Deep Seer: Freezing Man!

The Freezing Man

Hey Deep Reeders,

A friend just posted on facebook that a blog post is a struggle between coherence, accuracy, and humor - a good observation, and a solid guideline to follow. Since my last entry lacked both coherence and accuracy to extract maximum crazy with a side of comedy, i'll err on the side of coherence and accuracy for this update.

I've been in Antarctica for 3.5 weeks now. It's hard to believe, but I only have 16 days left here! I feel like I'm just starting to get the hang of the scene here - both scientifically and socially - and i'm almost done already. After two weeks, my back is still sore, but much improved over the first few days. I even completed my first run since the injury today- 5 miles at an easy pace. I'm currently planning a logistical mountain of travel/moving/work/ conference/papers etc for the next two months as well. After this season is finished, I will be going to Christchurch-New Zealand, Sydney-Australia, Hawaii, Santa Barbara, San Diego, Charleston-SC, New Jersey, Boston, and then finally back to Santa Barbara to stay. In that time I'll take some time for travel, enjoy Xmas in Hawaii, New Years in San Diego, sign a rent form in Santa Barbara, ship some stuff east, ship some stuff (and my car) west, present at a conference, turn in my hardcopy thesis, submit a paper, write another one, and perform as a cruise ship lounge singer. Well maybe not the last one... phew.

But enough of my boring task-mastering. You're here for pictures and stories of The Ice, and I shall provide! On to- FREEZING MAN man man man.......

On Thanksgiving, the galley staff put on a masterful dinner with limited supplies and no freshies (veggies and fruits - since no planes had landed in a week)- 3 TIMES IN A ROW!! To accommodate everyone, they did dinner at 3, 5, and 7pm. We signed up for the 5pm slot, and brought our own bottles of wine to accompany the turkey and gravy and mashed potatoes and pumpkin pie, and my favorite - cranberry jam! 3 guys even made their own turkey costumes and ran through the galley giving dissaproving warbles and gobbles at those eating their kindred souls. That night, after a great performance by the talented Condition Fun band sung songs in honor of McMurdo life, we headed down to Freezing Man!

Freezing Man is kind of like a mini tiny little itty-bitty burning man, held inside our gym here. It's all about self-expression and fun and art and dancing and great costumes, and fun equipment to play on like a sit-in-spin and a giant swing, and lots of great music. Oh and a hug deli, where you walked up and ordered the type of hug you wanted. Like the bromantic, or the field of wheat where you ran in slow motion towards each other, or the british royalty shoulder pat, or the classic bear hug and many more. It was a wonderful vibe, and I played with glow sticks all night. Without further verbage, here is Freezing Man in pictures.

Stay warm reeders!