all photos
[11/20(Su) Finally!]
6:30 Woke up. Brunch was excellent! Today we can finally move in our stuff to the Dark Sector Lab (DSL)!
12:00-6pm We tried to take the snow mobile, but it didn't start. I'm beginning to understand why people leave them on... At DSL, we unpacked 3 crates outside and carried the stuff upstairs. Felt good to finally get a workout! On the way back, John took me and Pete inside of the DASI telescope that he worked on.
8-9pm The South Pole Station Meteorology Department talked about the interesting weather here.
9:30-11pm Couldn't fall asleep! The room never gets very dark because the sun is up all the time.
[11/21(Mo) Ceremonial South Pole]
6:30 Woke up. I proposed a daily breakfast meeting at 7:30.
8:30-12 At DSL, I checked the internet connection. For lunch, I drove the snow mobile back to the station w/ 3 passengers.
 After lunch w/ Robert, we went to the Ceremonial South Pole. It's surrounded by flags of 12 countries that signed the Antarctic Treaty: Argentina, Chile, Belgium, France, New Zealand, UK, USA, Norway, Australia, South Africa, USSR, Japan.
Robert works on another telescope called QUaD, so I went along to see what he's working on. Then I showed him our building. Since we had no more boxes to unpack and contructions were still ongoing, I went back to MAPO. John and I digged out a box buried in snow to use as a housing our GPS receivers.
 During dinner, we saw a tractor carrying our telescope mount to the DSL, so I went to see it.
10pm Went to sleep
[11/22(Tu) Crane Day!]
7am woke up. Today we used the crane to put in desks, cabinets, and our big crates into our building. Went to sleep at 9pm.
Q1(Mariko). What is the percentage of women there?
=) I'm not sure, but it feels like ~ 1/3 are women. About 1/3 of the people working on the construction of our building are women, including electricians and carpenters.
[11/23(We) Unpack more!]
0:30 woke up and was surprised that it was still so early. I've been sleeping a lot lately and was not so sleepy, so decided to stay up.
8am-7pm Even though I had only 3.5 hours of sleep, I felt fine and unpacked more of our stuff and organized them into cabinets. The 4th member of our team, Evan, finally arrived today. He's a graduate student at UC San Diego.
7-9pm I had dinner w/ Steve, the project manager for a big 10-meter telescope project.
Midnight: Spent a lot of time on email and went to sleep.
[11/24(Th) Still unpacking!]
8am Thursdays at 8am we have a teleconference with the rest of the team back in the US. I don't have an alarm clock but luckily my friend called me from Berkeley 10 minutes before, which woke me up in time for this meeting :)
9:30am-7pm Worked on mounting instruments on our racks.
9:30pm I fell asleep.
Q2(Jon). Have you settled into a daily routine, or is it still a new feeling every day?
=) I do have a daily routine
(see my typical schedule),
but i also find new things almost every day...
haven't had time to write it here!
4amI try to wake up (the satellite for internet/phone communications become visible around this time).
5amRead/write emails; take care of business.
6amI try to update this journal.
7amBreakfast + meeting w/ my team members.
8amShuttle to the Dark Sector Lab (DSL). Work.
9amWork
10amWork
11amWork
NoonShuttle back to the Station for Lunch.
1pmShuttle again to the DSL. Work.
2pmWork
3pmWork
4pmWork
5pmWork
6pmWork
7pmWalk back to the Station for Dinner.
8pm
9pmI try to go to sleep
[11/25(Fr) Crane!]
1:30am Woke up in the middle of the night and stayed up again.
8am-6pm DSL (rack,
7:30pm Watched a film "Red Tent" -- it was an amazing true story of survival and rescue from the Arctic.
[11/26(Sa) Thanksgiving]
7am woke up
11am-3pm Explored the Skylab and the dome surrounding w/ Pete. Then worked at DSL.
3:30-5pm Thanksgiving dinner.
[11/27(Su) Getting busy!]