all photos
[11/6(Mo) => South Pole]
9-12:00 Flew with Pete and 26 others to the Pole. Background photo from air.
Stepping out to the -45°C land of white snow, it actually felt very refreshing and energizing!
Denis and Darren came to greet us; thanks Darren for getting both our bags!
I was bummed to learn that Denis is leaving tomorrow :(
2-5PM We took our big orange blimp from the Balloon-Inflation Facility to our Dark Sector Lab (DSL).
Our fingers froze trying to tie knots in the wind.
9:30PM Went to bed after being hooked to body-monitoring instruments.
My room this year is small :(

[11/7(Tu) Denis leaves after 1 year]
6AM Got up after waking up several times with funky dreams. Had breakfast w/ Denis and went over some final things with BICEP.
2PM Denis leaves. Everyone's crying ;) Victoria making good use of the new ring I brought. 2PM Enjoy your break, Denis!
Denis left behind an igloo.
7-9PM Played volleyball with Darren and others in the nice new gym.
[11/8(We) Long day]
9AM Teleconference.
6:30PM Another blood draw and lung capacity tests for the Altitude Sickness study. My blood pressure was only ~75/50!
8-10PM Went back to the telescope to try some measurements.
[11/9(Th) Frosty]
7AM Finally got up. Unlike last year, my room gets a little cold (under 15°C), making it more difficult to get up.
For lunch, I tried to run back to the station (~1km), but had to stop only about 1/3 of the way :( My boots and backpack felt heavy, and I remembered how unpleasant it is to run out of breath. Need to get into better shape!
It was windy and the exposed part of my cheek turned dark!
2PM Filled liquid nitrogen into the telescope. When I disconnected the fill port at the end, lots of liquid nitrogen rushed out and I had to quickly put a cap on it. Even though I was wearing gloves, it froze the tips of my thumb and index finger so it feels weird now!
3-5PM The blimp was broken, so I repaired it and inflated it with air to find holes.
6PM Stopped by the Growth Chamber to help out. There were lettuce, cucumbers, tomatoes, and other things growing there. It's nice here because there are no bugs at all!
7:30-9PM Went to a Back Safety Training with a physical therapist.
9:30PM Went to sleep.
[11/10(Fr) Getting ready]
0:30AM Woke up feeling like I had a better rest than usual and was surprised to see that it was only a little past midnight! Went back to sleep.
3:30AM Woke up this early for the first time.
Patched some more holes in the blimp. Darren tested the fishing rod and kevler string with a 5-kg weight.
Played ping pong w/ Darren and Glenn.
[11/11(Sa) Blimp launch!]
Our plan is to use the blimp to suspend a ball in the air for our telescope to look and find out the exact directions that our detectors point at. After the plane takes off around noon today, there will be no more flights until Monday, so today is the day to launch our blimp.
8:30AM Took some weights to anker the blimp, and brought back the blimp to the station to fill it.
10AM Science Meeting.
1PM Filled liquid nitrogen into the telescope. Set up strings and weights for the blimp.
3:30PM Went to the Balloon Inflation Facility to inflate the blimp w/ helium.
4-7PM We gradually unspooled the strings to launch the blimp to ~100 m high. We used 2 fishing rods to pull on the blimp against the wind. It went pretty well as designed. The wind was fortunately not too strong, but being out in -40° and 20km/h of wind for hours made us very cold. Toward the end, I could not feel my nose at all, so I went inside. Using my fingers in the cold made my finger tips underneath my nails hurt a lot.
I was very happy when were able to point at the ball using my optical camera. Unfortunately, the ball was moving around more than we wanted. Too windy! Also, the blimp was leaking and its nose was caving in from the wind :(
8:30PM After making another adjustment, we started taking measurements anyways. When I decided to grab dinner, I noticed that one of the strings to the blimp had been broken! We decided to retrieve the blimp, but the other string came off and the blimp floated away! :( When we were cleaning up, I found out that the fishing hook had opened from too much pull.
10PM We finally returned to the station sad, and I ate some leftovers. Darren seemed like he was feeling really bad, but I thought he did a good job making it work as designed, at least until the wind got too strong.
Midnight: Went to sleep.
[11/12(Su) ]
8AM Woke up.
10:30AM Went w/ Pete to move 70 kg worth of weights from the lab to the station.
2:30PM-7:45PM Cleaned the lab, prepared my calibrator for tomorrow.
8PM Presentation on the South Pole Station.
[11/13(Mo) Week 2]