Thanksgiving on Ice: Penguins and Frozen Turkeys

11-25-11

Went for a ski in the snowstorm out to the ice runway. On the way back, a piston bully (snowcat type thing) passed me and out of the snow I saw a little cute penguin pop out. It was one of the Adelies. He was scared by the snowmachine and ran right towards me and almost ran right over my skis. Then he stopped a few feet away and just looked inquisitively at me. After several minutes when another van drove by, he proceeded to hop/slide his way off into the great white emptiness. It was cool to see a large bird during thanksgiving holidays!

Worked some on grad school apps, then went out to Karaoke where we stayed late into the night.

11-26-11
The storm finally blew out of here and we were left with sunny skies, but still lots of wind

Ran the turkey trot 5k in the morning. It was a pretty tough course b/c the 1st half was all uphill, and the course was on snow and ice surfaces and often straight into strong winds. You can tell the course was tough b/c I think it is the first time I've ever seen a 5k where the winner didn't break 20 minutes. I mean usually the winner is somewhere in the 16's. I ended up finishing 22nd out of 120 people with a time of 25:04 (my slowest time yet in a 5k, but not surprising considering I haven't been training and the course was pretty tough). But I was just ahead of the winning lady (Sgt. Nordike), and the fastest shuttler, though this isn't surprising as I am the 2nd youngest on the shuttle crew after 25 year old Shuttle Kristy Queen. The Kiwi army ran the race with beers, which was pretty funny, and several people dressed up. In antarctica, everything is cause to wear a costume.

After the run I got the free massage offered, and then I went for a ski with the new shuttlers Elisha and Linnah, and Linnah's partner Beth. But Beth and Linnah were pretty tired from the run, so Elisha and I ended up just going on the ski. She's got an interesting story b/c she was born in way N. Idaho and then grew up in a litle cabin in the middle of nowhere in northern montana until her parents moved to Kazakhstan for some mission work to help the people with small business stuff since they are still having trouble there moving from the communist era of the russian bloc to capitalism. She played volleyball at some tiny school in N. California, but now lives in Cour d'alene. I was telling her how I wouldn't mind living with the Franks up there this summer and she said she thought she could get me a job working for the dept. of agriculture checking for invasive mussels on boats at the lake there. It's a 3 day a week for 12 hours, plus the option to work a 1/2 day on a 4th day. sounds pretty sweet.

After the ski, I had just enough time to take a shower (i'm so busy here I hardly have time to really take any showers, plus you don't really sweat here anyways) and get dressed up for the big thanksgiving dinner. Our shuttles family (31 people when you include shuttle drivers and sig others) reserved a big table in the cafeteria, so we all sat together and had a merry old time. I haven't had an American thanksgiving in a quite a while (since Aunt Jo Stringfields dinner way back in 2009), so it all tasted extra good to me. The spread was very impressive, and I was happy to see no one else here seemed to like drumsticks besides me. A flight hadn't been able to come in b/c of weather in over a week, so there were no fresh vegetables and fruit, but everything else was great. Thank goodness they had shipped in the frozen turkeys much earlier!

After dinner we headed over to one of the bars to here a band called Condition Fun play. They are pretty hilarious b/c they take well known songs and add lyrics to them relating to the quirks of antarctica and mcmurdo: making fun of building 155 (where my dorm is and the cafeteria), singing about C-17's, ivan the terra bus, the obsession with safety, etc. They also do some of their own orginal songs as well.
After the band we headed over to the Freezing Man party, which Cassa and Sully had organized. Freezing man is antarctica's take on Burning Man. If you don't know what burning man is, I suggest you google it. I hadn't really known about it until one of my crazy bosses, Tom, from Sapidyne told us about it b/c he goes there all the time. But basically it's this huge temporary city in the middle of the nevada desert that is full of drugs, music, nudity, and art. Cassa somehow convinced me to wear these tight striped pants with no shirt and this light up disco ball that twirls to be placed over the crotch region. I was embarassed, but everyone loved it and it definitely went with the freezing man theme

11-27-11

Went to church and then the fancy brunch, and then worked a bit on grad schools stuff.

There is this hut, called Hut 10, that is fancy on the inside and looks and feels like a house from the inside. It has a kitchen and living room with nice couches, a giant flatscreen tv, a dining room table, real windows, a chandelier, and stereo system. It also has a couple of spacious bedrooms. Well, you can rent it out (for free) for special parties or gatherings, or even just if you're a couple you can rent it for the night. Our shuttles department rented it for the day today. We threw a pizza party and just kind of hung out. We watched some short films from previous antarctica film festivals, played some card games, and just hung out as one big happy shuttles family. I cam in early to help make the pizzas. After the pizza we had fresh, warm right out of the oven chocolate chip cookies. We ended up staying late into the night watching some movies on the big screen and enjoying the super nice couches.