there's no moral to this story

ok so i'm sitting at my parent's house and while i was waiting for their Ultimately Slow Comptuer to load so i could UPDATE MY XANGA (bells chime in the distance)
(and for good measure a horse-drawn sleigh shshshs-es by a lamp post in the middle of a snowy forest),
i spun around in their swively chair about 27 times and all that christmas fudge isn't feeling like such a great idea.
but i digress.
i'm going to digress one more time: my brother just threw himself onto the ground beside me and is making low guttural noises.
i assume this is because he has been studying for college finals for five days unceasing. but the point is: my whole family is under one roof for the first time in tooooo long to remember.
(again the scene: bells. sleigh. lamp post. forest.) (do you see what i'm doing here? the winter scene is used in these moments to puncuate excitement?)
it's good to be home. as 2009 approaches, i've been thinking a lot about 2008. what a bizarre year. let's go over the highlights:
i rang in the new year in suriname and then caught a 16-hour minibus back to my home in georgetown, guyana.
my friend sarah gaither came to visit and i kept teaching science to the children of the world every day
and taking sleeping pills every night so i wouldn't hear the rats running around my apartment.
sometimes i had electricity and/or running water, sometimes not. but i always had rats.
gaither and i hopped on a plane the first of february and went to trinidad & tobago for carnival celebration.
then back to the children and the rats. massacres began happening in the area.
my friend ami flew down to visit and in a stroke of ironic timing we were evacuated from the country the next day (on my birthday).
back to trinidad & tobago where we laid on the beach all day and jet-ski'd to an island called no man's island and watched the sunset.
i flew home to tennessee for a couple weeks. i cried a lot because i was confused. i didn't want to leave guyana and my students, but some things are out of our hands and sometimes we never get closure. this is okay. 
(can you believe my two best friends were BOTH with me when i got evacuated?! unbelievable.)
in april i flew to portland and drove to skagway, alaska. i got my CDL driver's license and a job as a driver/dock representative/helicopter fueler for a company that sends tourists to glaciers.
what an incredible place. alaska was my sanity this year in a lot of ways. i calmed down a lot inside. i stayed there until november when i flew to meet a friend in baltimore and help her drive her car across the country to sacramento.
i stayed between sacramento and portland until last week when i flew to mom & dad's and settled in for a short winter's nap.
take heart. everything works out.

i forgot how to UPDATE this thing.
annnnyhow...
to those of you who remember who i am, i'm still in alaska.
i've been here since april. it is about time to travel on.
it's beautiful and relaxing, but i'm ready to get out of the snowww and see some friends & family.
i'll be flying to washington d.c. next week to meet up with jen.
meet jen:

we're driving her car from d.c. to portland where she now lives with sarah gaither.
then i'll be in sacramento visiting some dear friends.
i'm flying to nashville the beginning of december
and sitting by my parent's woodstove and eating mom's food until january when i'm flying overseas.

that's the plan anyway. i hope to see you somewhere along the way.
phone: 615-945-1229

 past eight weeks in review:

georgetown, guyana

trinidad & tobago

nashville, tennessee

portland, oregon

seattle, washington

roadtrip through canadian tundra

skagway, alaska

Currently Reading On the Road (Penguin Classics) By Jack Kerouac see related