So this is why I am dreading going back to school: I woke up at 10 am on my last day in Anchorage (I leave on a 1 am flight) and lay about for 30 minutes, inwardly moaning my impending departure. I got my laptop and turned it on, intending to whine about it externally on this blog, and (stupidly! stupidly!) checked my school email account, necessitating 45 minutes of responding to emails relating to my activities and generally wading through announcements about on-campus interviewing and first-day reading assignments (which I sure as hell won't have time to do as I'm arriving 30 hours before my first class).

And now it's 11:19 am and I haven't gotten out of bed yet. And it wasn't even all quality inward-whining time either!

Ugh.

I went out around 9:30 last night after spending 8 hours inside packing, and was dismayed to see that it was dark! Summer is really coming to an end here. I dropped off some clothing at a donation box, and returned some stuff to a store, and then rented "Bend it like Beckham" and watched it over some pan-seared salmon and jasmine rice. Mmm!

And now, a little external whining.

I am really going to miss this house, for several reasons. First, sleeping in this basement meant that: 1. very little light = no eyepatch necessary, and 2. suburban detached house = no earplugs necessary. Back to both of those accoutrements in a few days. Second, kick-ass European laundry machine and dryer! In the kitchen! Third, the kitchen. Fourth, the occasional company of a small, beautiful (literally) bichon frise (dog of the daughter of the house).

(About that dog: Had a very, very bizarre dream about it ast night, actually. Dreamt that he was owned by the Bush family, of all things, and that he was going to be killed soon because the Bushes didn't like him or he was retarded or annoying or something. In the dream, the dog cost, like, $225,000, and they all had shares in the dog. I learned this from one of the Bush twins, who told me sneeringly at some function that no, Roommate (who in real life did love the real life dog) could not have/buy the dream dog because he was so pricey. Gosh, she was bitchy. Jenna Bush, I mean. Or the other one, whose name I can't recall. Anyhoo.)

I am really going to miss Anchorage, because it's a small enough city that I got to know it fairly well. Not just the fun places, but a little bit of the ins and outs of the running of the place, through my internship. It makes it all the more real and urgent when you pass on your way to get lunch the welfare agencies you're battling. Or when the only shelter in town is the one you're planning to donate your leftover food and dishes to.

I am really going to miss Alaska, because it's been so freeing. I'm so glad I came here this summer -- it's as different of a place from Boston as another country. There's always been a little bit of a mystique around Alaska in my mind, and this summer's pierced that mystique a little, showing me a glimpse of what has drawn people here for many years. There are places that are still so wild! And the raw beauty of it all. It's not always a picturesque beauty (although Homer is one of the most spectacularly beautiful places I've ever seen). Sometimes it's a beauty that takes time to recognize, like the country beyond the Brooks Range up to Dead Horse and the Arctic Ocean: unearthly, stark, seemingly lifeless, but containing a delicate, unique ecosystem (not to mention a billion mosquitoes).

I can't say enough about Alaska in the summer, there aren't enough superlatives. Magnificent, awe-inspiring, sublime, profound, empty, scary, demanding of respect, challenging, independent are just a few that come to mind, but they don't even begin to touch the experience.

I am really going to miss this summer, because it's been so different from school, so relaxing and so challenging, both at work and at play. At the office, I succeeded in some things and failed in others, and tried some new things that I did neither well or poorly, but just did. I worked with smart people, some of whom were a little strange. And I gathered some great stories: wolfman, punch-out-Secretary-of-Defense's-teeth-out man, see-through top in court lady, axe murderer man, for starters.

At play, I was a bit more successful -- learned how to drive stick, how to check an engine, how to camp in bear country -- but I did fail at reading a topo map and being prepared enough to camp in the backcountry (i.e., failing to bring a compass!). Oh, but the trips I went on, thanks to friends! Up to the Arctic with The Ringleted One, hiking to an ice field with Double M, eating halibut in Homer with the fam, hiking to a glacier with Charm and co., kayaking with my dad, backcountry camping in bear country with Roommate and Dryfoot. It's been spectacular. Just spectacular.

And now, I really, really must get out of this bed in this house I will miss, in order to do my errands and finishing my packing, so that I can set off from Alaska, and be done with the summer.