An AmeriCorps VISTA Update

It's been amazing getting used to the 20+ hours of daylight.  It's funny having nightly events starting at 10pm or later and not being done till like 4 or 5am!  It really causes for lack of sleep if you're not paying attention, but I love it!  Today's the Summer Solstice.  There was NO sunrise this morning and will be NO sunset tonight due to the sun riding just above the horizon at those times and hanging high and bright in the sky during the day.  I picked up some fabric at the local thrift shop the other day and fashioned my own curtains to keep at least some sanity to experience my own version of night for sleeping here in the summer.

Other than that, I've adjusted very well here from Minnesota seeing as though the woods, streams, rivers and bluffs/foothills remind me a lot of my hometown in La Crescent, MN.  I've been living in Minneapolis for the past nine years, surrounded by plenty of asphalt, people, traffic and skyscrapers, but this is great to explore the great outdoors again.  So far, I've taken on the fun challenge of living in a dry cabin (no running water), run the ski trails of UAF, and hiked the 6,060-ft summit of Wildhorse Mountain off the Denali Highway.  This weekend, I'm planning on either climbing the 6,480-ft summit of Rainbow Mountain or road tripping to the Arctic Circle and Ocean with some friends.  Tough decision!!  Over July 4th Weekend, I'll be headed to Skagway, AK and Whitehorse, Canada with a couple friends to visit a friend of mine who gives helicopter and dog sledding tours on glaciers in the area.  I guess you can say I'm trying to take in as much of this great state not only while I'm here but because the warm weather only lasts so long, haha.

One other thing I've been involved with is the Fairbanks music scene.  I drum in my rock band Paragraphs back home and knew that I couldn't go an entire year without my drum set, so I shipped it up here and have befriended several local musicians and bands.  I was involved in a music mish-mash event called Fairbanks Pub League a couple weekends ago where they take about 25 local musicians and randomly put them into four-person bands.  They give you four hours to put together two covers and an original to perform at a bar later that night.  I'm happy to say my band (Lil' Wayne feat. Lil' Wayne) performed with few mistakes, haha.  I hope to be playing in a band sometime in the coming weeks.

To be honest, my time as a VISTA has been challenging so far here in Fairbanks.  I come from a very formal, dress-up, commute-to-work-in-a-skyscraper-cubical type of career, and being exposed to the nonprofit, social services sector has been very eye-opening to say the least.  I'm learning how to open up to my at-risk homeless and runaway youth clients and understand their needs as a population so as to find appropriate partnerships that should help them.  One thing I'm working on now is starting up formal music lessons at the local library for a few of my clients to participate starting in mid-July.  This will give those interested in music performance the ability to not only express themselves creatively but also know what having time management skills is like.  It's sustainable partnerships like this that I hope leave at least some sort of impression on those I'm serving even after my service year is done.

Overall, I'm having a blast here while missing my family and friends in Minnesota.  It was great meeting all the new faces at PSO in April as well as making new friends so far here in Fairbanks, including other VISTA's Bryan Whitten, Randy Russell, Krista Cassidy, and former VISTA's Katie Robb and Cassidy Phillips.  I'm looking forward to many more adventures and meeting many more people.

From the land of the midnight sun,

Danno