I'm back............

Hello one and all!! I am so sorry- I have really been slacking on my blogging!! It is just that I have been pretty busy and I only get Internet access at the office and much of my work is done outside of the office. So, let's see, where did I leave off?? Well, Thanksgiving was nice- we had a Little Orphan Annie Thanksgiving and all of the AmeriCorps kids that had no place to go came over and we all ate waaaaay tooooo much food. It was quite delicious, although I was craving Grandma's yams as these ones had pineapple in them..... weird.... Earlier that week, I orgnaized a service day where all the AmeriCorps kids went to the Glory Hole- a homeless shelter- to help pack up dinners for needy families around the community (don't ask me about the name, I have no answers). Anywho, let's see, what else. I went on another retreat with NCADD- National Council for Alcohol and Drug Dependency. This one was a "Transitions" retreat for Juniors in high school. It was pretty fun- we made duct tape wallets. Uncle Matt- this is something you would have really enjoyed and I fully intend on bringing red duct tape to Ecuador next September. Last week we went to the old folks home and made ornaments and decorated cookies. It was lots of fun, and we even got to listen to Johnny Mathis Christmas music!! I have been working on all sorts of things at work- we are planning a huge event for MLK Day. We will collect stuff around the community for needy families and then hold a huge celebration in January. I have also been helping a lot with recruiting new members- everyone is scrounging to get everything done before XMas break, so I am kind of all over the place. Oh well, that is exactly where I like to be. Life has also been quite hectic the past few weeks because the crews from the bush have been in town and so many of them have been staying at our house, so you can only imagine that I have upped my wine intake recently. We also have 2 more dogs living with us- a fat old beagle named Lucy that I prefer to call Sausage and a scroungy dog that looks exactly like the dog that caught on fire in "There's Something About Mary." And of course there is Sparky- the worlds most neurotic pipsqueak of a dog. I have woken up every morning at 5am this month to someone screaming, "SPARKY- SHUT THE F*#% UP!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!" One day I will look back on this and laugh. Another thing that one day I may look back on and laugh about is the fact that I got a prom dress to go to the Winter Ball on Saturday and spent 4 hours getting ready for it and then threw up in the car on the way there and had to go home. I am still pissed about it, but I learned never to use cheese logs when you run out of cheddar and want some nachos. BAD IDEA. Last Friday was the graduation for the crews, so that was fun. We had a brunch out at the lodge and then stopped by the glacier because the weather was so perfect we wanted to take some pictures. We did some sledding, but I bailed at the last second because I was headed straight for glaciel water, which is not something that I wanted to land in since it was only 10 degrees outside. After that we went indoor rock climbing, which I have never done before, and it was loads of fun! I felt like Spiderwoman!! Oh, I saw a porcupine in my yard yesterday- they get cuter every time. So, the weather has been nice recently- clear skies and the mountains all look absolutely gorgeous, but it is frickin cold outside!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! I am ready to head down to Phoenix on Saturday for some warmness!! (Relative warmness- last year I would have called 65 cold, but now it seems rather inticing.) And since our family is nosy and loves to gossip-the tall, dark, and handsome (and of course intelligent) guy in the picture is Daniel- don't you just love my new boyfriend? Oh, and P.S. I AM OFFICIALLY OBSESSED WITH TWILIGHT.

Things are looking up for the polar bears!!

