Lovely weather we're having for this time of year

The weather today could be easily described in two words : winter squall. In fact, that could explain the weather for the last several days. Let me describe it for you:

• Wednesday: mostly sunny, but with a cloudburst as I came back from the grocery store, followed by more sun. 
• Wednesday night: thunder and lightning (yes really). 
• Thursday morning: Snowing when I get up. Snaining by the time I finish breakfast. Raining on the way to class. Sun by the time I get out an hour later. 
• Thursday afternoon: Raining lightly (misting, really) when I go to lab. Pouring rain with constant wind and sudden gusts three hours later.
• Thursday evening: Continuation of the same wind conditions, but now with hail.
• Friday: Rain and wind. All day. With ferocious gusts out of nowhere.

Exhibit A

 Of course, none of this phases the brave Scots, who simply layer on more wool, and, if it gets really awful, might possibly put on a mackintosh (rain coat). I, on the other hand, huddle inside, drinking copious amounts of tea and praying the windows don't break (yes, it's that windy).  Thank heaven for the fact that almost all the powerlines where I am are buried, or I'd worry about losing power.

In other news, I've decided that tomorrow is probably a bad day to go to the castle...

Haiku for a rainy day

The rain comes down for
Several hours, non-stop
Drip drop, plip plop, splash.

Maybe they should check their symptoms...

I received an e-mail this morning from the lovely institution that I attend. It was well intentioned I'm sure. But logical...?

The email is a warning about heat stroke, and other heat related problems. There's currently a heat wave here, with the temperature right now above 100. And so, this e-mail. I shall present you with a few excerpts.

"The Los Angeles County Health Officer, Dr. Jonathan E. Fielding, would like to remind everyone that precautions should be taken, especially by those people sensitive to the heat. 'While people don’t need to be told it’s hot outside, they do need to be reminded to take care of themselves [...] when the weather gets hotter,' said Jonathan E. Fielding, MD, MPH, Director of Public Health and Health Officer. 'When temperatures are high, prolonged sun exposure may cause dehydration, heat cramps, heat exhaustion, and heat stroke.'"

Useful information, it's true. The risks of heat related illness are very real, and it's easy to forget how long you've been out and that you need to drink more water. But wait, there's more:

"If you plan to be outdoors, take precautions to protect yourself from the heat. Symptoms of dehydration and heat cramps include dizziness, fatigue, faintness, headaches, muscle cramps, and increased thirst. Individuals with these symptoms should be moved to a cooler, shaded place and given water or sport drinks. More severe symptoms such as diminished judgment, disorientation, pale and clammy skin, a rapid and weak pulse, and/or fast and shallow breathing may indicate heat exhaustion or impending heat stroke and requires immediate medical attention."

Scary. But, hold on. Diminished judgement? Really? Ok, I'm not knocking the truth of this, but I would say that diminished judgement has something to do with the following instructions to students.

• During peak heat hours stay in an air-conditioned area. If you don’t have access to air conditioning in your home, visit public facilities such as shopping malls, parks, and libraries to stay cool.
• Avoid unnecessary exertion, such as vigorous exercise during peak sun hours, if you are outside or in a non-air conditioned building.
• Stay out of the sun if you do not need to be in it. When in the sun, wear a hat, preferably with a wide brim, and loose-fitting clothing with long sleeves and pants to protect yourself from sun damage.

Objection 1:
Only three dorms and one class building have reliable air conditioning. The other two buildings and six dorms do not. The other four campuses have a similar situation, with some newer buildings having AC, and most older buildings not. Students will have spotty access to air conditioning at best, and none at worst. Strike one.

Objection 2:
Students are required to exert themselves to get anywhere on campus. The wonderful faculty and staff have access to a wide range of campus-owned golf carts, but students either walk, bike, unicycle, skateboard, or scooter their way to class. And when one has to, for example, get from the middle of the southern most campus up to the north end of the northern most campus in ten minuets, "unnecessary exertion" is the least of their worries. Strike two.

Objection 3:
I'm not sure if I'm reading this right. "Stay out of the sun" it says. Hmm. Well, when that campus wide umbrella is built, this may be possible. In the mean-time, students are, as I mentioned above, out and about going to class and office hours and hanging out in the courtyards and sunbathing conveniently in the path of the shirtless CMS cross country team... In short, not avoiding the sun. While some of those activities are unnecessary (except the sunbathing, clearly), some are unavoidable. Students do still have to walk to class... Strike three.

