The last of summer 2012 in the last frontier

Tonight feels like Christmas Eve!!  Tomorrow I will be boarding a plane (first class no less!) to go to North Carolina AND Mumford & Sons sophomore album Babel is released!!  I’ve already preordered the album on iTunes, so I cannot wait until it just pops up in my playlists ready to serenade me on my 12 hour journey to NC. 

                I haven’t been back to the South since March – six months is such a long time but it feels like it was just last week I was coming home for the first time.  I’m so anxious to see how things go, how things and people make me feel.  Six months ago I was in a completely different place, physically and mentally.  I had just quit a job that was slowly killing the person and nurse I am, I was living the Valley, which was a great place but severely lacked the social scene to keep me busy, and I was also in the home stretch of enduring one of the most epic winters south central Alaska has ever experience.  So needless to say, I was emotionally spent on all accounts.  Going home was an escape of this life I had in Alaska, a break in the constant challenges I was facing. 

                Now, I am in a much better place.  I immensely enjoy my new job.  I haven’t mentioned much about what my new job entails, but in a nutshell I work at an Oncology clinic where I administer chemotherapy and supportive medications to patients currently being treated for various cancers.  It was definitely more a comfort zone feeling than the hospital in the valley because of my previous experience at Duke, but since it is an outpatient setting, the cancers we deal with are mostly solid tumor which uses completely different chemotherapy treatments.  Learning about all of those drugs and also the flow of outpatient (8-5 M-F, no nights, weekends or holidays, woohoo!!) working, made for a lot of learning.  My coworkers are great and very supportive and I am happy to go to work every day.   

                I also live in Anchorage now, which has been night and day in my social life.  Only living 5-15 minutes from pretty much anything and anywhere in town, it is so easy to make plans and to get out and do different things.  Anchorage isn’t the most exciting place as far as variety in things to do, but just to be in a place with options and more people has helped me a lot. 

                This summer has been disappointing according to the locals.  It has rained a lot and been pretty cloudy/chilly.  The sunny days were few and far between, but I did my best to make it what I could.  The 22 hours of sunlight were definitely something interesting to experience and to get used to.  It was really easy to have the time fly by and next thing you know its 11pm and you just ate dinner. 

                One of the best endings to my Alaskan summer was the AK State Fair!  Was a typical fair experience, with fatty food and fast scary rides.  But what made it awesome was that I got to see the Avett Brothers there!  First time seeing them in concert and they were great.  They’re a fold rock band that originated from Concord, NC, so it felt a little like home hearing their accents in between songs. 

                The other great thing that happened this summer was my first roommate in Alaska got married!!  Marie has been such a great support to me in my AK adventure and it was wonderful to see her so happy and in love.  The venue was at her parents property on an air strip.  They had a taco bar and eventually flew away in a Cessna!! How much more Alaskan can you get????  Then they flew back over the crowd and Marie threw her bouquet and cake out of the window.  Then they went to Hawaii the next day for a 2 week honeymoon. 

 

                I’ve gotten some good hiking and adventuring in while trying to squeeze the last out of summer that I can.  Even went ‘mudding’.  Was more like rock climbing and river hopping, but was very fun to get muddy for a while.

 

             Another fun thing that happened was my coworker Candice's bachelorette party! We had a blast playing with penis shaped, well everything.  Straws, pasta, necklaces, stickers, you name it!  Cant' wait to see pics of her wedding she is having in Hawaii next month.

 

                AH! Can’t wait to go to NC tomorrow to help celebrate Emily and Tommy’s wedding and to see my family and friends :o)