As only Catho and old British men say, today is going swimmingly!! It is a beautiful day!! The sun is out and the snowy mountains are absolutley breathtaking!! I was kind of freaked out when I walked outside this morning, but hey I'm not complaining- bring on the sunshine baby!!!!!! Ok, so first of all, cheers (kapcow, salud, saude, nas dravi, ageshagedra, prost.....) to the polar bears!!!!! Although we all know that they have seen better times, at least they won't be ousted off of the endangered species list by some evil Tina Faye wannabe. So, yay for them!! What else is new!? Well, Halloween was tons of fun!! I was kind of a red lobster the whole time because apparently red hair spray doesn't really have any rules about staying only on your hair, but at least everyone knew that I was supposed to be Poison Ivy. Aside from the kid dressed up as Joker that tried to tell me he was actually dressed up as Paul Revere on acid, there were no scary-spooky incidents. We had a blast though- it was Docwaters last night open, so a party we did have!! I have spent much of this past week preparing for next Tuesday, as I will be putting on an Avalanche Safety Training Course for the AmeriCorps members out at the Eagle Valley Center lodge. It will be lots of fun I think, the avalanche guy from SEADOGS seems awesome and we are also going to make bread and soup, so we will have a fall harvest feast. It looks like we are going to have a rather large turnout, far more than we had for the salmon smoking extravaganza, so that is pretty cool. I am supposed to take my SAGA driving test today so that I will be allowed to drive a 15 passenger van. Let's hope that I fare better than La Phoeb hahahahaha :) (Sorry Phoeb, I really couldn't resist..) I think that I will be checking out the Alaska State Museum tomorrow, so I am looking forward to that. I also may go take a tour of the brewery this weekend, which of course sounds fun. Oh, AnnMarie and I have decided to have a Little Orphan Annie Thanksgiving at our house for all of the AmeriCorps kids that have no place to go. I think that it will be tons of fun as our landlord will be out of town so we will just have a big party all weekend long. And I will have all of the marshmallow yams to myself as Eric will be not be in the Juneau vicinity. I miss all of you guys very much, but I promise to walk to the end of the street on Thanksgiving until I get reception so that I can call you!! Love and peace!! :)

Loving Alaska as much as Cath Loves Quakers

So, I have officially decided that I love Alaska. Things just seem to be getting awesomer and awesomer! (Knock on wood please.) For example, last week I got to go on a retreat with NCADD, the National Council on Alcohol and Drug Dependence. I went as a facilitator, aka camp counselor, and boy it really brought me back to the good ole' days on Whidbey Island. Except instead of making things out of macaroni and singing songs about bears, we held workshops on healthy relationships for at-risk youth. It actually turned out to be a lot of fun though, my group got the most points and earned a pizza party, so that was awesome!! There was only one event that nearly gave me a heart attack. I invited a lonesome kid to bunk next to me in the cabin, explaining to her that I was super cool and her exact reply was, "Why do adults always think they are so cool?" Whoa, I think I stopped breathing there for a second. Seriously? An adult? I am getting shivers just reliving that. Ok, moving on before I have another episode. On Friday, we all went to the Rocky Horror Picture Show, which was so incredibly fun!! It started out as a discotec, which we all know are right up my alley, and people dressed up all crazy (there was even a Yetti) and threw rice and squirted beer out of squirt guns and whatnot. It snowed that night, which was beautiful, but ended up being an unfortunate walking situation, especially since Juneau is hilly, I was wearing ridiculous shoes, and I am a natural born clumsy. Anyways, this week we are holding AmeriCorps events to get everyone together for a little member development. We have been smoking salmon that were given to us by the fish hatchery. We started out yesterday (I was wearing my king salmon costume in honor of the event as well as Halloween week) and I have come to the conclusion that fileting salmon is actually a bit trickier than just saying "one fish two fish red fish blue fish." For some reason, I had the notion that I was supposed to cut off the fish's head (which is actually completely unecessary) and of course that almost made me pass out due to the breaking of bones that were involved in the process..... My first salmon ended up looking a tiny bit like a salmon hamburger. Let's just call it a Krabby Patty, which I am led to believe are absolutely scrumptious. I think that this salmon was a little far gone as she had already spawned before she met her demise and was basically a fish zombie. Anyways, after much slimy, stinky, and messy fish-crafting, we made a brine involving about 876 gallons of soy sauce...... I have never in my life seen so much soy sauce. I was at a loss for words. And it made me want sushi. And fried ice-cream. (They have really, really good fried ice-cream at the sushi restaurant in Tempe.) So anyways, today we proceeded to hang the filets/patties out to dry and now they are smoking away. I smell like a fishy campfire, but I think they will end up being rather tasty!! They should be done by tomorrow, so we will see how this debauchle concludes. On another note, everyone here in Juneau is so awesome and I am loving it!! Halloween will be so fun, I can hardly wait to wear my rain boots that I glittered glued with green puffy paint. I love glitter glue!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Peace :)

