North to Alaska

The last month or so has been very busy here in Arizona. In a three week span, I took two Advanced Placement Tests for European History and English Literature, took the SAT and scored an 1880 out of a possible 2400 on my first run, and took four final exams as well as finishing a final project for my graphics class. This was all due to two factors: the end of the school year and the annual Stampin' Up cruise through Mum's work. This year's destination was Alaska and British Columbia.


We flew from Tucson to Seattle to catch the boat at the docks. Our cruise line was Celebrity, a favorite of my family's after having done a western Caribbean and Mexico cruise about six or so years ago. Also, for once, it was NOT raining in Seattle. Thankfully, I didn't need to quote the movie Sleepless in Seattle in which David Hyde Pierce (famous for portraying Miles on Frasier), who is playing Meg Ryan's brother, says, in a very calculating, monotone way, "It rains nine months of the year in Seattle."

Our first stop on the cruise was Ketchikan, Alaska, the first official city. It resembled more of a fishing village than anything, but it did have a very awesome and entertaining lumberjack show (see picture below). Something interesting though is that all of the towns we visited in Alaska are "landlocked" where you cannot reach it by road. You have to either fly in on a sea plane (which about 25% of the population are licensed to fly), or come in by boat.

The guy in the middle was, quite obviously, one of the lumberjacks.

The second stop was the capital, Juneau, which isn't much different from Ketchikan. However, I did manage to buy a very cool book on how to make "chain mail" jewelry, which is basically just necklaces and things made out of metal chain. On the way to Juneau, we sailed through the Tracy Arm Fjord, which looks a lot like the Grand Canyon if it was brown stone, covered in trees, and in an environment with a lot of snow.

The Tracy Arm Fjord near Juneau, Alaska, home to a giant glacier.

The third stop was the final one in Alaska: Skagway. It is possibly one of the worst named towns in all of the world. Dad lovingly (or so I think) calls it Skankway. It was the most charming of the three Alaska towns we visited and tried hard to keep the gold rush era atmosphere, restoring a bunch of their old buildings.

This was taken in downtown Skagway. Those mountains are not a backdrop. They are real.

The official final stop was Victoria, British Columbia and by far, my favorite. Its a tourist stop to be sure, but because of the large number of Irish pubs, it feels kinda like a college town without the college. The Parliament Building, which was built just in time for, I believe, the 50th anniversary of Queen Victoria's (whom the town was named after) reign. Covering the building are a vast number of little lights, matching the number of diamonds on the British Queen's crown.

This is us in the garden in front of the Empress Hotel in Victoria. Thankfully, the weather was slightly more temperate in BC, but we still had the wear what was basically the warmest clothes we owned. Dad bought his specifically for the trip and my jacket is one that I mostly wear to school on days when they forget to turn the air conditioning off in my class's main building (which can get very cold in the middle of winter when its only 60 or so outside).

Special Note: my jacket is referred to by my friend's as the "Napoleon jacket" or the "Rasputin jacket" depending on who you talk to. Reasons for calling it a Napoleon jacket: because it is designed to look like a military jacket from the 1800's, and because I am very small, adding to joke about "little" Napoleon (even though he was actually average height for the time which was 5'8"). Reasons for calling it a Rasputin jacket: because it is slightly longer and resembles a Russian coat a little. Also, on my biological father's side, I am Russian (even though on that same side, I am also French).

Our trip overall was cold, but a lot of fun. We spent most of our time hanging out on the boat, playing cards or chess (which I have, excitedly, finally beat my dad at), or eating coconut cookies (my dad's new addiction). However, when we returned from our week long trip, our cat, Sasha, was more than mad at us and has willingly taken revenge by crying for most of night, much to Mummy's chagrin.

The desert flowers are blooming now so stay tuned for more!

Sasha and Scripps

We recently adopted a new cat, Sasha (who we call "Sashimi" or "Sasha-la"), a three-year-old Russian blue. Russian blues are very easy to pick out of a crowd, for their fir is a dark silvery blue with green eyes and mauve (yes, mauve meaning "purple") pads on their feet. She is very vocal about wanting food and attention. She even will bump your hand with her nose if she wants to be petted. If she cannot find us in the house, she cries until we come find her. However, she is a gorgeous, cute cat and she gets along well with Isabel. Her favorite pastime is watching the birds in the backyard. Mum sometimes jokes that she's the first pet we've had that has real animal instincts.

Walgreens T-shirt Design

This year, I've been taking Graphics, a class that teaches students how to do artwork on the computer using programs like Adobe Photoshop, Flash Animation, and Adobe Illustrator. I am in Graphics II, which is the 'advanced' class. Several times a semester, every student participates in various competitions where they have specific requirements, for example: you have only an hour to design a poster with only three colors. After the competition is over, judges examine each piece of work, narrow it down to a final group, and, eventually a winner is declared. In the first competition that my school participated in this year, we had to design a t-shirt for Walgreens to sell in all of their Tucson stores, promoting Tucson tourism. The competition closed probably some time in November and the winners, there being six of them, were announced to on Thursday. Two students from different schools (I can't remember which ones) were chosen, as were four others from my school, Catalina Foothills. Three of them were beginning students (meaning that this is their first year of graphic arts) and there was one advanced student. Guess who the advanced student chosen was: ME! I was one of six finalists out of over five-hundred entries from five difference Tucson-area schools. The winnings: one-hundred dollars for myself, a free copy of my t-shirt, and my school is given part of the earnings from my t-shirt design sales to use on the Graphics students. Also, the t-shirt I designed can be bought in any Tucson Walgreens store! The picture below is the picture that I designed for Walgreens. We could use only three colors, including black. It may look like my graphic has more than three colors, but the reason that this is allowed is because each color is a different shade. Gray is considered a shade of black, and the only other colors used are tan and white. The writing behind the oxen skull is actually an old cowboy song.