A 5 Day Hiatus and McMurdo Life

A lot has happened in the 8 days I haven't updated this journal. Where did I leave off...I was feeling like shit with the whole idea of thanksgiving regarding myself and my family. What I didn't know at the time (Thursday) was that Raytheon's Thanksgiving is different than the Thanksgiving Americans normally celebrate. For some reason, Raytheon's thanksgiving was celebrated on the following Saturday. So Thursday I came out of my room and ate with some friends in the Galley. Friday turned out to be a pretty good day at work. Near the end of the night, I was told that I didn't have to come in to work since they had more people than they need that day and I haven't been sent home early in a good couple weeks. What that all means is since I have a Tuesday Kelley day anyways, having Saturday off and not having to work Sunday just tacked 2 days to a 3 day break making today my first day back at work since last Friday. Saturday ended up being an ok day. I stuck by my decision not to eat in the galley so I got in the ridiculously long line that wrapped around half of the first floor, got my food, and headed back up to my room to sit in front of my TV only to be joined by a few other friends from the firehouse. Apparently, a couple hundred people eating around them didn't sound to appealing to them either. After the last block of Thanksgiving Dinner eaters poured out of the galley, Building 155 (where I live) became sort of a party building with random hordes of people going to and fro (at one point in time about 20 or 25 of us were hanging in the hallway outside of my room. The rest of the night was spent partying in random places around the base including the gym and the Crary Science Lab. Sunday I spent most of the morning and some of the afternoon recovering the night before. It truly dawned on me how much time I had before myself so in order to nurse my lack of energy from being sick earlier this month, I decided to not do anything too crazy. I played Ultimate Frisbee Sunday afternoon and I spent the rest of the time reading magazines, a book I got from the library, and studying a little bit. I went back out Sunday night but I didn't get as crazy as I did the night before.

Monday was spent again, reading, watching a movie here and there, and just trying to stay low. The evening, however, was a different story. My neighbor and good friend was celebrating her birthday by doing a "pub crawl" to different rooms on our floor and she asked me if I could make my room her first stop. More than happy to oblige, I ran down to the store to buy a bottle of Southern Comfort to bring a little flavor from back home to all of these west coasters. We ended up making mojitos in her room and made our way into my room where they brought the mojitos they made and I...drank the Southern Comfort I bought. When we felt we were pretty loose and tipsy we made our way to the next room. After about 4 rooms, my memory gets fuzzy. Apparently, we went to 2 more rooms only to leave 155 and stumble over to the Coffee house where myself and another neighbor/friend brought his guitar. We ended up jamming together for a small audience and I found out that I somehow play a lot better when I'm drunk and not really worried about being nervous playing and singing in front of people.

Tuesday was a rude awakening for me, literally, when the Fire Techs decided to test the fire alarms in our building at 0830. After waking up, I stayed up and hung out with Joe, one of my neighbors, friends, and fellow firefighters. After Laundry, a movie, lunch, and some computer time, I continued my daily routine of reading and studying. I had decided that three nights in a row of partying was plenty enough for a week or so so I instead went down to the Galley around 2000 for one of the many Travelogues the Galley hosts every week. This week, one of the Raytheon workers showed us a powerpoint of a backpacking trip he had taken to Puerto Williams, Tierra del Fuega, and Cabo de Hornos over the summer (Northern Hemisphere summer). The curiosity in me got me thinking about actually living in Puerto Williams considering the land around it, the fame of being the southern most city in the world, and the general seclusion of the place. Considering I just thought about this about 2 hours ago, I'm still researching the place as we speak.

Wednesday wasn't any different than the days before. I went to play dodgeball in the evening only to injure myself before the game even started (long story). Instead, refereed for the games and went to the bar with a few of my teammates.

Today, I'm back at work. Everyone's anticipating our annual Mass Casualty Incident drill which was suppose to have taken place last week. Because of that, our daily itineraries haven't been too full. I sit here now thinking about options for the future and next summer. I've added wildland firefighting in Northwestern Canada to one of the things I'm considering, as well as boondoggles to South America, Central Asia, or Greenland (Random, I know). December is around the corner and Summer is almost in full swing. The ice runways is getting thinner and thinner and on Saturday we're moving the ice town over to Willy Field some 5 miles away. Hopefully I'll get to be a part of that when I work on Saturday. Yep, I'm loving life down here. I think the days are going to go by a lot faster now.