(Probably) Last post of 2015

Probably.

On Friday, I found out I was awarded my URSA grant for $2,500.  From what I understand, this is great for an undergraduate to write and get a grant.  So yay me!  My professor and I will be using it both to research Alutiiq, Aleut, and nearby Athabaskan languages, as well as travel to Sitka to present our findings on a poster at the Alaska Anthropological Association conference in March.  This is great for both of us. Should be an awesome experience!

I've been having a hard time with being up here lately.  In terms of classes, this semester hasn't been the hardest.  But mentally and emotionally, it's been rough.  I really haven't been feeling well, and this condition has kept me down and isolated.  With my lexapro I hope to feel better.

I cannot wait to go home.  I really miss my mom, my friends, and my cats.  My missing them often consumes my thoughts. I just can't wait.

This morning I took my morphology final.  I think it went okay.  I didn't feel great though because I just couldn't remember lexicalization.  There was a lot of material and I didn't know what aspects of each thing should be covered.  I always feel needlessly pessimistic about my tests, though, and I probably am fine.  Thursday I have my teaching English final, and Saturday I have my math final. I'm pretty confident I'll do fine on the English one, but the math one will require a bit more studying.

On Twitter a "make 20 confessions" thing has been going around, so I thought I'd do mine here:

1) I don't care for Relient K.

2) I think Turkish is one of the coolest languages, in terms of sound and orthography and word-formation.

3) Crunch is my favorite candy bar.

4) I hate the word cribbage.  I have no problem with moist, however.

5) I cannot stand people in Santa Costumes.  Santa Costumes crawl under my skin.

6) I am freaked about by Frida Kahlo paintings.

7) For about four years now, I've had my own personal language called Tzigga (roughly pronounced Tseejaw)

8) Oskar Schindler is my favorite historical non-biblical character.

9) I've never drank nor done drugs.

10) I used to pronounce organic as gorganic, and specific as pacific.

11) I can't do roller coasters at all.

12) Apparently, I'm pretty good at skeet shooting.

13) I once tried making macaroni and cheese with adding every spice I could find in the kitchen.  I took one bite and immediately threw it away.

14) I can't stand almonds, but I love almond flavored things.

15) If I'm alone, after I eat a muffin or cupcake, I eat the liner too (if it's paper).

16) I like listening to metal that involves screaming/growling.

17) I used to have an imaginary friend from Iraq called Izma.

18) I was homeschooled for a short period.

19) I used to want to play the harmonica, but that never really came to fruition at all.

20)  During band practice in elementary school, I would alternate between Tuesdays and Thursdays playing the drums and the xylophone.

Pre-Thanksgiving Update

On Friday, I sent in my grant proposal.  Since about February, I've been working on an internship with the Alaska Native Language Center.  I've been reading through dictionaries of native languages and researching their cultural terminology.  I've been putting all that information into a sheet so my mentors can read through the data to find source words.  Now that I've had more time to get used to the data and taken more linguistics classes, they're giving me more freedom to work on my own.

A long time ago, the Alutiiq people invaded the land that is in between the Aleutian islands and mainland Alaska.  Being in between the Aleuts and the mainland natives, the Alutiiq people served as a conduit of words from one people to the other.  So, I am looking through words that I've already collected from Aleut, Dena'ina, and Eyak, and comparing them to data I've been researching through in Alutiiq.  Should the board approve my request and grant me the $2500, my mentor and I will present this data.  We would go to Sitka in March to present it before an audience for the Alaska Anthropological Association.  It would be a really awesome experience.

