Alaska is.

"Alaska is unexplainable. When people describe Alaska to you, you can only imagine the little beauties; the beautiful trees, the amazing flowers, and the mighty mountains. Until you get here, you only have broken pictures in your mind. When you do get here, all the missing elements get put together. Alaska is the most amazing place I’ve ever been, and always has a special place in my heart." -Jennifer Long 2006
      As many of you know from reading my past blog entries, I am truly passionate about a little place called Alaska. Above is a small blurb that I wrote for the Alaska Great Lakes Project (AGLP) website back in 2006. Our assignment was to finish the sentence "Alaska is...". After rereading my entry, I find that my feelings about this place have not really changed at all since that summer. In fact, because of my absence for so many summers, I feel like my feelings have only grown a lot stronger. 
     Since 2006, I have gone through many changes in my life. I graduated high school, survived my first year in college, bought a house, adopted a puppy, moved out of my childhood home, and in through all of this grew closer to my family. I have become a person who is passionate about school and about life. 
    Over the past few weeks I have been thinking greatly about whether it is time for me to go back to Alaska with AGLP. In these last few days, I have made my decision. In the summer of 2010, I am going back to my second home and my first love. I am returning to Alaska. 
  
 Please feel free to visit our website at www.aglp.com and post any questions that you might have about the trip here. 

Why I love Jack Johnson...

Ever since I went on my first trip to Alaska in 2005, I have been a huge fan of Jack Johnson and his music. His mellow and acoustic sound has always been something that I have greatly enjoyed. But it is not just his musicianship that makes me love Jack Johnson. It is much more.   

     Jack Johnson was born, raised, and still resides in Oahu, Hawaii.  He grew up on the north shore of the island with his famous surfer father, Jeff Johnson, who taught Jack how to surf at a young age. When Jack was 17, he became the youngest competitor in the Pipeline Masters competition. Before becoming a professional musician, Jack went to the University of California and graduated with a degree in film. He then went on to make surf movies. Jack released his first solo album as a musician, Brushfire Fairytales, in February 2001.

     Over the years, Jack has been an active environmentalist. Currently this year on his To the Sea tour, Jack’s “All at Once” campaign is focused on supporting non-profit organizations centered on sustainable food systems and plastic free initiatives. While on stage, Jack and his band are using reusable water bottles and drinking tap water that is filtered through Britta water filters. Also, Jack and the band are striving to make their tour “zero waste events” by recycling and composting in order to reduce the amount of waste at each of their venues. At every Jack Johnson concert there are recycling and composting stations set up in and around the concert space in order to also help with the recycling and composting project. As for food at his events, Jack’s tour catering works with local farms in order to promote healthy and sustainable organic eating.

     Jack’s efforts in sustainability and environmental conservation are very inspiring to me and many other fans of his music. For more information about Jack Johnson and his work, please visit his website at www.jackjohnsonmusic.com.

Dear Snow,

Here’s the thing. You make the trees look really pretty and skiing a lot of fun. I’ll give you that. But, on the down side, you do a ton of things that I really do not approve of. Let me just lay out a few of these things for you.

First of all, for some reason, whenever you come to visit for the first time in Michigan, everyone forgets how to drive in you. This means there is a ton of accidents from people forgetting how slippery you make the roads and sliding through intersections almost inevitable.

Second of all, you somehow find a way to add an extra ten minutes to all of my trips because I am forced to stand in the freezing cold with a flimsy piece of plastic scraping you off my windshield.  I wish there was a way we could make a deal so that you would somehow just miss landing on my windshield and land somewhere else. If this works for you, let me know.

Third of all, you are a huge pain to clean up. Unfortunately, because I am a poor college student and cannot afford a snow blower, I am forced to use an old snow shovel from when I was in elementary school to clean off my driveway. And for some reason, no matter when I am out removing a part of you from my driveway, you just end up where I just got done clearing off no less than 3 minutes later.

Look. It’s not that I do not like you to come and visit, I do. I really do. I just wish you would go away sooner. You definitely out stay your welcome in my book after the month of January. Again, if we could work out some sort of deal this would be awesome.

Thanks for your time and I’m sorry if I offended you.

Jennifer Long 

Rain...You make life on the guard difficult!

Since I was a freshman in high school, I was a part of the MHS Marching Band spinning for their color guard. Now that I have graduated, for the past four months, I have been helping coach the group of girls that share the same passion of color guard that I have. Some of you may be asking yourself how does this have anything to do with nature. Well, let me give you a little insight into how the two relate.

         First off, guard season starts in the middle of July usually with some sort of basics camp. For me, I attended Michigan State's performing arts camp for four years. This means that for three days straight, I was out in the blazing sun practicing basics and learning routines for more than six hours a day. That is a lot of nature.

After basics camp comes a weeklong band camp at the high school in August. This year, for the first time, I was an instructor rather than a student at the camp. Again, because we as color guard can not throw our six foot flags in the air seven feet or so inside, we are forced to be outside in the elements for an entire week. On the one hand, that's a plus because if it is sunny all week you get a great tan. On the other hand, if it is raining and there is no lightning outside, you become wet and miserable and spinning a flag becomes way more difficult because the silk just absorbs the water. If you're lucky and there is no wind when it is raining, you avoid the wonderful silk whip marks that inevitably come with spinning a wet silk. This is the down side of nature and color guard for sure.

 After band camp comes a lot of Monday night rehearsals where the color guard and the band work together to make an awesome half time show to be performed at Friday night football games along with one major competition.

         On October 13^th, the Marshall High School marching band and surrounding schools in our district had their MSBOA marching band festival.  For my school in particular, all the hard work that we put in during the football season on the show is focused more or less on this one performance. At festival the band and color guard are judged by three different judges on stylistic, musical, and visual categories. The goal of every band that competes at festival is to receive a division 1 rating which is the highest and most prestigious rating that a band can receive at MSBOA competition. On the 13^th, it was raining. Now, from the information that was given earlier, one can safely say that I being one of the color guard instructors was very nervous to see how the competition was going to go. Wet silks make everything difficult. Just doing a simple move like a drop spin is difficult let alone a vertical “helicopter” toss above your head.

         Standing nervously on the sidelines as the band took the field, the skies lightened and the rain stopped. The color guard performed fantastically and had by far the best show of the season that night. Thanks to all the hard work, love, and dedication that the students and staff put into the show, the Marshall High School marching band received a division 1 rating this year. I am still so proud of the students, especially the girls on the color guard, and cannot wait to do it all again next season.