The road to Quist Farm is drying up nicely. The main road that serves our neighborhood is unpaved, but has great filler and dries up quickly and nicely and with no ruts. This one is not maintained by the city and takes a bit longer to be tolerable:
The earth is so full of clay, it dries in the exact configuration it was left in when wet:
Different cloud types, for the meteorologists to ponder:
After the snow melted away, I was amazed to see all of this underbrush emerge, taller than the snow level had been. Apparently, after they were relieved of their burden, they straightened themselves right up again!
Blue sky!
Hot dogs! I had never seen their tongues hang out like that before. Poor things!
The only lingering snow is in our own driveway. The girls were only too happy to walk in it and gobble it up.
And it's warm now... High 50s F/ mid-teens C, but it feels even warmer still. I break into a sweat walking the neighborhood. The air is dry, the dogs pant, my fingers swell up like little strings of sausages.
I've made an interesting observation today. Winters here are much, much colder than the SF Bay Area, yet paradoxically it is easier to keep warm. A light down jacket is sufficient, and it's easy enough to warm up once you step inside. In San Francisco on cold days, I would often sit and shiver with this peculiar feeling that I would never be warm again. Of course I knew it was silly, I'd take a hot shower, seasons turn, etc. But I've never felt that way here. So the flip side of this is that even though it gets much warmer in the Sili Valley than it does here, being warm feels more intense here. I pant, I need to drink half a liter of water to walk one hour. When I get back, I feel like a sweaty, disgusting mess. In the Sili Valley, I did feel it was quite warm in Summers, but I used to hike a lot, even when the weather was warm, but I didn't dehydrate as quickly, and I didn't get to sausage-finger stage until it was at least 70F. What gives?
In other news, I have finals this week.
Wednesday's is in my undergrad electromagnetism class. It should be pretty easy, but I still need to compile my notes for it. Thursday's is in Statistical Mechanics, which I'm having a devil of a time with. I am averaging well under 50% in the homeworks and the midterm. I went to talk to the prof, just to let him know that I was indeed trying my darnedest, but was really not comprehending a whole hell of a lot of the material. He shooshed me and said I was doing fine, not to worry, blahblah. I think he overestimates how much I am actually understanding, because I feel pretty blank in his lectures. Anyway, so I'm going to focus on trying to understand more of this stuff over the next few days... And my last exam is Friday, on nonlinear dynamics. That class is very reasonable, not too difficult, not too easy. I have quite a bit of reading to do for that one, but it won't be impossible.
2 comments:
Your professor was right -- not to worry. You did not give up all the material things here and went to AK to "worry", and you don't need the degree as the BS/BA. You are there for the fresh air, green trees and white snow.
I wonder if it's the air humidity making the difference in how you feel (presumably it's drier in Fairbanks, being so far from the sea etc).
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