You're out.

Now, would you like some water, Scripps? You're looking a little disoriented.

Sprinkler On a Sunny Day

As the heat
Rises
My attention
Drops
Like water I
wish
I could be in

Class, at
100
Is an impossible
Feat
In a building
Without
Air conditioning

En clase, hacíamos
hablado
Del calor, y pensamos
De frío
Cunado aprendiendo
La tema
De pluscuampefecto

Returning from lunch,
I see
A sprinkler, watering
the lawn
I forget the tests
exams
And other worries, just

R U N

Photos on a Rainy Day

I wake, the sky is
dark, full of clouds, pregnant with
moisture, class beckons

Physics class, too warm
California heat on a
Chilly winter day

Outside the chill soaks
Into my clothes, the sky glows
With light from nowhere

Grab my camara,
The lighting is perfect for
photos, soft and clean

Drip, drip, the trees drop
Moisture onto the bright red
Of my umbrella

Soft light makes flowers
Glow from within, flash! destroyed
By forgetfulness

Settings reset, once
More I attempt to compose
Colors in a shot

A lilly in the
Fountain glows, gold fish swim below
Disturb reflection

Leaves float in a small
Puddle between paving stones
Forever captured

Deep blue iris glistens
With beads of water, each one
Attracts the eye more

A lamp-post stands, alone
The curve of a bench accents
The unyeilding form

The battery quits
Protests the hours my camara
Has spent on this day

Return in the rain
I glance behind, so many
Potential pictures

Fire Goddess Confession

On the evening of January 4th our dear friend Emily came up to me at Aimie's birthday party. Putting her arm around my shoulders, she said, "You know I hate to say this but it's a bit too cold for skiing. Do you think you could warm things up a bit?"

Now everyone knows I am the Fire Goddess, Bane to Skiiers and their precious snow. Thankfully in past years we have come to an agreement. They give me cheesecake and they can keep their cold snow. I had never had a Skiier ask me to make things warmers but I assumed it would require the same payment.

"You have cheesecake?"

Emily shook her head. "No, but we are eating pretty good ice cream cake. That should be enough."

"Ok, I'll see what I can do."

What Emily and I failed to take note of was that we were eating sacred ice cream cake of the mint chip variety. Two days after I got back from Nome the temperature started to rise and as most of you know the rest of the story is history. Ski races, school, and a lot of other things were canceled because of too much warmth. 

The moral of this story: Don't ask the Fire Goddess to make it warm until spring and don't underestimate the power of the sacred ice cream.

  

Psycho Weather

All this fall, people in Tempe asked me how I stood Alaska in the winter, why I didn't simply freeze into one big popsicle...and so on. I tended to reply with my various tour guide-y facts about Anchorage being more temperate than one might think, and actually in most cases having a milder winter than the Midwest. I would also mention that you can always put on more clothing but can only take so much clothing off... Had this been a more normal winter that is the case, and granted it is the case, but 10 below is absolutely freezing no matter what excuses one offers up.

I was home during a cold snap...yuck...and it was long too! I personally blame it on Justin, cause the day after he left the temp went within the average range again. I recognize there isn't NECESSARILY a causal relationship, but I still maintain that the cold snap was his fault...

I was looking at the weather page, which has a graph of the past week or so of high and low temperatures, along with lines that delineate the average highs and lows for this time of the year. Anchorage went from days of having the high be near or below the average low temperature, to Monday when the temp range was within the averages to Tuesday and Wednesday highs being WAY above normal highs.

The last two days ASD has canceled school because the warm temps put a lovely layer of water on top of the existing ice, I think Alaska may be the only place where school gets canceled because it is too warm :) It has also been gusting wind, hard enough that the house sounds like it is about to lift up like something from the Wizard of Oz and my mom is afraid the wind will take out one of the trees around our property which would probably NOT be a good thing because many of them are tall enough that they would most likely hit the house. Also, in the typical classy Novak style, when my dad and brother replaced our old fridge with another (not a new one, but more functional) they decided for some reason to leave the old fridge on the back deck. I'm not sure if it was dangerous to get it down the stairs, if they were defrosting it, or they just got lazy. Anyway, the fridge has been a lovely deck ornament since sometime this fall, and got frozen to the deck with all of the snow and ice, however in the warmup that all melted, and the fridge was freestanding. This morning, we woke up to all of our trashcans blown away, and the slightly scary fact that the winds had been strong enough to move the refrigerator about five to ten feet across the deck. I guess it is good to keep things interesting :)

I guess this all just fits the Alaska maxim of: Don't like the weather? Wait ten minutes, it'll change.

