Flashback Friday

    I took a short break from the blog. I do spend a lot of time when I want to write on my blog. Sometimes I can think about a million things I want to talk about but lately I have been so busy. I just got a new job a few weeks ago and I am going to balance that (it's only 50%) with the writing of my dissertation... Anyway, I have been thinking a lot about Alaska lately, and that's one o the reasons why this theme exists.

Memories

    I have discovered that I am really good at collecting memories, well who isn't? I love taking pictures, and sometimes I actually don't have time to look at them immediately, and then I forget about them. I love going through my photo album on the computer and rediscover old memories. I don't think I would ever be able to rediscover old memories in the same way with only text.

    I really need the pictures. What about you? Do you keep a diary at all? I know I tried to use one when I was really really young, but it didn't really work that well, and well here I am. I guess you can say that this blog sometimes work as a diary, less private of course, but still a way for me to reflect on my thoughts about different subjects.

Where were you a year ago?

    In Alaska, as in many other places up north, you start to see Aurora already in late August early September. Last year I remember seeing Aurora almost every night, kind of mellow, was still waiting for that big show to arrive....which kind of didn't happen until I was going in to work early one morning and was completely unprepared for it. Either way, I have seen so many Aurora shows, and back then it was more like a thing you saw on a regular basis, so you didn't really react that much unless it was a great show. Now, well now I really miss it of course. 

    Last year we also had a pretty bad snowstorm, that took down lots of trees, most of them broke in half literally. We got this really heavy snow that covered the landscape for a few days/weeks before it melted off again. I know people sometimes talk about a fifth season, well I would argue that in Alaska we have six seasons. Spring/Summer and Fall/Winter. It is that in between space that you can or can't call one or the other, it's very interesting to experience. Sometimes we tend to list the seasons based on dates, but that doesn't always work at more northern latitudes. Other times we list them based on what we see, like snow on the ground during wintertime, but what is it if the leaves are still colored and we have snow on the ground, and then a week later the snow is gone?

    Heavy snow, falling trees and power lines don't mix well. We lost power for about a week (well off and on), others were without power for almost 3 weeks. I am lucky because I have the wood stove, so even without power I could still prepare food on the wood stove. 

    The snow came and then it went. Typical Alaskan weather. 

What did you do around this time last year? Was the weather different from today? Obviously here in Madison it's very different from Alaska. Lately we have had colder temperatures of course, they are creeping closer to the freezing point, almost there. 

Happy Friday you guys!!