I've been really torn about the Cuba trip.  I've been told it would be an invaluable experience and that I really need to pursue it.  However, it may or may not jeopardize my ability to graduate in or within four years.  Before I graduate, I need to take two 400 level Spanish courses for my Spanish degree as well as two writing-intensive and one oral-intensive course for my Linguistics degree.  Meeting all those requirements when I return for Spring 2017 would be a miracle.  It wouldn't necessarily be impossible, but it would be difficult to make all those requisites align.  Even if I were to find a set of classes that met those requirements, that would be a tough semester.  If going to Cuba meant knocking one of those out, it wouldn't be so bad, but the semester abroad would be purely for the experience and improvement to my Spanish.  I really want to go badly, but doing so might mean shooting myself in the foot.

I have signed up for my classes for next semester.  I am taking Intermediate Gwich'in, Spanish Reading & Comprehension, Second Language Acquisition, Semantics, Seminar, and Beginning Aikido, for a total of 16 credits.

To go over all of them:  Intermediate Gwich'in will be a continuation of my current semester, just learning more words and grammar. I hope to keep taking it, but I'm not sure about what role Gwich'in will play in my future.  There's a lot of linguistic work that needs to be done with native Alaskan languages, so part of me wants to stay up here and do research.  However, part of me wants to get out of the cold and dark and explore the world, teaching English or something.  Yet another part of me wants to help out refugees, probably also with teaching them English.  I feel like we need to do more with helping refugees survive here, and I would like to help.  So I don't know what I'm going to do with my life.  I just plan on going through whatever doors are opened for me.

Spanish Reading & Comprehension will be reading books as a class and going over the material together.

Second Language Acquisition will be learning about how people learn their second languages, which has been a topic of great interest to me lately.

Semantics is the study of word meaning, which also interests me.

Seminar is kind of the big, daunting, final linguistics class.  It's like an undergraduate thesis class.  I think I'm going to write about my internship work for it so that I already have the data.  My next semester is going to be a bit rough so I don't want to add any more work to it than I need to.

Aikido is a martial arts thing.  I wanted to continue with swimming, but it conflicts with my classes. I went through pretty much all the PE options, except dancing, and found Aikido works.  I wasn't really sure what it was at first, but after briefly googling it, it seemed cool.  It should be great, in terms of exercise, self-defense, and discipline.

There's a month-long event that will be held here in I think June called Co-Lang.  It's sort of like a linguistics convention.  There will be classes held there that I could take for credits.  I would very much like to attend this because I would love to take classes there and meet linguists from around the world.  I'm not sure what this means for going home as it is kind of awkwardly in the middle of the summer.  But we'll see.

I'm not entirely sure if my depression is getting better or not.  It feels like it's definitely not worse, but it's not much any better.  Unfortunately, all this medication I've been taking is not instantaneous, so I've still got a bit to tell if it is working.  Hopefully by the time next semester is in full force it will have had its time to work through me and I'll be better mentally.

Halfwayish

I think this semester is going by fast.  Maybe it's because my last semester lasted five months (basically).  I'm not trying to wish my life away, although sometimes I do.  I feel like time flies when my days or at least weeks have fun things to do.  It's when there are days after days of going through the motions that time drags.  So, I take it as a good thing when time's flying.

It's these fun things I do with my UCM friends that are helping me get through this semester.  I've been at one of my lowest points yet in terms of my depression lately.  These times with my friends have really improved my mood.

There should be a video of us doing our UCM things together on Facebook.

Anyway, for updates:

I still haven't gotten my internship.  However, my professor makes it sound like it will happen soon; it's just that there need to be meetings to approve funding for it.  She sounds optimistic, so I will be too.

I'm still applying for Cuba.  I've been writing essays answering questions like what are my academic and personal goals for my time there.  Also, I've been researching and applying for scholarships so that the trip won't cost an arm and a leg, but rather just an arm.  I also need to send emails to my professors so that I can use them as references.

For a few weekends now, a friend of mine and I have been meeting on Saturdays to practice our Gwich'in k'yaa together.  For those new to my blog (if there are any), Gwich'in is the native Alaskan and Canadian language I'm studying.  K'yaa means language, so I am learning and speaking Gwich'in k'yaa.  A person who speaks this language natively is a Dinjii zhuh.  If you call them an Eskimo, you will get slapped across the face.  So don't.