Another Frigid Week

So, another week has gone by in the life of Margaret Alice Novakova, or as the southern hicks like to say- Margey Al (I cannot, for all the nerds in the world, bring myself to say Peggy Al). Wednesday was National Latino AIDS Awareness Day, so we spent Monday and Tuesday making a pinata and about 7,896 tissue paper flowers for our "awareness fiesta." We held it at a bar downtown and it was a fun time filled with margaritas and tequila poppers, but let's just say that Juneau is not up to par with Scottsdale when it comes to nightlife. Or when it comes to Latinos for that matter. I guess I will just have to get used to flannel, rubber boots, and a hoppin' crowd of ten fisherman for the next 11 months. I was, however, successful in collecting and hording all of the nerds (the candy kind) that burst out of our pinata!! (Well, I guess that you can seen from this picture that I didn't have much competition, but with my nerdly enthusiasm, I assure you that I would have been successful nonetheless....) Sour nerds are the one thing that Alaska still has that the rest of the world kind of gave up on. Sometimes it is beneficial to be behind the times as sour nerds are one of the greater things in life and it is quite a travesty that they don't still exist in the lower 48. Oh look at that, I am talking like and Alaskan now. Let's see, what else is new? Well, I painted my office green, and decorated it with "save the world" posters. I have also recently made a rather huge and important decision that I think you should all be privy to.... I am going to be Poison Ivy (one of Batman's arch nemesises) for Halloween so that I can spray paint my hair hot red, as that hair-spray paint went over so well last year at our Ecuadorian/gringo Halloween party, which by the way, I wish I was going to this year because that was one hell of a party in one hell of a town. Speaking of which, I got my Skype up and running, so if you want to give me a jingle, my name is: margomargoshesahellofawoman. Alex had no idea what kind of gift he was giving the world when he first created that song. Ok, well I suppose that I must now go back to the grind.....

Update

So, I have been here for less than two weeks, but I already feel at home. Everybody is super nice and friendly and it probably helps that the weather and the environment are almost exactly the same as the Puget Sound area (except, of course, for the porcupines). I do really, really miss the desert sun and warmth, but as we all know, the sun is currently out to get me with a vengeance, so it is just as well that I am up here hiding in the Arctic. On Monday I was officially initiated into Americorps. All of the Americorps members and everyone at SAGA and various community leaders went out to the Eagle Valley Center lodge and we held a ceremony and did a bunch of ropes courses. It was pretty fun!! It was cool to meet all of the other Americorps kids too. My job, so far, is pretty awesome. I have spent a lot of time out at the glacier networking with the US Forest Service, which is AWESOME because I always see cool animals out there and the glacier is just beautiful, especially since it has been snowing in the mountains for the past couple of days. We have this program called EELS, which stands for Energy Efficient Lifestyle Solutions, in which we visit the elderly and not fully able-bodied people and install curly light bulbs and aerators and weather strips and shower heads and whatnot in order to help them and the planet save on energy. That is pretty cool. Yesterday I went to represent SAGA at a Juneau Youth Coalition meeting put on by United Way and now I am on the board. It was originally founded by the mayor about ten years ago to prevent teen suicide, but it has transformed into a group to help youth in all sorts of different ways. I am pretty excited about this as I will get to work directly with the local youth as a mentor and community leader. I am working on about 6 projects at the same time right now, but my favorite is a calendar of events that I am developing for all the Juneau Americorps members. I am going to coordinate two days a month where we can all get together and do some community service, an activity, or a training of some kind so that we can all stay connected. I think it will end up being a lot of fun. This month we are going to clean up bus stops in order for us to all get free bus passes and at the end of the month we are going to smoke some salmon. I told everyone to dress up like their favorite salmon since it will be Halloween, we will see if anyone actually does it. I think I will dress up as a sockeye. Anywho, back to my various projects. Love and miss you all!

