Light, Part 2

Here we are, sitting in the classroom at the tail end of lunch, and the sun has made an appearance. This photo was taken at 1:05 p.m. As you can't tell, because I used PhotoBooth, which is for taking pictures of your own face, the sun is actually visible above the horizon:

Why have my last two blog posts been about light levels? Because it's dark most of the time. The sun sets, and two hours later I'm ready for bed. Except that it gets dark up here around 4, which means I'm ready for sleep at 6 p.m., and that's really not good for my social life, or sleep patterns.

Oh, darkness induced hibernation. It's a fun game.

Light

We have reached that point in the year where the light is pretty much gone. Don't get me wrong, there is still some, in fact, outside it looks like this:

But this is about as light as it gets. We've had dense cloud cover for most of the week, and while the sun comes up and goes down, I don't see it, buried under all these clouds. At least it's stopped snowing.

According to the internet, the sun rose today at 12:23 in the AFTERNOON!!, and will set at 3:30, also this afternoon. That gives us a total of 3 hours, 7 minutes of sunlight. Except, of course, we haven't seen the sun in a week.

Trudging to and from school has become just that: trudging. There is a lot of new, fluffy snow that must be navigated. My boots are more than adequate, but I continue to wear skirts to school, and sometimes the snow gets higher than the tops of my boots. Or else my skirt is too long, and drags in the snow, and then I have a wet skirt slapping against my ankles when I get to school and put on my sandals. 

Soon, Christmas will be here, and I won't have to leave my house for days on end. Don't mock, it's a beautiful thing.

Update on Life

I'm working on my online class right now, and am doing this as a break between writing my personal opinions on the forums. So, to relax from that, I'm going to... ummm... post my personal opinions on this web log.

Oh, I see the irony there.

My class is asking me to give my opinion on war, gays, Market-Capitalism, and philosophy. I find that as I get writing on these topics, that I am a lot better at telling stories about my ideas than actually telling my opinion. And for those of you that know me, you'll understand that I don't often have a problem sharing my opinions.

So here, in my blog, I will share some straight up opinions about my life:

-I don't care that I'm not the favorite teacher. I just care about that moment when the light goes on in a kid's eyes, and I realize that they suddenly understand what I'm talking about. It's glorious.

-I don't understand how a flight to Nome can cost $340 round trip, but a trip to Brevig can cost as little as $200, even though they're ridiculously close together.

-The older I get, the less my eyes, ears, and joints work. I've got three fingers now that make clicks or stall when I try to bend them. I don't know who said 40 was the new 30, because 30 is starting to feel significantly older than 20 did.

-I finished my Christmas shopping, but am concerned that I spent a lot more on some of my siblings than others. I find myself worrying that I should buy more presents for these people, so they don't feel left out, even though they don't really know what their presents cost.

-Sleeping in a room that is too cold is easier than a room that is too hot. One can always pile on more blankets. One cannot always take more off.

-Some authors seem to write more to show off how smart they are than to share information. (Stephanie Meyer is not one of these authors.)

-While movies labeled "Adult" are inappropriate for everyone, movies labeled "Children" are good for everyone.

Okay, I'll go back to my class now.