small steps into adulthood

i told myself i'd never be one of those people who moves out on their own only to fill their tummies with pasta every night.

guess what i had for dinner.

there's been a persistant twitching in my eye throughout the day,

i'm exhausted, jet legged.

here it's 9:30pm,

at home it's 1:30am

my typical bed time.

the change will come though, in the next couple of days i should be on track with the rest of anchorage.

so

before AmeriCorps, i'd

- never paid rent (free room & board as an RA at MSU was amazing but also delayed this necessary evil)

- never grocery shopped (same reason as above - also, I don't count going to the market in Rwanda as "grocery shopping". when you have only 2 choices, beans or potatoes, the decision isn't hard; both. it's not like here where there are 64 different options for jam, all of which are of different flavors, quality (organic? not?) & price. ohmygosh.)

- never opened a bank account for myself

- ect, ect.

here,

i'm learning the value of

- an apple

- a jar of peanut butter

- a lunch

- a bed

- a roof over my head

- a bus ride

- the kindness of strangers

- a warm expression of appreciation

- the patience of experience

- persistence

- a pair of wool socks

- long underwear

with the help of my new roomies, i tackled the isles of the grocery store my first night in town. they helped me to pick out the basics, the bare essentials (peanut butter, jelly, mac&cheese, pasta, oatmeal, cereal) and i left, refusing to allow anyone other than myself the privilege of shlepping the surprisingly heavy bags home from the store, with a great sense of accomplishment.

today, opening up a bank account however, was a whole nother story.

i'd just gone and met the AmeriCorps recruiter (she was great, very kind & welcoming) and planned to go to the mall down the road but told her i was nervous to try and navagate my way around town.

not only am i brand new here,

it's also -10's something out

and i expressed to her my (not so irrational) fear of getting lost & ending up frozen to death whoknowswhere.

she offered me some reassurance & said to call if i ever needed anything, which i thought was very generous of her.

*today, i kid you not, i saw dozens of people walking around without gloves/mittens & i even saw one boy in a t-shirt. a t-shirt!! i must need some thicker skin.

anyway, so i find my way down the street to the mall noticing a warm-looking cafe on my way & enter the Wells Fargo feeling pretty good. (i got from point A to point B - little victory!) i was instantly greeted by several very friendly people who upon hearing that i was there to open a bank account, directed me to have a seat & wait for someone to help me out. a woman soon-after approached me, introduced herself as Maggie and had me step into her office (a chair at the end of the tellers' counter).

it was all down hill from there.

what kind of account would you like?

who do you work for?

checking

savings

maintenance fees

monthly transfer of funds

a register

online banking

interest rates

free checkbooks

account types

bill payments

$75 every month

& on

& on

& on.

at one point, i told Maggie "my head is spinning"

because i kid you not, as this woman was sitting there spewing out bank vocabulary, a completely foreign language to me, i felt the dizziness of a few too many drinks floating through my brain as i sat in the chair across the desk from her & tried to keep down my oatmeal breakfast.

ohmygosh - why is it soo difficult??

poor maggie took pity on me & after finally overcoming my vertigo, i signed the papers, made a couple of deposits & got out the door as quickly as possible.

feeling as though i needed some time to settle down after all the banking chaos, i ducked in and out of a gift store or two and then decided i'd much prefer to sign the massive pile of paperwork the Americorps recruiter had given me in that little artsy-fartsy cafe rather than sitting in the darkness of my new room.

Midnight Sun Cafe

it was everything i'd hoped it to be.

after a bus tour to the mall & back yesterday afternoon, i was starting to think that all of Anchorage was a dirty city & awful architectural remnants of the 70's pipeline era but setting foot in the Midnight Sun cafe felt more like entering a favorite East Lansing coffee house - minus all the hipsters. I felt right at home, claiming a window seat in the front corner of the cafe & ordering a bowl of the lentil soup. I took the opportunity to soak up the afternoon sunshine while it was available - here it's not so much that the sun sets super early, it's that it rises super late (at around 10am). I filled out my paperwork as best i could and loved every minute of the sunshine & earthy feel - finding peace in knowing that i'd have somewhere to come in the future to escape the cold & the dirty grime of the city bustle.

i managed to find my way home no problem. the city is set up like a grid, roads running one way are all letters & the roads running the other way are all numbers (i'm staying on 12th & G).

tomorrow i'm getting up super early to walk, in the darkness, to the public assistance building. i will apply for food-stamps & hopefully do well enough with the interview to receive them. the $320 in my bank account up here won't last me long. then i'll meet with our recruiter again to turn in the paperwork & figure things out a bit more. hopefully i'll have an interview with organizations starting on Friday.

groceries

rent

bank account

baby steps.

baby steps.

also, i loved this;

new plans on your horizon. old boyfriends in your wake.