Skua

As I stated in one of my previous posts, Skua is the name for a scavenger bird found here in the outer parts of Antarctica. They're known to be pretty fierce and feisty. They'll attack you as you're walking from the galley with a sandwich in your hand. Skua is also used as a term to describe the recycling of things that people don't want any more…sorta like a McMurdo thrift system. Today, after getting off duty, Chris Cavanaugh and I decided to do a little dumpster diving in the skua recycling bin (or "skua diving" as I dubbed it) for our building to see what we could score. Despite only finding a Sudoku puzzle book, a t-shirt, and a bunch of Mardi Gras beads, we did not consider ourselves empty handed. Never the less, we decided to head over to the Skua Central building where everything out of the skua dumpsters for all of the dorms ends up. Christ walked away with a bunch of things I can't remember. I walked away with a few shirts, a newer telephone for my room, and some Q-tips. Needless to say we'll be doing a lot more skua diving in the days to come.

I'm still feeling pretty depressed about my uncle dying. I think for once, ever since high school, I'm starting to grieve like normal people normally do. Considering I forgot what that feels like, it's pretty hard for me to deal with it. My friends here are definitely taking my mind off of what I'm feeling and for that I'm pretty thankful. I've been trying to avoid large groups of people but the few friends that come by on a regular basis really. I don't know what I'm going to do tonight. A lot of people want me to go to Gallagher's tonight to see a bunch of "local" bands play but I don't think I'm ready to deal with a large mass of people yet. I'm pretty funny that way….