The Whole Wide World

Day off, yay! Also, it’s me Mum’s birthday-Happy Birthday Mumsie! I called her yesterday and wished her a happy birthday from the future, since we are a day ahead down here. Sadly, the phone lines aren’t working today so I can’t connect, but I am glad we got a quick chat in yesterday. Miss you so much!

It’s been a pretty normal week. Productive at times, unproductive at others. Sometimes it is so daunting sitting down to write. I’ve said that from the beginning, what happens when I run out of words…? And while sometimes the entries are short, there is always something to write about.

There was the science fair on Sunday, which while small, it still brought out the McMurdan’s in all their creativity. The first display I visited was a hands-on one put on by our two janos (janitors) it was called Experience a Condition One. That’s the worst weather category, Condition One. We aren’t allowed outside when that condition gets called, so the janos made an indoor immersive experience of it.

There was a yoga mat on the floor which I was invited to lay down on. After laying down they announced a severe weather alert and turned on three commercial carpet dryers which were all aimed at my head. Hair and yoga mat blowing furiously, they started dropping ice on my face. It was some kind of hilarious. There is a video which I’ll pop on the socials soon.

The medical team also had a booth, which entailed getting your finger pricked and putting a drop of your blood on a microscope slide and then being able to view it on a TV. Doc told me I have textbook blood composition. Such a relief. It was actually really neat to be able to see it on the big screen and have the doc tell me what I was looking at.

My friend, Katie, who is a fabulous artist, made the tiniest science display you’ve ever seen. That’s her jam, tiny art, and she is really, really good at it.

Adam, the nicest guy on station and a member of the IT crew, made a communication touch tank. This entailed a box of old electronic communication devices…that you could touch.

Thomas, made a working replica of Mt. Erebus, the world’s southernmost volcano, which I was lucky enough to have a view of all summer out at Willy Air Field.

The lovely, Pepper, used a beaker of water with a couple of arrows on paper behind it to demonstrate light refraction. When the beaker was empty you could see that both arrows were drawn facing the same direction, but as you poured water into the beaker the arrows changed direction. Because, science.

There were a few other great displays as well, but those were some of the highlights for me. I think the collective creativity is so good down here. I’ll get some photos up soon. For now, hop over to Insta to see the short video I made of the month of October down here. I am hoping to make one for each month I’ve been down here and will be working on that over the next few weeks.