northward bound.

a quite unexpected and welcome update this week: I am no longer leaving for new zealand on march 1. I am leaving this coming saturday.

one of the perks of working for the ATO (antarctic terminal operations) department, under which shuttles operates: they control the movement of pax and cargo, inter- and intra-continental. all it took was my boss going in to ask her boss if there were any empty seats on this saturday's flight. and there were. so helena (my co-worker, with whom I was tasked with closing down the shuttles office for the winter) and I get to leave four days early. four extra days of good restaurants, green grass and trees, pretty birds that sing songs and don't dive-bomb you for the contents of your galley tray, children and old people, and all the other things that I've been missing for the last five months.

not that it hasn't been a great season. I still contend that I had one of the best jobs any FNG could ask for (for an explanation of FNG, see the 'Ice Glossary' posting from a few months back). I met all kinds of supa-rad people from almost every department, departments that most people never interact with -- plumbers, painters, engineers, fuelies, wasties, supply peeps, pilots and loadmasters, galley workers, weather observers, techies. I left station every day to drive on several hundred feet of frozen sea. the drive was different every time -- the cloud formations, the light, the road conditions and company were unique to each discrete leg. I was lucky enough to make a few really good friends and lots of friendly acquaintances. and, best of all, I got to drive Ivan the Terra Bus.

I tried to document my own experience and to gather off-ice contact information at the same time by having people fill out this green book. the central supply department is directly upstairs from our shuttles office, and they always have cool free things to give away -- old hard hats, cloth rock bags, mechanical pencils and such. one day I went up there and they had a bunch of these blank green 'record' books -- so awesome! as my late grandpa used to say, if it's free, take two. so I did.

inside the front cover, I wrote the following questions:

1. name
2. job at mcmurdo, and why you're here in the first place
3. number of seasons in antarctica
4. are you coming back next season? if so, as what?
5. best thing about your job
6. worst thing about your job
7. favorite mcmurdo event
8. favorite mcmurdo memory from this season
9. favorite spot to hang out in mcmurdo
10. your best skua find
11. one thing you wish the store would stock
12. one policy you wish the Chalet would change
13. person who has most inspired you at mcmurdo
14. favorite galley food
15. thing you regret not having done this season
16. what you miss most from home
17. what you miss least from home
18. hometown
19. job at home (if any)
20. permanent / personal e-mail address
21. draw your self-portrait

here are my answers:

2. shuttle drivin' mama, token asian, pink boot model, knitting instructor. I needed a new adventure after a few years of being back in the real world post-mongolia.
3. one
4. keeping an open mind about coming back, if things work out that way with my job in seattle and a good bird-sitter
5. I get to be outdoors, but sheltered,with my iPod and NPR and knitting during downtimes, and I get to meet just about everyone on station and get their life story in 5- to 30-minute increments. also, working five 12s means I get two days off a week.
6. the five 12s start at 5:30 in the morning.
7. snow school, hikes to castle rock
8. the new year's eve milvan party or the waste barn dance party
9. my room (the social hub ofBuilding 155), or the galley during non-meal times for knitting (it's got huge windows and an endless supply of tea)
10. the empty ten-pound Clabber Girl Baking Powder bucket that I use as a shower caddy.
11. yarn, rubber slippers (yes, I know that's two things)
12. let us play as hard as we work, because we work damn hard 55+ hours/week...give out more boondoggles as morale boosters, especially to those that are stuck working indoors
13. the person who most inspired me in a bad way was john booth, who was unnecessarily and extraordinarily mean, but he's gone now. the over-60 crew on the night shift are just the opposite...I hope I'm that energetic, spry, sassy, fashionable, and comfortable with myself when I get to be that age.
14. chocolate ganache bars, cherry tomatoes when the freshy flight comes in
15. learning to use the bouldering cave
16. good food (especially korean soft tofu stew, for some reason), shopping for lipstick when I'm depressed, thrift stores, netflix, animals that I'm allowed to touch, stick shift vehicles, my beautiful and sassy and brilliant two-year-old niece Tate.
17. politics, advertising, SUVs, rain and darkness
18. grew up in mililani, hawaii. now store my stuff in seattle.
19. last job was a support role at a philanthropic organization.

