Life has been fairly uneventful lately. Apart from the regular weekly skivvy, general cooking duty, science-y work, and random bar nights, we haven't really been doing much exciting..
The weather hasn't been cooperating either, stormy weather on and off the last week, so going outside is also limited to when the wind is less than around 30kts (of course this only applies to times when we don't really NEED to go out, if there is a crisis or if we have a water shortage, then going out will be inevitable).
So, since I haven't blogged in a while (and thus my blog hits have decreased exponentially, and I kinda maybe have uber competitive teammates that like a little competition), this post about the ins and outs of snow construction (not really, I know absolutely nothing about how to build stuff on snow, but I have tons of experience of how to play in it and/or how to get it out of your clothes when previously mentioned competitive teammate shoved like a ton of it in there) might be a tad randomish.
Construction Project 1: The Igloo
This was started during takeover, and the wind kinda finished (aka demolished) it a few days later. The Windpompers hijacked it for a photo shoot before it was killed, so at least someone got some entertainment from our blood and sweat (and no, not tears, cause we are totally hardcore yeo!) that went into it.
Construction Project 2: The Ice cave
We have a massive sastrugi forming in front of the base, so it was decided that it would be perfect to build/dig an ice cave in. This was also a good exercise session, and not just in the sense that we were pretty exhausted after just a few hours, but also because it is good to know how to be able to dig an ice cave in case we are ever in an emergency situation where we need a makeshift shelter to spend the night in. Since we were all called back to the base for dinner and the next day was seriously windy, it kinda ended up just being an ice tunnel. The wind filled it up with snow a bit, but its still semi there, so maybe we'll still finish it sometime and camp out in it for a night...
Construction Project 3: The snowman
Can you believe that I have been living in snow for more than 4 months and I still haven't built a snowman?! Wrong on so many levels! So one day if/when we build this, I'll be sure to let you know. If we follow the same trend as the previous two, it might just end up being a snowball with a carrot in!
The last few days have simply been crazy amazing. Here's a quick review:
Fri, April 20th - we were planning an overnight trip to Piggen to test the newly fixed Caboose out, but then the stormy weather kinda foiled that plan, so it seemed like we would be having another 'movies in bed' weekend. Fri night the weather cleared up and it was a really nice night outside. Since it would be my last night as a 24year-old, I decided it was time to settle all owed dozer runs. Now for all of you folkies out there that does not know what a dozer run is, here is a quick explanation [read really fast like in movies when someone explains something way too fast so that after the explanation you are still a tad confused]. Whenever you lose at any game/sport with a whitewash (aka you scored zero points), you owe the person you lost to, a dozer run, which is exactly that, run from base to dozers (I suck at estimations, but I guess it's like 50m away from the base) and back - generally done in the nude, but there
are exceptions.
Okay, so dozer run sorted, we played a few games, waited till midnight, had a mini birthday celebration, then off to bed.
Sat, April 21st - my birthday, yay! I could finally open my awesome new Kindle - thanks Mommy and Daddy. The storm had picked up again, so the traditional birthday snow bath was postponed till further notice. In the afternoon everyone met in the dining area, they sang Happy Birthday, I blew out the candle on my pink cake (yup, Braam totally made a pink cake - awesome yea?!), opened my presents - which were really adorable (boys, you gotta love them!), and then just spent the rest of the night chilling and chatting.
Sun, April 22nd - cloudy, misty and snowy. Pretty much perfect weather for being all cuddled up in your blankey in bed. Then the rude awakening, Jako announcing over the intercom that there will be a snow bath in the next 30minutes - AAAAAHHHH!! Okay, so find bikini top and shorts, realise you haven't shaven your legs in the past 4days, do that quick, try to calm down and breathe like a normal person while waiting on the bench for the proceedings to start.
So the birthday snow bath goes as follows: run out of base wearing very
little clothes, get a fright because of weird viking people standing next to giant hole in snow, jump in hole, get shovelled in, try to breathe, funnel while viking people sing birthday song, get pulled out of snow and run back in base - frozen. It was REALLY cold, but seriously awesome.
Later the afternoon me, Vince and Johan decided to take a trip down to the diesel bunkers, just to get out of the base a bit. The visibility sucked, but there was almost no wind and the temperature was around -20, so relatively warm. The fluffiness of the snow was just way too tempting, so there was a snow-wrestle match or two (or twenty). On the way back to the base, we stopped at the smelly where we were joined by Jako and Braam, so another series of wrestling matches - I don't think I've EVER had so much snow in my hair!
I seriously had a brain freeze headache after being shoved in the snow like a hundred times.
**pic maybe taken out of context a little bit, but this is pretty much what was going on - just with more fluffy snow EVERYWHERE, including inside my clothes..
Mon, April 23rd - relatively normal day with the usual data corrections and science work. At around 22:00 Braam phones to say there is Aurora outside, so expecting the normal faint aurora we kinda dragged ourselves over to the window, only to find massively bright green lights in the sky. The draggy pace soon changed to running downstairs to kit up and grab our cams and tripods. We spent the next hour in amazement as the lights danced around in the sky above our heads. It was beyond awesome!!
**more on the pics page..
I'm pretty sure I've mentioned this already, but I LOVE life here!!
“The fading light is us, and we are, for a moment so brief, beautiful.” - Gary Shteyngart
Since AntA is magical (or situated at the Earth's poles - you choose), the amount of sunlight varies from 24hrs in the summer, to 0hrs in the winter. Seeing as we are well into April, the amount of daylight per day is around 10hrs now, and reducing quite fast. According to 'the Internet', we only have about a month of daylight left, and then...darkness!
Getting up before 8am has become quite a mission since its still completely dark out, so I suppose the wintery darkness has its downfalls too, but as with most things there are the obvious perks, like being able to watch Aurora any time during the day or night (weather permitting that is) or sitting in your windowsill staring at the pretty twilight colors.
Just as the summer sun was new, unique, and amazing, I'm sure this new winter phenomena will also have us in awe.
When life gives you oranges...
...slice them up and sow them back
together!
Jako decided to teach us how to be able to stitch up a wound,
so the lesson went as follows:
1. Grab chocolatty supplies from store
room
2. Meet in tv lounge to watch instructional video
3. Have too much
energy to actually sit down and concentrate on how the doc on the screen is
sowing up a pigfoot thingy (and to all vegetarians/animal lovers out there, I'm
pretty sure the piggy had a long and healthy life, died of old age and was
buried in gran's garden under a bunch of pretty flowers - minus one foot cause
it did its part by becoming an organ donor)
4. Watch how jako goes all serial
killer on an orange and then actually pay attention as to how he stitches it
back up
5. Laugh like crazy as Jon and Braam deposits, sows up, and then removes
Sparkle from orange
6. Play nurse as Johan puts sutures (yea thats totally
the fancy word) in our little emo orange
7. Try putting in stitches and
figure out that its actually pretty fun and easy
8. Sow up orange like a boss
and return to freezer for future munching
It was pretty awesome learning
how to be able to stitch up a wound, but I'm kinda not sure if I would be able
to stay uprigt if the actual blood and guts make their
appearance...hopefully!