I've been helping him with pronunciation and vocabulary as I am a year ahead of him.  It's been great to have someone else to practice with outside of class.

Swimming's been getting better.  I'm more confident in the water than when I first started, but I'm still really struggling with breathing right next to the water.  My nostrils and mouth keep filling with water, which isn't great.  But I'll just keep practicing.  I'd kinda like to take swimming next semester, but I may be taking 18 credits next semester.  Yikes.

Prayers that I not be so depressed would be appreciated.  And also prayers for the people of Hooper Bay would be great; about a week before I published this post, four young people committed suicide there, and the village has been pretty devastated.

Here's a Bible verse:

"But if I were you, I would appeal to God; I would lay my cause before him.  He performs wonders that cannot be fathomed, miracles that cannot be counted.  He provides rain for the Earth; he sends water on the countryside.  The lowly he sets on high, and those who mourn are lifted to safety"
Job 5: 8-11

September 2015 Update

Lots of updates.  I'll go over what I've done this weekend, then my hopes for the future.

Yesterday, I went on our UCM retreat.  Originally, we were going to a place called Globe Creek, but there was a ton of snow yesterday, which made driving in less-traveled roads too dangerous.  So, instead of camping at a camp, we camped at a hotel.  We hung out doing some worship and watching Nooma videos.  The next day, we hiked over to the Barnes & Noble across the street.  There, I bought the first Harry Potter book in the language it was always meant to be read in: Spanish.  We did some more hanging out and worship and Nooma, then came back home.  That was my fun retreat!

Here are some pictures I've been taking (From random times and places)

Beginnings of the snowman army

More snowmen

Mega snowman

My friend Will, at the retreat, cutting a tomato vertically rather than horizontally

My friend, Zach, eating.  I kept getting blurry images and so I had to keep awkwardly taking more.

These next images are from Starvation Gulch.  For those who want to know more about what that is, copy paste this URL: https://www.uaf.edu/woodcenter/activities/traditions/starvation/

Basically, its burning pallets that have been shaped into towers or buildings.

Fires!

One group built a firetruck out of pallets.  I suppose there's an irony in a burning firetruck set ablaze by firefighters.

Burning Eye of Sauron

It burns!

The Eye of Sauron pallet pile collapsed.

You can feel the warmth far away.

DJs playing trap music loudly.

Here's the firefighters lighting that building in the back on fire.

Stack on fire

A fair amount of people.  Maybe 400ish.

View from a distance.  There were also tens in front selling food and stuff.

I've been trying to get a job.  I'd kind of rather just not have a job so I could have plenty of time for my 16 credits, my friends, as well as retaining a little bit of my sanity, but I need the income.  I'm seeing if I can continue my internship I had last semester and summer, but I don't know yet if it will work.  The professor I worked with seemed optimistic.

One reason I'm hoping for a job (in addition to offsetting the cost of flying and textbooks) is I hope to study abroad next fall.  I'm hoping to go to la Universidad de la Habana, which is a university in Cuba. I still need to earn a couple of scholarships and work out transferring credits I earn there to UAF, but I'm optimistic.

It should be an interesting experience.  I've never lived so far south, so the heat might be tough.  It might also be a challenge that there are 2.1 million people in La Habana, which is far more than any where I'll've lived in for more than two weeks.  And, of course, I won't be speaking English.  I'm hoping for something like an English tutoring job there though; that should be fitting for me.

If I were to come back for my Spring semester 2017, I could earn a double major in Linguistics and Spanish. Financially, that'll be tough.  However, I think going through with that will pay great dividends in the future.  I'm going to do my best to get that to work, and hopefully it will all go well.

UAF: Part Trois

I'm starting what should be my one and only junior semester.  In the spring, I'll be a senior, credit-wise.  If I knew as much my freshman year as I know now, next semester would be my last.  My first year I took a class I didn't need to, and dropped some classes that would have been nice to have already done. But I wasn't as durable and determined then as I am now.  I can't change my past decisions, so I'll just learn from them what to do and not to do.

