September 14

Life has been a roller coaster.

The first day of work was simply horrible. I made so many screw ups. It felt like everything I did was wrong or so hard to do. I used to do this stuff with my eyes closed. Not really, but you get the idea. It was second nature to me.

Slowly, it's coming back. Little things that I used to know I have to stop and think about. Uh, which lens do I use to look at this under the microscope. At least enough unique things appear that I spot that they know I'm not a fake. These are things a fake wouldn't know. Whew. At least I remember some of the things.

By the end of the first day, I really didn't know how I'd last the week. No, no one was horrible toward me. I just felt so bad because I felt I wasn't what they wanted or needed.

Day two, things improved. More things came back. There's still a zillion things to remember, but things were coming back. Yay. Today was day three. Yes, more things returned. I still stumble and I will for a while. But things are getting easier.

So far the weather is still pretty much like Homer. Mid 50s, rain. I heard there should be some lovely northern lights tonight. Oh well. We won't see them. It's cloudy.

I went into town after work with a co-worker. I really needed to hit the grocery store again. Now I have food. I was wrong. The prices are higher than Homer. Oh well, I need food. If I'm going to work, I'm going to eat. It's a very basic thing about life.

On the way into town, I wanted to kick myself. I forgot to grab the camera. The colors are gorgeous. It's fall. This area has more hardwood trees than the Kenai Peninsula, plus their spruce are a gorgeous green. So, the grass/weeds were a nice rusty brown, the leaves yellow/orangish and the lush green spruce. I'll see if I can get one of the vehicles this weekend and take a few pictures of the town and the colors. They aren't anything like other areas of the country, but I still like them.

One major drawback is the internet here. I'm on dialup and it's pretty slow. I don't know if it's as slow as dialup was in Homer, but it feels like it's as slow. For some reason, I can't send email. I don't know why. I can receive it, but I can't get it to send. When I respond to email I have to go to the web site and write the email there. It takes so long. No more clicking and responding in no time.

Everything with the internet seems to take so long. Much longer than I want to spend time dealing with it. Plus there's only one phone line. In a couple weeks when I start taking call backs I won't be able to keep the line tied up with the internet.

After the cancelled flight, the horrible first day, the slooooowwwwww internet, there's still a lot here that I do like. I'm glad I'm here. I hope the man who I'll allow to wash my dirty dishes and our dogs were here, but all in all, I'm having fun. I'm seeing a part of Alaska many never see. I'm learning about a new area. I'm learning how to pronounce names of villages.

I'll try to get some pictures posted this weekend. Really.