Deployment part 1

Before you read this post you should search for a map of Alaska. When you find this map you need to look along the Aleutian Islands which are the line of islands that jut out to the left of Alaska. These islands are host to 57 volcanoes and the area thought to be where humanity crossed into the Americas. This is also home to the island of Unalaska. Here is where Dutch Harbor is located, which more specifically, is where I'm located. Even though it has yet to come across this way to me, it has been described in such a way that would accurately describe the Pirate Cove Tortuga. I've heard stories of rough characters and people that should be steered clear of. All I've seen are mountains and hills littered with snow (one of which i got to hike today), grocery store, and hotel bar. I worry that other than hiking and reading I may not have much to do because apparently all people do up here is drink and subsist.

I haven't posted in a while though so maybe (if you're interested) I should tell you how I got here. Yesterday at about 12:30 we took a taxi to the airport and checked in with our bags. My bags consisted of an xxl REI duffle bag, my blue baskets (essential sampling gear), my immersion suit (keeps me alive if the ship goes down), and my backpack as a carry on. I started to walk towards a really well guarded FAA encampment of TSA Specialists that were between me and a concourse when one of the people that were heading to Dutch Harbor with me yelled my name. Her name is Jessica and she'll be explained further later on. She informed me that I wasn't heading towards our gate and to follow her. I followed, confused by the fact that I saw no other entrance to the main concourse. Well that's because there wasn't. We walked downstairs to gate L which required no security check and had no TSA specialists in site. This is because apparently the Aleutian islands are of little consequence to terrorists. All the seats at the gate were taken so I plopped down on the floor with a guy named Mark, who was in my class, and the Jessica girl I've mentioned previously.

Jessica gets her own paragraph, not because she is someone of interest in a positive sense, just because I feel that the necessary lambasting that will ensue needs to be separated in order for quick retreival in the future. She is a useless person in my opinion which you may think is harsh but she steps on every one of my nerves, so much so, that I feel no shame in saying this. The description will star with her choice of dress. There's nothing wrong with the way she dresses or there wouldn't be if it didn't fit the rest of her motif. She tends to wear hot pink a lot with matching hot pink head bands. Her typical wardrobe consists of usually a long pink sweater leggings and extra tuffs (our boots for the ship). This outfit is usually "jazzed" up by some other flagrantly bad piece of flare that horribly mis-matches her outfits (scarves etc). You're all thinking "But Patrick, all you've described is how she looks." and "Don't judge a book by it's cover" and all that stuff which I agree with that's why I'm going to tell you what it's like talking to her.

First, she dominates a conversation, which still doesn't mean much because I don't fight very hard to dominate them most of the time, but this girl dominates them and then fills them with 70 percent laughter and self applauding. As we were sitting down on the floor she went through about 7 different stories about her friend who is getting married and how she is doomed to be a brides maid and never a bride. At this point i placated her much to my amusement by saying "I don't understand why". She of course loved this and due to the fact that she was so wrapped up in things she had to say failed to sea the dead look of sarcasm on my face. She quickly went into another topic and directed her verbal abuse at Mark, who is from New York and really doesn't care.

At this point, feeling I have humored her enough, and knowing she would be busy, pull a book from my backpack to read. As if she sensed that a book was in her presence she immediately turned, and before her turn was complete began to ask, "What are you reading?" I looked at my book which was freshly removed from my bag and replied "The Elegant Universe" She asked what it was about and so without launching into an hour long discussion on the conflict between quantum physics and Einsteins theory of reletivity and a potential theory to combine the two, I explained by saying "It's about physics." After this I said "As pretentious as that sounds" she replied "hahahahahahahahahahahaha [seriously] As long as you realize" Now it should be said that she and I both were in a big group of people that went out to eat at a restraunt in Anchorage the night we all finished class. We sat next to eachother and talked about our respective degrees and where we went to school. She informed me that she was a biology major I think with a focus in neurobiology or something and she worked in a lab that dealt with eyes. I don't really remember because I wasn't paying attention. The point was that I had talked to this girl previously. Anyhow, we start talking about books and what are our favorites and it is the most pretentious discussion and we're both trying to outdo the other's literary merit but it's still fairly innocent and unobvious. We keep talking and we continue to talk about writers and styles and I sheepishly admit that I would like to write one day (secrets out) and listed a specific author that I admire. She emits a huge "ME TOO!" and "I really want to write one day and I'm really good at it." This girl five minutes ago said she can't read books that you wouldn't let a five year old read not because she can't read them just because she can't stand graphic content. So when she said "I'm really good at it" (which still makes me shutter) I sort of imagined her writing hello kitty stories with proper comma placement, necessary amounts of parenthesis, you know, perfectly scripted grammar- the opposite of this blog. So after that series of comments I just gave up and zoned out as she told me that the only book by chuck palahniuk was fight club and she wouldn't read choke because she heard it was gross, and blah blah. I'm not going to continue because this blog could go on for days.