It's fall here, and towards the end of it.  Some trees are nearly spent, but most still have their beautiful yellow leaves.  Here are some pictures of them:

Here's a main area a lot of students walk through.  Riding bikes is pretty common on campus.  On the right, you can see some warning tape and traffic cones.  Facilities is apparently starting more construction/repairs on the road there.  UAF is far better at starting projects than finishing them.  

The giant building in the back is called The New Engineering Building.  Its construction started prior to UAF realizing they hadn't obtained the funding to build it.  That being said, I think they managed to finish it somehow.  I don't think it has a name like the buildings around it (Brooks, Duckering, Bunnell), but maybe they're waiting for someone to make a big donation to name it after them.  I'm sure the engineering students will come up with a better name.  Maybe Neb.

I'm not sure if I just don't remember all the flowers from the beginning of the past fall semesters, but it seems like Facilities has planted a bunch of them.  They're pretty now, but they probably won't be once the freezing starts.

Chair of nails.  It probably wouldn't hurt to sit in it, but I don't really want to test that theory.  There used to also be a chair of broken glass but I was less optimistic about that one.

Landscape as viewed from the Wood Center Bus Stop.

Same as above, but with a few trees, a pickup, and a sculpture blocking the view.

Also from the same bus stop, but facing the opposite direction, towards what we call the West Ridge, where we have all our science buildings.

Fully yellow trees.

Yellow trees and some evergreens.

This is the Museum of the North in case you've never seen it.  It's a popular spot for tourists.  My friend works there, and she gets questions like "When do you guys turn on the Northern Lights?"

These trees have dispensed many of their leaves already.  In the background are the science buildings Aka Sofu and Elvey (I think).

Western part of campus.  The sun was annoying because it made the ground dark by comparison on my phone, so I had to point it away from the sun as much as I could.

On the left is the gym called the Student Recreation Center or SRC or rec center.  In the middle is the Patty Ice Center, where we have our ice rink.  I still have yet to see a UAF hockey game.  I really should go to at least one game at some point, but I'm not much of a sports person, and I don't think my friends are either.  On the right is the Patty Center where most of the courts are located.  It is there that I take my swimming class.  It's also where the basketball and racquetball courts are as well as the shooting range.

On Tuesdays and Thursdays I take Introduction to Morphology and English for Second Language Teaching.  The former is a requisite of a Linguistics degree (and I want to take it anyway) and the later is an elective.  I'm using it partly because I want to, and because I have an interest in teaching ESL after graduation.  I mean to use this course to see if this aspiration is what I want or not.

On Mondays, Wednesdays, and Fridays, I take Introduction to Swimming, Intermediate Gwich'in, and Concepts and Contemporary Applications of Mathematics.  I've never been a good swimmer, and it's something I'd like to be able to do at least well enough to save my life/ enjoy myself during pool parties.  I decided to continue Gwich'in because I enjoy it so much, though I don't know what purpose it will serve in my life yet.  My freshman year I took a stat class I thought I needed and could use, but it turned out to be redundant because I took stats in high school.  So I'm taking another math class so as to fulfill my math requirement.

As needed, I'll be working on my Spanish Composition class.  It's online.  All in all, I'm taking 16 credits this semester.  That's more than I've ever taken, but I think I can handle that much.  I'm trying to frontload this and next semester so that my last semester can be relatively easy.  I'm hoping to spend that semester abroad in maybe South America, so if I could spend as much time outside of the classroom making friends and visiting places, that'd be really awesome.

I haven't yet looked into a job yet.  I was considering emailing the professors I worked with about continuing my internship.  However, there is a person sitting in on my ESL class who does something with teaching English and said where she works is looking for volunteers and maybe people to work there.  So, tomorrow (the 8th) I'm thinking about talking to her and see if I can't get something going there.  I think getting my feet wet would be the best way to find out if this is truly my calling.  Or if I'm wrong.  God will open or shut this door as he sees fit.

