First day jitters

Well my one week of summer in the cities flew by and all of a sudden here I am at Itasca! I had a few panic attacks on Tuesday before leaving (i.e. losing my driver’s license, finding it, losing cash, finding it, trying to figure out how to buy the perfect amount of groceries for 5 weeks, etc.), and when it came time to hit the road I didn’t feel like I was really ready. Honestly, I was kind of nervous and reluctant to leave. Obviously that was silly because Itasca = greatest place on earth, therefore this is going to be an amazing summer. I quickly got over my uneasiness once I got here, remembered how freaking beautiful it is up here and spent the first night sitting around a campfire with some other early-arrivals.

There's that gorgeous Lake Itasca!

I arrived on Tuesday so that I could do some class prep before classes started on Thursday. This meant waking up at 6am on Wednesday and going out with the professor to brush up on my bird identification skills (I passed. Phew!). Sound early? That's a piece of cake compared to the normal class start time of 5am! It's awesome.... Being a T.A. is going well so far: the first class was today and it was bundles of fun! 

Being on the faculty side of everything this year is pretty interesting. I have my own little mini-cabin in the faculty area of campus, I make all my own meals instead of eating in the dining hall, and I live really far away from the showers. It's kind of lonely, but the faculty are pretty great, and luckily I know another T.A. and a few students from last year, so I can at least pretend like I have some friends up here already!

My digs

One of my great successes last summer was creating the Itasca Ultimate Summer League (seriously, I got half of the people here hooked on Ultimate Frisbee!), and I hope to do the same this year. Unfortunately, while I remembered to bring every other necessary (and unnecessary) item up here, I forgot the Frisbees! How am I supposed to make friends now??? But no worries, my dad is sending me a few! 

And of course, I know you are all wondering: the birds are great. THERE ARE SO MANY UP HERE!!! I love it, we've already heard a lot more on campus than we did at this time last year. (We have a few Scarlet Tanagers around here, Mom!) 

That's all for now. I'll keep you updated if I get any great sunset pics or anything exciting happens like running into the bear (don't worry I do it fairly regularly).

Signing off,

T.A. Hannah