Thursday May 13, T minus 1 week and counting (what does that T stand for anyway??). Oh my badness, my list of things to do before I leave is completely insurmountable! Time for triage...

But on a good note, I did have my fingerprints redone, and right on the card the fingerprint taker wrote, "BEST PRINTS OBTAINABLE". And the very next day, my preceptorship registration paper with the shiny gold seal of Alaska affixed to it arrived in my mailbox. Did I mention that I also already HAD my Alaska R.N. license when the fingerprint rejection letter came? So apparently Alaska isn't really thinking that I am a terrorist or closet pedophile, it's just one of those things that has to be done. So at this point, I'm going up there and going to practice Nurse Practitioning (that's what we do, near as I can figure, since we can't practice MEDICINE because the physicians have that word copyrighted) with my mentor and preceptor, Laura Clark. And if they want to rescind my permission slips, they will have to fly out from Anchorage and pry them out of my old, wrinkled, worn out fingers.

At least one of the packages I mailed up there has arrived, according to Laura. I'd been advised by two of the people there to mail up anything I could stuff into flat rate boxes, like beans, rice, herbs, toilet paper...which they told me is $45 for a 9 roll pack...gack! $6.oo loaves of bread (probably white bread, too), $8.00 gallons of milk...So I was able to remove the inner cardboard roll, a la backpacking style, and fit 12 rolls, a roll of paper towels, and a whole box of Kleenex without the box, along with various herbs and spices, my reuseable coffee filter, beans, rice, Kashi granola bars, powdered milk for cooking, and I don't even remember what else into two boxes. I just ordered Cafe Mam coffee to be sent up there, and get this--I will be getting a Full Circle Farm CSA box of fresh, organic produce every other week, delivered to the island from Seattle, for $54 a box! I plan to eat local fish, Seattle vegetables, beans, oatmeal, and rice the whole time I'm there. And Cafe Mam coffee. With granola bars for dessert.

I met two people in my classes this week that grew up in Anchorage and were quite frankly puzzled as to why I'd want to go up there--not to mention CONSIDER actually living there after I graduate. They grew up in Anchorage though--people tell me that isn't really Alaska. One says she'd much rather live in Hawaii, so to each their own I guess. 30 below isn't that much colder than 15 below, which we get just about every winter here. Ok, mosquitoes as big as pterodactyls isn't all that inviting, but every place has its trials! Maybe if you grew up working outside and have worked outside in every kind of weather for most of your life, weather just isn't as daunting. Now rain--there's weather with no recreational value whatsoever! Give me snow any day...but hopefully not this summer while I'm there.

Stay tuned! And the mailing address there, which a few people have asked me for, is: C/O Eastern Aleutian Tribes Clinic, POB 172, Sand Point, AK 99661.