myumyumyu

Sorry that it’s been so long since I’ve updated. It’s weird because it’s been slow and uneventful yet also busy this week, both at and outside of work.

I think I’ve realized that my perception of work is affected by my experiences at Yale or in New York. Things move quickly because there’s a lot to do, and you just try to sprint through it. Life is much more easygoing here. During lunch, there’s live music at the park downtown. It was nice out, and I just sat in the sun munching on my lunch and listening to local performers.

Live music at Peratrovich Park during lunch

I realized a few things about my first experience working at a non-profit, and one in Alaska at that. First, the projects that you can work on are extremely limited by what funding you can get. There are a lot of grant proposals, fundraising efforts, and networking events involved. There’s also so much to do with the government, especially in the area of energy where progress is so dependent on policy. These limitations are pretty frustrating.

Something that’s really funny is that my experience as a master’s aide was great preparation for what I’ve experienced here this week. As a master’s aide, I designed Davenport’s posters and helped with events. At work here, I’ve been helping to redesign the flyers about REAP’s energy education programs, to make them into brochures/handouts for the renewable energy fair later this summer. My computer at work magically has Adobe CS4 (the one advantage that my computer seems to have over everyone else’s), so I get to play with posters! That’s been fun, keeps me busy, and is still one of those things that make me lose track of the time once I get focused.

The other aspect of being a master’s aide helped out too! Mead hosts a lot of events, and on Sunday night, he had a big dinner for about 15 people at the house. The number 3 guy from NASA was in town for a meeting of the American Astronomical Society. It was exactly like a master’s tea/fellows’ dinner, with setting up tables and chairs, silverware, wine and ice and glasses at the bar, food, washing the dishes afterwards… everything. Also, it was great food! Will made Alaskan red salmon, which was absolutely delicious--it's a totally different color and texture from our yucky farmed salmon. I also think that Mead would be a great college master.

Today, I went to a Yale Club event that was also basically a master’s tea. I got to meet Meg Urry, the chair of the physics/astronomy departments at Yale, who was also in town for the same meeting. She studies black holes and is also really dedicated to shaping science education and making it more enjoyable. I felt guilty telling her that I took physics at Yale, since it was pretty obvious that I didn't end up in physics. I told her honestly that I really loved the Professor Baltay in PHYS 260, but the material just went over my head. Anyway, it was a really great talk (space is just so incredible and big) and nice to get to know her. I really should have gone to more of these kinds of things when I was at Yale.

In other news, Charlie, a new houseguest has arrived! We’ve been bonding through general newbie-Alaska-ness. We took bikes out last night and, in his words, rode the heaven trail back home, with the mountains, slow sunset, and Alaska train on either side of us. Oisin, the others in the office, Charlie, and I are thinking of going on a hike this weekend. Fingers crossed that the weather holds up!

Also, if you know me at all, you probably make fun of me for saying that everything is cute. It seems like a lot of people have personalized license plates here, and I saw this great one the other day :)

This car was parked on our street!