The Whole Wide World

Wahhhhh. Today I am whiney. I am grumpy. I am tired. I am bored. I am restless. Irritable. Discontent. Lol. Funny, not funny. Even the hallways are annoying me today. The smallness of this space. Walking in the same circles. Seeing the same faces. Hearing the same voices. Eating the same food. Watch out for my mood. The cold. The dark. The repetition. Over and over. Bring on the sun. Bring on the non frozen world. I go in circles. Wanting to leave, but not wanting to wish time away.

I finished tagging the last items off of vessel today. And I’ve been staring at multiple Excel sheets all day, trying to organize the past five months work. I was winging it those first couple months and now I am trying to backtrack and sort it all out in Excel and my head feels like it might explode. The good news is I have my day off tomorrow. I’ll be purposefully lounging, as usual. Hopefully it’ll be enough to gain some sense of sanity back and start the cycle all over again on Friday.

That’s enough whining from me. Don’t worry, I’m fine. Really, I’m fine.

I have a couple of Hilary’s questions left to answer, so here is that.

How would you compare this experience to your Peace Corps experience?

In someways it is super similar. New home on a new continent. New climate. New environment. New coworkers, counterparts and community. New job, learned by muddling through it.

Yet in most ways, it’s still America. Just America in Antarctica. No foreign language to be learned, but lots of acronyms. American traditions upheld and holidays celebrated. Same outlet plugs. Electricity, running water, heat…All the conveniences of modern America…just some may be rationed or fleeting. Like the internet.

I feel like I owe that question a better answer, but that’ll do for tonight. I’ll ruminate on it and probably revisit it after more thought though.

How does laundry work?

Every dorm has a laundry room complete with washing machines, dryers, laundry detergent and dryer sheets in them. In the summer it was a little more tricky to get a turn in, since the population ranged from 8 or 9 hundred to 1200 of us at any given time. The winter is very different though. With only 144 of us here, I never have to wait to do laundry.

Pretty cushy for all that whining. Meh.