I finally saw a bear!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

I finally saw a bear!!!! We were over at the glacier again today visiting with the Forest Service and while we were busy looking at a huge porcupine, a bear walked right in front of the "BEAR XING" sign!! (Ellen- I took a picture for your coffee table book.) Anyways, the bear was supa-extremely cute and it looked like it was going to go get a pot of honey or something. Happy day and HAAZZZZAAAAA!!!! :)

HELP STOP GLOBAL WARMING

Please speak up for wildlife!!!!!

Baby Porcupine!!!!

So yesterday afternoon we went to the glacier to deliver some things to the Ranger and to try to see a bear (to no avail), and when we came back to the truck there was a baby porcupine under it!! It was soooooooooo cute!! (Think wet guinea pig with spikes and a beaver tail.) But, seeing as how you can't really pick up a porcupine or touch it in anyway, we had to wait for about 20 minutes until it waddled away. Seriously, how cute can you possibly get? I also saw some salmon biting eachother. That was weird. Cheerio!!!!

Y Dos Mas....

Closer up view of the Mendenhall Glacier

A cute harbor seal and a seagull

Mas Pics

The walk home from work

View of Douglas from the cruise docks

Walk home from work

View of a Juneau waterfall/avalanche shoot from Douglas

Address

My physical address at SAGA is- (use for sending me packages, thank you very much)

Margaret Novak
c/o SAGA
9397 La Perouse Ave
Juneau, AK 99801

The SAGA PO Box is- (use if sending me important docs)

Margaret Novak
c/o SAGA
PO Box 33037
Juneau, AK 99803

My home address- (I have no idea)

Margaret Novak
10117 Silver St
Juneau, AK 99801

Pictures

So I took some pics yesterday while taking my tour around Juneau- here they are! :)

The Eagle Valley Center lodge














Mendenhall Glacier














The beach near the EVC














A Pacific Octopus trying to eat some starfish at the fish hatchery aquarium

I made it to the tundra!!!!

Well, I safely arrived in Juneau this past Sunday. So far, so good. I am staying with someone from work in a log cabin that is on the back loop, which is about 10-15 minutes from work (which is by the airport), and I can carpool because half the people I work with live right there and have cars. So, that is nice. The cabin is quite cute and I think I will end up staying there as it is only $200/month. I will have my own room with a bed already in it, so what more do I really need? Yesterday was kind of boring as all I did was fill out paper work, but everyone is really nice. So are the 56 dogs at work. (And at least Dancing with the Stars was on last night...) Today, however, was really cool as I got an all day tour of Juneau- we saw the lodge, many parks, the downtown, the fish hatchery, the community garden, the library, the cruise ship docks, Douglas, the glacier, and many beaches (think Kopachuck only colder.) I saw a million bald eagles and salmon and even saw a harbor seal!! Now that was cute!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! I have yet to see a bear, but apparently the chances of me not seeing one this week are slim to none. I also saw a porcupine, although sadly it was squished. Apparently they are rather abundant here. Anyways, I do like it here, it is extremely beautiful!! I am frickin cold, but we all knew that would happen. I am wearing 2 pairs of pants, 2 pairs of socks, 2 sweatshirts, and a vest and I saw a person outside today wearing shorts. Go figure, it was "nice" out today- a whopping 60 degrees!!!! I am so screwed this winter. By the way, apparently I joined Americorps because I am going to be sworn in on Monday. Who knew? I guess that is what happens when you accept a job while at the same time trying to catch a Grecian ferry boat. I am hoping that Americorps will not be included in the family curse. (I hope that wasn't too soon....) Anywho, I think this adventure will be a good one and I will keep you posted on my bear situation!! Love and miss you all!!!! P.S. My phone does not work very well here, so I will be slightly incomunicado, but I figured out how to listen to my voice messages here, so hopefully I will be able to find a tall tree to climb and return my phone calls from there. P.P.S. Pictures to come soon!!

