Day 16

So apparently GRE scores do not predict lunch packing ability. The end of last week at work was very stressful. It seems that I am not very good at packing lunches (yet?). Although the guides tell me that we have been complimented on our delicious sandw

iches, some of the other pragmatics have been falling through the cracks, and Nicole and I have been reprimanded repeatedly. Now we have to make

to-do lists with little check boxes on them and write every task on those lists to make sure that they get done. I considered suggesting that we move t

o a smiley-face system (smiley faces mean you get fun free time, straight faces are neutral, frowney faces mean you are put in time out to cool off), like the one that I use with Max in Chapel Hill, but I didn’t because I am kind of scared of my manager these days. The micro-managing is getting a little bit out of hand, as are the after-hours text messages or hand-written notes letting me and Nicole know about th

e things we missed or didn’t do correctly that day. On Sunday, Rece called me while I was working in the cache to make me come over to the kitchen and see that I had put the large mixing bo

wl in the industrial dishwasher upside-down, and that when the cycle ended the bowl was filled with water. Oh no! A large bowl is filled with water and sitting above a giant drain. I have not the slightest inkling as to how to remedy this problem. Perhaps we should call a higher up on the walkie-talkie to come and assist us in dealing with this mess.

However, I am confident that I can do a better job this week in not forgetting any details. And hopefully that will translate to less micro-managing on the part of our boss. We will see.

Brian (yes- he is finally here!) and I had Monday and Tuesday off. On Monday we had a lazy day and watched a movie, did some tent-cleanin

g (he still had to move all of his stuff in) and shelf-building, played Bananagrams, and went to bed early. Yesterday, we went hiking on Ptarnigan trail. The first half-mile or so was very ugly because they were d

oing a lot of trail construction, which involves tearing everything up so they can improve it. But the rest of the hike was very pretty. We pretty much hiked into a cloud, so I got very wet, but as long as I was moving I wasn’t cold. Brian p

ointed out lots of interesting plants that would flower and grow blueberries and raspberries and cranberries at end of July or the beginning of August. It will be fun to come

back once the berries grow. The trail en

ded at one of the most gorgeous lakes I have ever seen. It was so pretty.

After our hike we came back and got cleaned up and then went out to dinner in town at a place called The Kingfisher. They have a deck with a very pretty view of the water and lots of delicious food. The portions are gigantic, though. I think that I ate my weight in pasta. I am not going to be hungry for a week. Maybe I’ll just hibernate for a few days.

It’s chilly and rainy today; a good day for a sauna after work. Every time I go into the sauna I think of Jake’s Finland project and the popsicle-stick sauna that my mom made with the pipe-cleaner men inside of it. The sauna

was bigger than any of the mountains in the country. That’s what Finland is known for. Giant saunas.

A final note for friends and family: Mail is a major status symbol up here. People take their mail very seriously as it is proof to the rest of the mailbox-goers that somewhere in the real world people care about you enough to send you something. Thus, my address is 16520 Sterling Hwy,

Cooper Landing, AK 99572. Send me things!