to Denmark, I think?

Yes, I'll fly away to Denmark, then Norway, and then Norway. I'll end up in Svalbard at 11:30 pm which will be okay in terms being scared of the dark and polar bears since the midnight sun will be out. In fact, I'll experience solstice above the arctic circle for the very first time. This really excites me.

Svalbard is a very beautiful part of the world and it even feels like another world. It's normal to carry a rifle outside of the city for safety. It has a huge coal mining economy. It has less than 2,000 people living there. It got bombed during WWII. It has glaciers and flowers. It has loads of fossils of tropical plants larger than my hands.

I'm tempted to change my ticket to stop in the Lofoten Islands. It's probably the most beautiful place I've ever been lucky enough to travel to.

Last weekend my parental units stopped by and kidnapped the kiwi and I. We ended up in Friday Harbor and watched Star Trek. It was a really nice.

In thrilling news, our potted plants are growing! And fast, too. I'm expecting a jungle when I return.

And lastly, I'm still employed!

Photo of some years ago:

babble of a brainless numbskull.

It was 20:46 on a cold and drizzly night... curled up at the desk with a glass of wine and a physics book with world pop blasting on a crackling clock radio. That clock said 20:56. Apparently there's a wormhole between that and my desk again.

I've been reading for too many hours. It's my turn to write something!!!

I'm starting to succumb to Mid-Quarter Crisis. It's sort of like this.

but enormously worse.

I'm trying to think real hard about how truly exciting the summer extravaganzas will be. Three bloody weeks. Am I a whiner or what...

I'm also thinking how much of a pain it will be to chat with my TA tomorrow. He speaks english but unfortunately, the material is still a foreign language to me, as is our course book too.

Also there's physics lab tomorrow. This usually sets fairly low on my happiness scale. I wake up with the mindset that I'm going into battle, yet I'm only equipped with a spoon; the enemies have the lab answer keys and maximized egos.

One of the most brilliant things I have to look forward to is no more lower-division labs or courses after this quarter. I am OFFICIALLY where I ought to have been approximately 3,552 year ago. I think this may be worth celebrating.

Of other slight concern, I think I'm still hired?

Last week was a brilliant birthday week. I am very, very happy to have the friends and family that I do. Thanks.

Photo of two weeks ago:


Cheesus, I need to study now.

Darn it, dilemma

Somebody's hijacked some of my photos without my permission. Normally I wouldn't mind except they're using them for profit which is a real bummer.

I did the right thing and wrote the company an email in both Spanish and English and twice.

I received a quick reply, and an apology which made me feel a whole lot better.

Though now, the photos are still on their site...

This gives me three options:
1) Be passive! They're probably very busy. Don't be a jerk.
2) Send a friendly reminder, but maybe in three languages this time. Nice or mean okay.
3) Let loose the hackers. There's no way they can be traced back to you.

... I guess I'll give them a couple weeks. And in the meantime, my website might be having a few major malfunctions as I update everything with those incredibly annoying watermarks. Jerks.


Other news: I'm hired!

But more details later until some brilliant unfolding decisions occur...

Picture of yesterday:

ooooooh dear.

It's begun.

I saw a small glimpse of sunshine during a 45+ temperature streak this week that's made me begin outlining my summer plans. Should I... go find/lose myself? Do something productive? constructive? destructive?

All sound equally good and fun which makes this outline quite challenging. Good thing I've been given a dumpster-full of incentives to aid me in the decision-making.

I, Melinda Annie Webster, have chosen... to get a job.

There are clear distinctions in this approach than previous choices - I will not be a vagrant. I will be gainfully employed and possibly constructive. I will be static.

What an exciting endeavour. Now all I need to do is get hired.

Other news.

I survived another quarter of physics! Finals week was simply amazing. I had a bad case of man flu and feverishly took my finals, brilliantly getting below average marks yet passing the courses with flying colours! Just, wow.

Then I flew to Oklahoma and slept, bicycled, and took a picture of the Pryor Creek Bridge on the Nature Trail.

2009

I have a math exam this morning.

What better time to update a blog with the unprecedented inspiration to write.

Actually I woke up much earlier today so that I could study. Getting up this early entails slow-movements and partial cynicism that I’m not yet in reality and possibly in my last dream of the morning. Brilliant for crappy writing.

It’s February but that’s no reason not to talk about January. It’s been a reeling year already – lots of people having lots of babies, New new year’s resolutions, a new quarter, and hey! New calendars (although we’re currently still using 2008; I changed it to February).

I started off my year in New Zealand and grumpily came back to school. I snapped out of grumpiness once I realized we’d been circling in the air for an hour or so well past our ETA. Snow? Are my shoes accessible in my check-in luggage?

Luggage took a while – my luggage caused four luggage trucks to jack-knife into a snowbank. At this stage I was laughing, half to the situation, half to jetlag. There were so many grumpy people around who really ought to practice scowling.

Anyhoo, I got home and went to class. I came up with a new year’s resolution to cook more often. That plan of action came about the next day.

That plan of action backfired on Saturday when I got a healthy bout of food-poisoning. I lived off of crackers and Gatorade for the rest of the week. The next week I ate out ~85% of the time and did not cook.

My next new year’s resolution was to stretch and eat more meat (since vegetables tried to kill me the prior week).

So far I’m alive. This one’s a keeper for now.

February is internship application season. Madness, I say.

The end.