Moving to Alaska

It has recently come to my attention that I should really keep my family and friends a little more updated about what the heck I am doing in my life, so I have decided to start a blog. I probably should have started one of these babies a long time ago, but yesterday's history, tomorrow's a mystery and today is a gift- that is why they call it the present and there's really no time quite like it baby. So, to sum up my next move- I am off to Alaska on September 28th. I will be working with SAGA for ten months as the Community Volunteer Coordinator. I got the job while I was in Europe (yes I know- I am crazy), after various e-mail exchanges with SAGA and a midnight phone interview from the streets of Naples. After talking with SAGA, I waffled for a while and then said, "What the heck, why not just move to Alaska?" as I had nothing else planned for after my return to Los Estados Unidos and for my own mental well being it might be nice to go somewhere where sweaters are actually necessary. I will be doing what I am passionate about- helping the environment and the world in general, so I really couldn't ask for more (ok well, I could ask to actually be moving to the Amazon with my doctorate in environmental science and a recent skin graft, but that will all come in due time). Basically my job will include environmental conservation education, coordinating community events, and Alaskan youth outreach. Anywho, here is a little more info for those interested-

• SAGA’s Mission: SAGA is a state-wide Service Corps, dedicated to providing high-quality services that improve lives, lands and communities throughout Alaska.

• Position Summary: The Volunteer Coordinator will train and work closely with the Alaska Service Corps and Serve Alaska Youth Corps. These individuals will work to create youth and community volunteer opportunities through SAGA. The Alaska Service Corps is dedicated to providing services for our project sponsors throughout Alaska while providing meaningful experiences to our committed corpsmembers. The Serve Alaska Youth Corps (SAYC) Members are Alaskan residents who accomplish conservation and public safety based projects throughoutthe state of Alaska.

• Project Summary: The Community Volunteer Coordinator (CVC) coordinates special volunteer events based on national service days (i.e. National Trails Day, Make a Difference Day, National Public Lands Day, etc.). You will also work with Alaska Service Corps Crews to coordinate Community Action Projects (CAP). CAPs are crew-driven volunteer projects that will require the assistance of the CVC. Developing recruitment efforts for Alaska Service Corps volunteer conservation projects. The Volunteer Coordinator will help to develop a long-term volunteer recruitment plan for SAGA. This will include creating avenues to bring in volunteers to work on conservation projects and logistics to support the groups once they are in place. Maintain records of the planning stages, executions, volunteer info as well as outcome of the program.

• Project Sponsors: Include (but not limited to) the Dept of Transportation, National Park Service, U.S. Forest Service, AK, State Parks, local municipalities, and Tribal groups.

• Project Locations: Include places such as Denali National Park, Glacier Bay National Park, Kodiak Island, Valdez, Yakutat, Juneau and Prince of Wales Island and represent a geographical spread equal to 1/5 the size of the continental United States.

• Responsibilities: • Coordinate special volunteer events based on national service days • Aid ASC crews in the development of Community Action Projects (CAP) • Serve as an AmeriCorps role-model and mentor • Help develop a long-term volunteer recruitment plan • Promote a strong service ethic with a positive attitude • Help to build healthy communities • Model through example the importance of team work, while upholding SAGA’s policies and procedures • Support and abide by SAGA’s 4 Non-Negotiable rules: No possession of alcohol or drugs, sexual conduct, stealing or threatening behavior/physical violence • Collaborate with Staff, Team Leaders and Crew Members to ensure achievement of volunteer recruitment goals • Demonstrate professionalism while representing SAGA • Accurately complete paperwork related to volunteer activities • Other duties as assigned