all photos
[12/19(Mo) Jim Clash!]
Midnight: Woke up and decided to stay up since the adventurer talk is from 1:30. My mother called me at 1am as I had requested to help wake me up for this talk. Arigatou!
1:30-3am The Forbes Magazine adventurer columnist Jim Clash skied in 2 days ago from 89 degrees south, and talked to us about his adventures. He brought a copy of his book: "To the Limits: Pushing Yourself to the Edge, in Adventure and in Business" in a ziplock bag for our library. When I went to talk to him afterwards, he was nice and inspiring and I got to talk to him for almost an hour. He told me about his $12,000 flight on MiG-25 to above 99% of the atmosphere to see the curved blue Earth in black space -- man, I want to fly on this as soon as affordable! He offered to send me and Nacchan his book and took my address. He even asked me for my email in case he has questions when he writes an article about his adventure to the South Pole. I invited him and his companions to visit our telescope -- they were enthusiastic, if their flight doesn't come today.
3am Back in my room, I started reading his book - the introduction and a chapter on space adventures.
9am-1pm Prepared to load the telescope onto its mount. During lunch, I saw people still camping out, so thought maybe Jim's crew is still around. I walked up to their tents and saw his 3 companions (they're from South Africa, England, and Scotland). They said their flight got delayed so they can see the telescope! Jim invited me to his tent and then I took everyone to the telescope. I introduced everyone on our team and described our telescope project and we showed them around. => Jim put our photo on his Forbes slideshow and wrote an article in the July issue :)
<3pm>Telescope loading.
[12/20(Tu) Damaged mirror :( ]
3am Woke up and went to the lab. I tested my optical pointing telescope for looking at stars (even during daylight!) to let us know where our main telescope is pointing. When I tested it back at Caltech, I could see a magnitude 3.5 star during the day. I pointed it out the window at some landmarks in the distant snow -- i coulnd't get it to focus! :( When i opened up the telescope, one of the mirrors had been shipped during shipping, even though we packed it very well! :(
[12/21(We) My 1st pie-making]
8:50am Woke up much later than expected -- must've been tired. I decided I need to reglue a spare mirror on the pointing telescope, so I looked for an oven to help the glue harden faster (the glue takes 7 days at room temperature!). Finally found an oven, but now need to find a scale to measure out the proportions of the glue!
1pm Decided to have our daily meetings right after lunch. Jamie showed me his calculations from 3 years ago of expected signal from my calibrator -- it looked like what I was observing from my tests! :)
7:30pm Helped make pies for Christmas -- my 1st time makeing a pie!
9pm I sent some postcards to my family and friends that i'm not in email contact with, and went to bed.
[12/22(Th) Pointing telescope!]
0:30 Woke up, and wrote to friends. 8:00 We had our teleconference, but the poor satellite communication made us end it early. We moved our teleconference time to 6:30am on Tuesdays. Finally found a balance, glued the mirror, and tested the pointing telescope -- still can't focus! Then realized that the window i was looking thru is a curved one. When I looked directly out thru an open door, the image became much sharper! :)
I witnessed the arrival of a bunch of fresh fruits & vegetables -- Finally! The food was excellent when I first arrive, but had generally gotten worse and worse and the past few weeks were without any fresh fruit/vegetables.
[12/23(Fr) Bill!]
1am Woke up thanks to Nacchan's call, ate "midrats" breakfast, and went to the lab. I think I went to the lab too early... had to take a few naps at the lab... good thing we have lots of nice big foams!
1pm Skipped regular breakfast, went to lunch and saw my advisor Bill had just arrived! He came straight from 2 weeks in Chile for his other telescope. Bill always wears shorts and this might be the first time I see him wear long pants He came at the right time, when the fresh fruits & vegetables just arrived and food got much better again! Not knowing this, he brought us a box full of fruits from New Zealand -- thanks!
Worked with Brian on heating the groundshield I made. I also adjusted the "boot" insulation again...
8pm Heard a presentation by the "Traverse" team -- 8 people who came over 1000 km on heavy vehicles from McMurdo station with 11-planes worth of cargo. This was the 1st time they succeeded in reaching the South Pole. They encountered many carvasses (big crack in the snow) and I was amazed that they filled them up as they went to create a safe path for their return trip and for the future. 9:30pm Went to bed.
Denis took this great panorama around our lab:
Q(Amy). ?
=)
[12/24(Sa) Christmas dinner]
2:30am Woke up and went to the lab.
3pm By request of Andrew our Principal Investigator, we took team photos w/ our telescope for Christmas cards.
5-7pm Christmas dinner. Afterwards, we played pool and ping-pong.
[12/25(Su) Fun Athletic Christmas!]
0:30-3am Got a phone call and woke up.
9am A station-wide announcement finally woke me up.
Q. What's it like to run there?
=) 10am We ran the "Race Around the World" -- a 2.2-km race around the South Pole. The 5 of us displayed our team spirit by wearing the "TEAM BICEP" uniform. I knew it was gonna be rough -- I've been trying to run between the staton and the lab (~1 km), but the thin cold dry air is hard on the lungs, and I've always needed to stop inbetween before my lungs dry up and freeze. Plus, running on this snow is tricky -- some steps are slippery, others get you buried in the soft snow. Anyhow, enough excuses and whining... The 1st minute was all happy, but after that it was just about hoping to finish the 2 laps alive. I could either freeze my lungs or suffocate by covering my mouth with a neck garter. I would've been happy to just stop after the 1st lap, but i wasn't quite dying yet. Half way into the 2nd lap, I got a slight burst of energy as I could see the finish line, but my "last" spurt lasted only for 30 seconds. As I reached the finish line, I wanted to take a photo of my face to see how miserable it looks. Anyhow, my time was 12m30s, while the marathon runner on the station did it in 9m5s. Cynthia posted the race results, including 5 people ahead of me who were on skis/vehicles. This was probably the hardest thing I've done here, but I was happy to finish without stopping. Thinking back, I probably would've done better if I had a more positive and forward thoughts while running.
2-5pm After playing hours of very fun ping-pong, we went out to see the "Traverse" vehicles that came all the way from the McMurdo station taking 40 days! On the way, we found a tall hill w/ a sled on top -- it was a really fun ride! The Traverse vehicles were big! On the way back, we saw blocks of snow for snow sculpture.
8pm After dinner, Denis showed me magazines and his videos of parasailing -- man, I'm definitely gonna try it in New Zealand and start learning it back in California! 8pm Went to sleep.
[12/26(Mo)]