June 22, 2011

Daily Report from the Journalism Committee

Place by Lyle

I'm excited. It builds, every step bringing me closer to something more momentous than Christmas morn. I climb the staircase. I reach the last stair and I see the door ahead on my left past the Nanook statue. While I reach for the handle, my heart races, my palms sweat so much I can barely grip the knob to open the door as my excitement reaches an unbearable crescendo, and finally, as the door first cracks, a moment of pure relief as the discordant cacophony in my mind reaches a grand pause, and all the musicians stop their song. I have reached the sanctuary of "the place where you go to listen", and I listened. This place is a work of pure magic, translating the "words" of Mother Earth into a harmony that weaves itself into a deep and penetrating song of pure beauty in its very simplicity. As I sat on the cold hard floor of this place, I meditated, journaled, and let the sounds around me infuse every fiber of my being. This place is full of hard cold surfaces with a deceptively institutional look and feel to it, with only a single wooden bench and white walls all around and a pane of backlit colored glass. But the sounds and beauty around you tell a far different story. When one enters this place, they hear what at first is simply a cacophony of discordant notes being blasted through speakers. Upon further listening however, one can isolate and hear the individual sounds, and can tell what each means as the rhythms and beauty of nature begin to catch in ones mind and mingle with the beautiful images that one has seen since arriving in this amazing place of giants mere days earlier, making a soup of love and peace that tells one something that isn't acknowledged nearly enough these days. We are all a part of nature, and we will go back to it one day, whether we want to or not. When one enters this place, they can hear the "voice" of Mother Nature, and once one can hear this, the greatest lesson of life becomes all the more evident. As a babies heartbeat to a mother can help to ground the idea that the mother is carrying another life inside of her, so does this place ground the absolute that we will all die and return to our Mother at one point, repaying the debt that we owe to her. But this fact is not sad, for once one has seen all the beauty and wonder of this place of pure harmony, they begin to see that they truly do owe their mother a debt, and their return to her embrace is not a sad going.

Museum of the North by Lyle

Today we went to the museum of the north at University of Alaska Fairbanks. The museum contained many artifacts and specimens of native Alaskan flora, fauna, minerals, and culture. The museum also hosted several large art exhibits. One piece of particular interest was an outhouse made entirely out of Alaskan memorabilia, such as license plates and moose antlers. The museum also hosted an extremely interesting exhibit known as "the place where you go to listen", a real time translation of natural happenings such as seismic and solar activity into music. There was also a large history exhibit showing the history and culture of the native Alaskan peoples. One of the most interesting parts of this exhibit was that the native Alaskans on the islands at the tip of the Aleutian chain were relocated during WWII to protect them from Japanese internment and that the home base of the crab boats on the show "Deadliest Catch", Dutch Harbor, was bombed heavily by the Japanese during the war. After we were done in the museum we went to the University of Alaska Fairbanks bookstore for a while, and then had several hours of free time to get things that we needed at local stores or to play games and some time to use our phones to call home before a delicious dinner of chicken soup. Today was a very enlightening day for everybody on the trip.

Drip by Olivia

Drip... Drip, Drip! Today we woke up to wet tents and rain. Even though the weather wasn?t so great, nobody was in a bad mood. This is because everybody got to sleep in until 10:00 this morning because of the late baseball game last night, and everyone loves to sleep in! After we all got up and around most went to eat breakfast, which was cereal once again, but some who were desperate for a shower, rushed to the bathrooms. Once everyone was all finished up, we loaded into our vans and took off to the local farmers market. They had everything here, from cream rolls to wooden carvings and jewelry. We spent about an hour there then headed for the University of Alaska. Once here we went over to the Museum to look around at the different exhibits. These contained lots of information about intuits and Alaskan Animals. There was also an art exhibit that had many beautiful paintings. When we were all finished and satisfied, we headed over to the colleges bookstore. After everyone was done shopping and looking around at the bookstore, we got into our vans and before we new it we arrived at the campground. After a bit of free time, we had a delicious dinner of chicken soup, watermelon, and grapes. After everybody was full we washed our dishes, then more free time. After a long fun day we went to bed, excited for the new adventures to come.