Alaskatrina Part 1

In months and years past I have become, how do I say? accustomed to - nay, established in a certain lifestyle, namely one where time is of no consequence, my attire is more important than my job skills, and any and all work commitments can be broken like that! (snap fingers here) to attend birthday parties/weddings/fiestas/other excuses for party-goers to get drunk rather than work that day.

These days are over. I have returned to America. And let me be the first to say that America disappoints.

Wait, wait, that's not entirely true. I like my home, and I like my family - well, love actually. And I've missed my friends and I've missed good drivers on the roads and yes, I've even missed good work ethic. But I did not miss work being the priority in peoples lives over family, and I did not miss the media's obsession with celebrity missteps instead of real news, and I certainly did not miss how people spend money on things like Button Tufted Chaise Settees rather than whole roasted pigs at fiesta.

But yesterday I made my exodus from the suburbs of Washington to Anchorage, and tomorrow I'm off to tiny St. George in the Pribilof Islands.

Aside from the lack of exhaustive heat, white sands, abundant refuse thrown about the streets, and dried fish in the markets, it feels a lot like the Philippines that I love and miss. It's sleepy, quiet, and beautiful, and life seems to move at a more tolerable pace than it does along the I-5 corridor. Granted, I've only been here a day, but like my favorite Homeland Security Secretary, I have a 'gut feeling' about this place. I think I'm going to like it here.

And so today I continue my blog, and I dub myself Island Girl, because if there is anything I aspire to be in life it is that. A girl who lives and works on small islands. People who are island people will know what I'm talking about, and people who aren't, well, I implore you to try it sometime, if only just once.

I considered jobs or places where other pseudonyms would apply and came up with a list:

Water Tester Girl
Scat Girl
Boring City Girl
Moocher of Parents Girl
Likes to Stay at Home Girl

But clearly none of these would do.

And although a part of me wishes I were "Tropical Island Girl," I will do my best to deal with this sudden and, let's be honest, disappointing weather change. Wish me luck!