Final Week

There are only three more days of class/internship as of when I'm writing this blog.  I've found that I've enjoyed my biology class a lot more than I thought I would.  The professor's a really cool guy, and I'm getting to learn about all kinds of plants and animals around Alaska and how they function in the different seasons and weather up here.

As for my internship, I'm glad that will be done soon.  It was not so bad during the school year when I never needed to sit for more than two hours to work on a dictionary.  During the summer, I meant to be working as close to a full time job as possible.  However, with the class I'm taking, and the fact that sitting in front of my computer entering data for hours on end is misery, that goal was not reached.  It is difficult both to sit and to be accurate for so long.

Wednesday, they both end.  Thursday I'll get to enjoy some free time.  I was hoping to see a movie and explore the campus, but it might rain that day so I may only be able to do the former.  Friday I pack up, clean my room, and check out of my room.  I depart Fairbanks at 11:40 pm and arrive at Seattle at 4:00 am.  I hope to sleep on the flight, but we'll see how that goes.  I'd rather not sleep in the terminal, but I don't really enjoy the idea of sleeping on the plane.  I then have about 3 1/2 hours of layover so I'll probably try to wander across the whole airport and at some point grab some breakfast.  At 10:25 I'll be back in Boise.  I really look forward to getting done and making it to the 4th.

This last week has been a bit tough weather-wise.  From about Monday to Wednesday, it was very smoky.  The smoke greatly reduced visibility, and you could smell it even indoors.  After the smoke, it rained, which was nice because it cleared out the smoke.  The main problem was that I couldn't get out very much, and I was cooped up inside a lot.  I enjoy doing my constitutional outside when I can, and I didn't want to be outside for a while.

So, I'm (ideally) a little over halfway done with getting my degree here.  And in a week, I'll be returning to the lower 48 so I can see my family, friends, and cats!

Golf; Halfway

I should write up these blogs more, but I frequently feel very apathetic and forget to write these.


So, here is my June update:

On Monday, the 8th, some friends and I went to the Pioneer Park.  First we ate some Souvlaki:

It's a Greek food place.  Souvlaki lamb with onions and tomatoes in a pita wrap (not sure if the food named the restaurant, or the other way around).  There was some similar food, such as falafel, as well as Souvlaki tacos, which were the food I described above but in a taco.  For non-adventurous people, there were hot dogs.

The mini-golf course five of us (inclusive) played through.  It was rustic in every sense of the word, but still very fun.  Up until a bit before we started playing it was raining.  We were all really glad it stopped.

Windmill to shoot through towards the hole at the end.

I'm red here, you can see me on the purple carpet next to the planter.  I don't know if you guys can see it, but there was a bit of a lip to overcome that was tough.  Also, you see there is a bankshot in the corner.  I found those to be false friends and unhelpful.

My friends said there were no bonus points for making it in the bucket :(

Be sure your Tetanus shots are up to date prior to using this course.

You see the pan in the middle under the arch?  There were many holes that had mechanical obstacles, but none of them were working.  I wasn't complaining, but it would have been nice to have that added challenge to the holes.

You can see it at the farmost right; there is a hump in the carpet.  Perhaps due to moisture, or poor installation, the carpet was curling.  This added an unintended challenge to sinking the ball.

I did not make it through the straight shot on that pipe, but rather towards the right, about where you can see David is putting his green ball.

Putting.  We set little leaves or grass under balls when we needed to move other's balls so as to make a clear shot.

