Homequeasy

There's no getting around it.  I miss home.  A lot.  More, I think, than I have ever missed home.

And this is not a vague, familiar feeling of home that involves college and extended family.  No, I miss being in Anchorage specifically.

I miss the library and my room that keeps out the sunlight at night.  I miss Kincaid, and I miss driving Dad's car.  I miss my high school friends.  And most of all, I miss my parents.

Even if saying that makes me sound like a homesick 7-year-old at a slumber party.  But I kind of feel like a homesick 7-year-old at a slumber party.

Except I'm 19.

And I should be past the point where I feel like crying when I think about all the things I'm missing this summer.  I should be past the point where I spend a large amount of time despondently wondering what on earth I am doing up here, in a tent, for three whole months.

But I'm not.  And I miss home.  And I miss everything.

Disconnected summer

I climbed a mountain on Thursday.

That's what I do here.  I hike and read and sleep and work.  I take walks and look at the mountains.  It's a slow, introspective kind of life.  There are no text messages to answer, no constant connection to the internet.  I take my time tying my shoes, and I always rush through tying my shoes.

I sort of like this disconnected state.

Mountain girl

By no stretch of the imagination am I an outdoorsy-mountain-climbing-granola-eating girl.  I mean, I go on the occasional hike.  And ok, I do put granola in my yogurt.  But I'm not really a mountain girl.

Except I think this whole living in a tent for three months might put me a little closer to mountain girl territory.  Not to mention the backcountry hiking (since there are no people here, there are also no trails).

Teresa and I found a meadow yesterday.  And then we got sort of lost in the woods, because, well, that's how I operate.

Tent life

Currently I live in a tent.

It is a very spacious tent.  And the floor is wood.  I even sleep on a cot.  But it is still a tent.  It does not do a very good job of keeping out the 24-hour-sun, or the cold, or the heat, or the mosquitoes (the latter just seem to find their way into every part of my life here).

Recap and precap

In half an hour I will be 19 years old.  I generally do not like years in which I am an even numbered age, so I'm really excited about this.  But for all its evenness, 18 has been a pretty good year.  In the last 365 days I have:

1. Graduated from high school
2. Started college
3. Gotten the best job ever reporting and blogging for the Sun Star
4. Gotten my wisdom teeth out
5. Gone to Ecuador to visit my best friend
6. Found an excellent ottoman at the dump
7. Finished my first year of college

18 has been an adventure, that's for sure.  But it won't even compare to 19.

In a week, I'm heading up to Coldfoot, Alaska.  A truck stop and tourist destination on mile 175 of the Dalton Highway.  I'll be working 50 hours a week, living in a tent, hiking, writing, jumping, and blogging.  Although the blogging will be much more intermittent because I generally lack inspiration in the summer, and I'm not sure how much I'll be on the computer.  But the blog will be here and updated on a semi-regular basis, so make sure you check in every once in a while to see how the uke is doing so far north.

And then at the end of August, I move from my tent in the Arctic to Florence, Italy with a brief stop in Anchorage.  I'm pretty confident in saying that I might experience a bit of culture shock in that move.

And as much as I can't wait, I'm really enjoying pushing that anxious anticipation aside, and watching my bro PR at regions, eating Mooses Tooth with my parents, and sitting in my backyard playing some ukulele.  My adventure will come.  But in the meantime, I have friends to visit, books to read, and songs to play.

And leaving is surprisingly bittersweet

Right now, I'm packing up my room, cramming for finals, and inventorying everything and everyone I need to say goodbye to here.

This first year of college has been fun and awful.  Long and short.  Easy and hard.  Cold, with a few weeks of warmth.  At one point or another, I've hated dorm life, the music program, cafeteria food, intro classes, and subzero temperatures.  At one point, I hated it so much here that I decided to move to another country.

But then I've also loved it.  Especially in the last month or so, I've discovered this niche I fit into where I write articles every week, and eat breakfast, lunch, and dinner with Denali.  I've spent the year working for an awesome paper, where I've learned a bajillion million things.  I've made some seriously excellent friends.  I declared a major in something I'm genuinely happy to be studying.  I scored a goal in broomball, I learned how to bellydance, I get paid to blog, and the sun is just starting to come out.

Really, now that I'm about to leave, I'm discovering I like it here.