I solemnly swear that I am up to no good: Look who decided to show her face again!

One Norwegian Alaskan in Madison.

Look who decided to show her face again!

Published Saturday, July 23, 2005 by Sarah | E-mail this post

listening to: MF Doom - Operation Doomsday

Good God, people! Where the hell did I go? I'm just shy of two months under official MIA status. Sorry about that. Since the start of June a wee bit has happened...

I wrapped up my junior year at SU pretty damn well - no more O Chem, no more Instrumental Analysis, and only one more core class left. Next year is all biochem, more physical chem, microbiology, genetics, and some advanced inorganic chem. I'm getting excited just listing it all off...

Right after finals I said goodbye to my two lovely housemates and hello to three new ones for the summer. Last summer was a crazy merry-go-round of four different people in three months, but this time we're good for the whole stretch. They're all awesome, sweet, and independent. It helps to finally be living with a guy again - all my girls are chill, but too much estrogen makes me feel crowded and like I want to chew my arm off to escape.

I was just getting to know each of them and vice versa - between the four of us we've got science nerds, quasi-nerds, partiers, and chillers - when my Epic Roadtrip to the Frozen North came around!

At some point in the last few months Sarah and I thought it would be cool to drive up to Alaska for a few weeks and go crazy. We kept bringing it up as a "wouldn't it rock if...?", but this one morphed into a "hey, Chris is down with the trip and he has a car, so...", and then into a "when do we leave?". Sadly, it continued with a "hey, Chris can't come because he's got committments in Idaho", but was rescued by a very generous "hey, my parents have offered up their car for the beating" on Sarah's part. So two girls just off the finals crunch and one donated car combined into an awesome adventure. I still haven't developed all my 35mm photos, but I'll throw them up soon.

In the mean time digital is all you get. Here're a few shots for your viewing pleasure:

Sarah grew up in more temperate climes with vast quantities of non-frozen water, and so was unprepared for the instant tongue-to-ice bond that forms when attempting to lick a glacier...

Thank god for the ice monster, who rushed out of her little ice cave so ferociously that Sarah's tongue quickly freed itself out of abject fear!

This was a super-tall ice monster, too! So tall that her sasquatch brother could only look on in resignation, knowing that he'd never be that tall...unless he stood on a log too...

The ice monster was pretty damn happy to have such awesome company, so she promised not to make many more scary zombie noises...at least at night...

Those are the shots for the night, but here's a sweet teaser for later: we got stalked by a grizzly during a backpacking trip in Denali National Park! Everyone I've verbally interacted with since returning (unscathed) from the trip has heard this tale in full, in at least one of its multiple forms, but now you get to too. Feeling lucky yet?

At this point I feel like cocknballs, so peace out. I've been waking up the last three days in a row with a pounding headache, light and noise sensitivity, and major dehydration, so I feel like shit. I'd call it a hangover, but I haven't had a drink in a week. It's got to be some form of the flu, and it's taking its sweet-ass time about it. That, or I accidentally ate some of the compound I'm synthesizing in my lab.

Hmm...

Cheers!