I made a hole-in-one on this one.  I was really happy to do so, because on the previous hole, I went way over par.  If you go up to the first picture, you see there is a hole in the middle with a loop de loop.  We had a mercy rule/ time saving rule that, on the fifth shot, if you didn't make it, you got a five.  My first two shots, I simply couldn't get enough power in my swing to make it through the loop.  On my third I did, but after that, I just couldn't sink it.  I think it was the only one I went over par.  Overall, I did end up under par, and in second place among my friends.  I really found the whole experience fun and was glad I got to hang out with my UCM friends again.

Dance here

Me on a wooden salmon.  Probably not life-sized.  

So, as of this weekend, I will be halfway through my Biology class, five eighths of the way through my summer session, and twenty-three twenty-sixths of the way since I started in January.  I really long to be done,  This is the longest stretch I've ever been away from home.  July 4th can't come soon enough.

Also, listen to this:

Attalus- Oh, The Depths

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BV8TVbteUoU

I enjoy it.

An Update

Here's a picture of my view from my dorm:

Last weekend I moved from my dorm that I stayed in from September to December then January to early May.  Then I moved up to my new one.  It's a single dorm and it's pretty small, but it's fine.  I like the view, and I like the solitude, but it's warm up on the sixth floor and the desk is really low so I have to hunch while I work on my internship.  Also, because I don't have curtains, it doesn't get dark in my room even at night, although fortunately this hasn't prevented me from sleeping.

Last Monday I started my class called ¡SÍSÍ!, which means Summer Intensive Spanish Immersive.  For four hours a day I spoke Spanish with other classmates, and I found it very fun and useful.

For the next six weeks, I will be taking Alaskan History, which is a Biology class that has four lectures a week and two labs.  I'm not looking forward to this one as much as I was looking forward to my Spanish class, but I need to take a Science class/lab sometime.

July first, I will be taking my Biology Final and wrapping up my internship.  The second is a free day with currently nothing to do.  I might go see a movie that day, perhaps the new Mad Max.  The third, at 11 pm, I fly out to Seattle, and then at about 10:30 am I'll be back in Boise.  This will be my second red-eye flight I've ever taken, so what I plan to do this time is to take some sleeping pills so that I can sleep for the first leg, while praying that no one brought their baby.

End of the Semester

I'm glad to be finally done with this semester.  I found my classes very stressful and draining.  One of the assignments I had to do in my Language Contact class was a research project.  I looked at changes in Gwich'in as languages learners studied the language.  The entire time I didn't feel like I understood the project.  I'm glad its behind me now

After my last final I had three days of somewhat of a break.  I don't have any classes, but I did do some work on my internship.  Monday I start my Spanish class which lasts for two weeks.  Then, I have six weeks of Biology.  The entire time I will be trying to get to as close to forty hours of work as I can.  Forty hours is a lot considering I'm also taking classes, but the money will help a lot.  Hopefully it will also help line up some future internship or actual work.

After my biology class and internship end, I will fly back to Boise on July fourth,  In July, my mom and I mean to visit our relatives in California for a bit.  I will see my grandma, my aunts and uncles, and my cousins.  It should be fun, hopefully.  The weather should be much warmer there and the water much rarer, which will not be fun.

My allergies have been pretty bad up here.  I'm not sure what is in the air that has been giving me a sore throat and a cough for a while, but hopefully sudafed will take care of it.  I'll also be needing a fan, apparently.  I've been told that the dorm in which I'll be staying gets miserably hot during the summer.

I'm also trying to figure out my living situation for the next two semesters.  I want to live in an on campus apartment with three other friends.  However, there is already a random person living in the apartment they chose.  I've been in contact with this person and he said he'd be willing to move provided he had another apartment in which to live.  So, I applied for a different apartment so that we could swap.  The man said that he'd be willing to move, so long as the people where he'd be moving were clean and quiet.  So, I emailed the people who I am assigned to live with (but won't actually live with), and found out they were in a similar situation as us, except I was the random person.  So, their fourth person is getting a different apartment, and hopefully, we can do a three way switch, with everybody getting what they wanted.

