Alaska Bound.

At this exact moment I'm sitting on a park bench in North Berkeley.  I've just had a late morning coffee, so I'm in particular good spirits.  It's tilting towards noon, and, like always, I'm trying to get a bead on how I got here.

To sum up, I basically left Frederick because the thought of starting over again was a depressing one.

I aimed for San Francisco because of a wayward friend who told me that the work was good and plentiful, even if it meant sleeping rough.

I had a little bit of savings from my time at the brewery even after buying the van and fixing my teeth.

I had a fallback plan. A cousin out in Idaho would have come to find me if the money had run out, and he was fairly sure he could get me a job working the fracking rigs if I wanted it.

Now, I didn't really want to spend my days fracking.  It's a temporary solution to a permanent problem, but it was nice to know I wouldn't end up a beggar.  Still, it would have been an odd place for an environmental student to end up.

All that is no longer a worry, though.  I've officially been offered a spot as a fisheries biologist sailing the Bearing Straight and the Gulf of Alaska. 

It's not going to be easy by any stretch.  I had just enough biology credits to qualify, and I'm going to have to study pretty rigorously to pass the training.

The training is paid, but between renewing my passport, getting a physical, and picking up CPR certification, it's going to get a little bit expensive before I can even report for duty.

I've got a dozen people, though, who will float me a small loan if I need it.  I hate borrowing any money for any reason from anybody, but I should be able to squash my internal anxieties for a few weeks if I know I've the means to pay it off with my first paycheck.

I feel like I can handle the necessary studying.  After my 18-credits-of-Calc-and-physics semester I'm not too frightened by such things.

So begging of August I report to Seattle for training.  And if all goes well, somewhere around early November, I'll be shipping off for the North Pacific.