and somehow I convinced seventy(!) people to sign it!
a few of their more memorable answers:

why are you here in the first place?
I needed to see how such a nimbly-bimbly planet could have such a sweet, cold ass.

are you coming back next season?
the answer changes every time I talk to my boss.

what's the best part of your job?
ripping donuts in a 42,000 tank in a snowstorm. (this guy is a firefighter.)
beautifying mcmurdo and painting boxes that asteroids go in. (this one is a painter.)

what's the worst part of your job?
cleaning up after stinking, filthy pigs of men. (this one is a janitor.)

what's your favorite mcmurdo event?
seeing my name on the package list.

favorite mcmurdo memory from this season?
the skua that ate a hot dog.

your best skua find?
a towel. never forget your towel.

one thing you wish the store would stock?
furry man-thongs.
skittles. god help me, I love the fruity little bastards.
facial moisturizer that doesn't smell like spoiled milk.

one policy you wish the Chalet would change? (the Chalet is slang for the NSF's offices on station. their policies are sometimes overly controlling, unreasonable and/or just plain ridiculous.)
release the obsessive stranglehold on boondoggles.
the whole "no personal explosive devices" thing. dumb.

favorite galley food?
frosty boy. (this was the most frequent answer. frosty boy is soft-serve ice cream from a machine.)

thing you miss most from home?
baths.
rain.
beer on a screened-in porch with the song of cicadas.
dog and hummus.

thing you miss least from home?
paying for gas.
mowing the lawn.
wal-marts.
flying leeches.

draw your self-portrait.
you know what tom cruise looks like? I look nothing like him.

I recently re-read Big Dead Place, a book written a guy who spent seven seasons in antarctica, in which he (among other things) exposes the rather seamy underbelly of life in the harshest environment on earth. he's done an impressive amount of homework on the heroic age of exploration (including accounts of madness, dog-eating, and other historical minutiae), and he gives proper dues to the unique scientific and just plain aesthetic value of this marvelous continent; but he also sees the sometimes absurd quality of our lives on the Ice. the tiny, insular community setting that incubates rumors like germs; the epic struggle with HR and finance; gender and race dynamics. I'd picked it up last summer and read it on the way down here, and it was interesting, but it was only after I'd spent a season at mcmurdo and was able to identify with many of the author's points and arguments that it became relevant as well. he's got a website also -- http://www.bigdeadplace.com/. check it out if you're not afraid to read a somewhat jaded but refreshingly unvarnished view of life down here.

and, to be fair, a couple of other, more official websites:

the United States Antarctic Program, which is funded by the National Science Foundation:
http://www.usap.gov/

Raytheon Polar Services Company, the company that hires most of the personnel that run the stations:
http://rpsc.raytheon.com/

The Antarctic Sun, an NSF-funded newspaper that focuses mostly on grantee (scientist) work:
http://antarcticsun.usap.gov/2005-2006/sctn01-15-2006.cfm2006/sctn01-15-2006.cfm

a couple of weeks ago, I gave a presentation and slide show on my experience in mongolia with the peace corps, 2000 - 2002. every thursday night during the summer season, someone will give a talk on their travels during 'travelogue night' in the galley. the galley is equipped with comfy chairs, coffee, and a large screen on which to project powerpoint slides. others this season showed their photos from bolivia, china, bhutan, the appalachian trail, their hitchhiking adventures on six continents, and so forth. in january, a man named bob showed his photos from a one-month trip he'd taken to mongolia in 2002 and it was like he'd thrown chum to a bunch of ravenous sharks. people went crazy. everyone seemed to want to know more about mongolia. friends who knew I'd spent two years there urged me to put together a presentation, which I did. most of it centered on my personal experiences as a peace corps volunteer, but I also threw in some history, politics, religion, culture, useful phrases, and travel tips to round things out. and I even made up a batch of salty milk tea, which people actually lined up to try!

all season, I've been knitting and crocheting things like crazy. obviously, antarctica is a good place in which to unload handmade woolly things. some folks offered to pay me cash money for my projects, but I asked them to instead make me something in return. for example, I made the beehive-shaped hat at left for a cargo gal named michelle. she is an accomplished potter, so she made me a beautiful green teacup. how happy am I?

okay, off to pack and clean!