Anchorage Trip

On Friday evening, my friends and I from UCM went to Anchorage.  It's a long 7ish hour drive, but it is very scenic.  I alternated between talking with my friends and doing Sudokus.  We were staying at Saint John Methodist Church, like every spring break.

Once there, we set up the room to sleep and headed to bed.  We were all in one room as there were no women on this trip.  In the morning, we ate cereal and headed to the Empty Bowl.  It's a fundraiser that raises funds for Bean's Cafe, which is a soup kitchen.  Patrons buy tickets which can be redeemed for bowls that artists donate.  The patrons also were given cups of soup. There was a bean soup and a bacon and barley soup.  I thought they were going to get soup in the bowls they bought, but then I realized the bowls weren't necessarily food-safe.  My friends and I volunteered to fill any role, but we ended up taking tickets at the bowl tables.

It was a pretty big convention center.  There might have been three or four hundred people total at the event.

Bowls.  There were wooden ones that were chosen as fast as we could put them out, but unfortunately they were limited in number.

More bowls.

This is what we did.  We took tickets and answered basic questions.  There was an artist who made some of the bowls who knew more, but she left after a bit.  There were some people very impressed, and then there were some who asked "Is this it?" or "Where are the rest?"

Us.  At the right is my friend who graduated last semester who now lives in Anchorage.  It was really nice to get to see her and talk to her again.

Whoever made these made a ton.  About half of the bowls were this tan/blue/green pattern.  

There was an elementary school that sent in animal masks too.

Bowl.

Wooden bowl.  These went really fast and many patrons wished we had more.

More bowls.

The next day we attended the church's service.  Afterwords we were planning on going to IHOP but we were recommended to support a local place instead.  The pastor's wife suggested a pizzeria/pub called Moose's Tooth.  We went there instead and got some very good pizza.

Buffalo chicken with ranch and carrot shreds.

Meatballs with peppers and olives.

Later we played Settlers of Catan.  I didn't win.

The next day we split up into two groups.  Usually about half of the people go ski, and the other half go around downtown. This time, there was only one person who wanted to ski, and so the rest of us wen to the Anchorage zoo.  Here are a bunch of animals:

Seal.  He started out just floating in the water, but later it moved over to the glass and kept swimming into the glass.  I think it felt confined.

Otters.  The liked to swim around, play with the sticks in the water, and do barrel rolls.

Sleepy polar bear.

Another sleepy polar bear.

Moose.

Peregrine falcon.

Fox.  Seeing one of these really reinforced my desire to have a pet fox.

Lynx.  Lynxes look like someone stole their tail.

I tried to take pictures of labels whenever I took pictures of birds because I am no ornithologist.

Red-tailed hawk.  The birds we saw mostly just sat on their perch and didn't do much.

This is an owl.

Wolves.  They're big creatures.

Tiger lounging.

Tiger eating meat.  There were dozens of ravens in the trees and on the ground waiting for the tiger to leave. so they could get the scraps.

                                                                            Coyote

Mountain Goat

Dall Sheep.

Sheep (not to be confused with the goat)

Snow leopard paced back

and forth

Bear.  Bears are bigger than I realized.

Bald eagle.  This one had only one wing.

Caribou.  I think I'm getting better at distinguishing caribou and moose.

One-antlered caribou

Alpacas I think

Camel.  Another animal that was bigger than I thought.

Tibetan Yak

Off exhibit.  Look closely at what's inside if you don't get it.

Oomingmak

Snowy owl

Golden Eagle

Sitka Black-Tailed Deer

Turkey walking around with the deer.

Deer

Arctic fox.  The foxes were really hard to take pictures of, and these were the hardest. It's in the center.  I couldn't get any better shot without it running to its burrow.

Fox sunbathing.

Afterwords we went to this burger place where I ate the biggest burger I've ever eaten.  I felt the effects of that burger for days.  Later we played another round of Catan which I lost.  The next day we left Anchorage and drove all the way back to Fairbanks.