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The bear's name is 'studying abroad'. Wish me luck!
Welcome to the most exclusive mostly-under-25s Scottish-Alaskan mailing list in this year and hemisphere. Congratulations on making the cut (meaning: thank you for giving me your email address when I asked for it three weeks ago).
I've obviously been putting off this email for long enough - six weeks!
(This would’ve been almost halfway through my time here, but I'm thinking of pushing back my flight, giving me an extra month at little extra cost - all thanks to that door flying off the handle on that Alaska Airlines flight a few months ago).
Throughout the whole of my time here thus far I've been making staggered efforts to write you all this email. My first, slightly overeager attempt was actually in the US pre-departure lounge of Dublin airport. I think this is my fifth go.
A few weeks ago, I wrote this:
'My first impression of Fairbanks was that it shouldn't exist. I didn't experience this feeling with the same fury as when I declared Las Vegas an abhorrent, wasteful blight on the earth - I was slightly more chilled out this time. I meant that, by rights, the big American way of life doesn’t belong here (if it belongs anywhere). It is in a constant struggle with the reality of the land. Almost all of the food consumed in Fairbanks is flown in over thousands of miles, and it is very, very expensive. Everyone has a gigantic car, and the owners often leave the engines running for however many minutes to keep the vehicle from freezing. Each building (at least on campus) consumes a vast amount of energy each day just to keep us all from dying. It is a total ecological disaster. I don’t want to sound too smug about this - it isn't as though European cities don’t produce similar amounts of waste - but it feels worth acknowledging.
My experience with Fairbanks-cold is actually far more pleasant than with Glasgow-cold, which in my experience is damp and therefore much harder to escape - it creeps into your body and home (if you live in a tenement, obviously). Aside from the fact that I’m surprisingly well dressed for this cold - negative 40s, recently – a great relief is the low wind speed and the 0% humidity. Fairbanks, protected from the weather cycles of the Alaskan coastline by miles of interior land, and a shielding mountain range, is totally still and bone dry.
This dryness means I shock myself constantly. I’m now instinctively afraid of anything metallic and shiny – I know there’s a very good chance each time I open a door that I'm about to very mildly electrocute myself. I’ve started touching each door handle with my key before I open it, like a ritual. Sometimes my hand is at a bad angle, and I end up shocking myself through the key. Something something negative ions. Spice of life, either way.
Things are weird here, and I'm stuck on campus almost all of the time – I can’t drive, and the public transport is pretty poor. I’m happy, though. It’s a nice change of scene, it’s a routine, it’s stable and so far unchanging (literally frozen), everyone is friendly, and I feel I'm doing well. I’m glad I came here. The word ‘Alaska’ no longer vibrates with such totemic power. I live here, it's real, it’s not where the world ends. If such a place as ‘the end of the world’ isn’t to be found here, I have to conclude that it doesn’t exist.'
I no longer really have the time of day to write about Alaska's theoretical totemic power, nor the want. I'm more settled now in the practical reality of my day-to-day life here. Some days are obviously better than others. Sometimes I think that 'studying abroad' must have been promoted in universities so their overpriviledged and insane youth could torture themselves in strange and unnecessary ways far, far away from campus. Perhaps this is all some extended exercise in teaching myself 'wherever you go you take yourself with you', or some other platitude. Actually, the whole thing kind of feels like an exercise in platitudes. '
But yeah, all that aside, I'm enjoying myself - I have friends, who I made the usual way – by singing ‘Wuthering Heights’ at karaoke and forcing myself upon them immediately afterwards. It worked! I go to yoga, I have a radio show, etc etc. The snow will melt in mid-to-late March, and then I suppose I'll venture further out into the world. I have vague plans to see Utqiagvik, Anchorage and Homer. No great spiritual awakening yet - I'm not currently in any real awe at how insignificant I am on the universal scale - but we'll see how it goes on that front.
Alright all. I'm not editing this now, or I'll never send it. More to come, probably. Love you, miss you. Write back. if you like!
Your bright shiny dull old new friend, Rachel
xx
P.S. The newsletter thing was probably originally Gracie's idea when she moved to Uist. I am probably copying her. She definitely didn't tell me to say this.