With Alaska's proximity to Russia, the Yup'ik culture extends into part of the continent of Asia. A couple of weeks ago, a guy from Siberia contacted me to ask permission to use the media from the Long Nails Translation project to make this youtube video.
Three big things happened since the last time I blogged:
Last November--after my last blog entry, see below--my Mother, Father and Sister visited me in Ketchikan for Thanksgiving. Two weeks later, I got a call that my Dad had a catastrophic stroke. I went to Philly (Bryn Mawr Hospital) and helped my mother and sister confirm his Advance Directive concerning his right-to-die--his desire for a natural death in the form of passive euthanasia. The stroke rendered him unable to communicate, except for a vague moment or two of fleeting lucidity that only confirmed his desire. Dad was an Elder Law attorney specialising in Advance Directives before his first stroke.
- My father passed away from a stroke.
- I was appointed Teacher in Residence at the Library of Congress.
- Our Governor (AK) is running for US Vice President.
A view of the sunset from my dorm room at St. John's College in Santa Fe, NM. 
This is my third summer with Bread Loaf- after this, two more to go (Ashville, NC then Oxford). I almost can't believe how I fell into my new carrier last summer. I never would have thought I'd like being a librarian as much as I do. I signed up for UW's Information Science program last winter. They have a good online program, though the 'online' business took a little getting used to.
This summer is already beginning to end. How did I let nearly a year go by without blogging? Ketchikan is a pretty normal place... Tuntutuliak was something to blog about. When classes here get done, I head home to Philly for a month, then back Ketchikan for another year. Lucky to have made some good friends there.
Ketchikan is a nice town. Most of it is set on the face of a relatively steep, small mountain. It's on an island in the heart of the temperate rain forest that extends from Oregon way up to Kodiak Island. This is the view from Ketchikan High School.
Ketchikan is the southernmost city in Alaska, and the rainiest in the US.
People generally seem into preserving Ketchikan's dignity in the face of tourism. I sense it's a satiable goal. Elections are tomorrow. On my drive home from my new job as a librarian, the streets were flooded with kids from the local high school holding up signs supporting their favorite candidates. I've never seen anything like it.
In my last post, I said I had a story to tell. The story has gotten longer since then, so I'll spare the details. Long story short: I left my job teaching in Tuntutulaik this May, went to back to school at Bread Loaf for the summer(this time to the Vermont campus), then I moved to Ketchikan in SE Alaska and became a librarian at the high school. I'm very happy to be here.
I'm coming back to Alaska! I'm moving to Ketchikan in August and I have a story to tell. To Philly, From Alaska w/love lives on!
Right now, I'm at the Bread Loaf School of English Vermont campus. It's gorgeous here.
More later...
Once there lived a grandmother and her grandson. The grandmother warned her grandson not to go among the tall grass across the river. One morning the grandchild went berry picking at the other side of the river, despite his grandmother's warnings...