Falling Rain

The rain in endless
Sheets pours down, flooding courtyards
Dampening brown leaves

It came last night, sudden
Downpour in the gutter out-
Side of my window

Never stopping, the
Rain fell though the night, taking
Dust and smog from air

Parts of dining hall
Closed off, filled with water now
Drains clogged with dead leaves

Heat is gone, now cold
Seeps in to buildings with single
Pane glass in windows

From above, the ground
Sprouts brightly colored mushrooms,
Umbrellas with feet.

Do trees shed tears? Let's cut them down and find out

Back in Alaska
Back to the snowy blackness
Eugene is like gold

Haiku for a Rainy day

what is going on?

wetness falling from the sky 

weather befuddles :)

Fires in California

The sky is black with
smoke, billowing up from the
ruins of many lives

We cough as the sour
stench of burning fills the air
and pray, hope, for rain

In the theater,
girl on the phone with her mom
"Take my medals with you"

Evacuation
Many homes lie empty, wait
for return or flames

Sunday Picnic!

So it was an absolutely beautiful day here, high of 81 or something like that, and my friend Brittani and I decided to take advantage of the beautiful weather by having a quasi-picnic. We got food from the MU, but that still counts right? :p I had even gotten a cute basket for my halloween costume the day before, so I used that to carry my stuff! I was so cute! 

I thought my white skirt contrasted rather nicely with the black sheet we were using as a blanket...and you can see my adorable little basket!

...we were in the middle of Hayden Lawn, so we got some funny looks, but it was still fairly early so the campus really wasn't awake yet...and since when have I ever let strange looks stop me

Lots of Love, 

Samantha

The First Snow!!!

Way too much fun dancing in the snow. The flakes were so big they almost didn't fit in my mouth and I could snatch them out of the air with my hand.

Wait! Not yet!

"It's snowing outside!"

Many people rush to see

Wait, it's only dust.

Ahh the joys of Jr high girls....but there is now snow on the mountains so our yearly dose must be just around the corner.

As Promised, Sand Castles in the Rain

The Sand Castle Building Crew with the Citadel...notice I'm  in my PJ's cause I had already changed to read Gilgamesh and certainly didn't take the time to change back...definitely different PJ's to bed that night.

The Volleyball game that was happening at the same time a few feet from us.

Gotta love the sand bridge.

Ellie with her EVIL CITADEL...she isn't normally that scary looking.

Ellie adding the finishing touches.

SO yeah...more posts/pictures to come...but everyone else should post too!

Epic Arizona Storm

So, the first week I was here, everyone was talking about how it was monsoon season, which made it humid, but not quite as hot....etc etc etc. And I really had little to no idea of what a monsoon actually was. I mean, I understood the idea in theory...but didn't really understand what it was like to be in one. 

I do now.
  
Its last Thursday and I am walking back from Argentine Tango Club with my CA and all around in the sky we can see lightning, its like a strobe light, constant and crazy. The wind starts to pick up, but no rain comes down. We get back to the dorm without anything too interesting happening, and due to the fact that I had about 40 pages of the Epic of Gilgamesh to read by the next day, I went inside and started to read, I opened the curtains to watch the lightning, and after a while it started to POUR. One of the girls runs past soaked, and the Eric (my CA) immediately heads outside. Of course I follow everyone...and its AMAZING. In Alaska it kinda drizzles, in Arizona it may not rain often, but it rains with enthusiasm. I live in one of nine dorms kinda surrounding a center courtyard, its called Center Complex and I live in Hayden South. The dorms of Center Complex are completely populated by honors kids, so as a whole it tends to be a much quieter area of campus. 

It certainly isn't tonight. Everyone is outside, screaming, laughing, splashing, using the grassy parts as a Slip'n'Slide, playing volleyball in the mudpit of our sand volleyball court. A group of us go up on one of the terraces, we sing shout scream. It is the most fun I've had since coming. Everyone has this incredible camaraderie from the incredible, crazy, amazing storm. 

And wet sand automatically means sand castles right? I'll offer up pictures of Ellie's Evil Obelisk.