November 12th

Any who have been following the blog may have noticed that I've been slacking the last several days. This isn't for any reason other than lack of time. As the season moves on, more opportunities for social activities are presenting themselves and my body continues to demand much sleep. I've stayed busy since my last blog entry.

I went to a ballroom dancing class, attended a science lecture on how glaciers move, made a craft in the craft room, watched a talent show, went on a 6-hour off-campus trip, attended a Spanish class, got a new co-worker, saw 2 seals and some more birds, broke a camera and spent hours upon hours mopping floors in Antarctica.

The 6-hour tour has been my highlight of the past few weeks. We were invited on the trip for 'morale building'. We loaded up in these huge vehicles, known locally as "Deltas" to drive to Cape Evans hut. The hut is about 15 miles away, but takes about an hour and a half to get there. The entire drive is on the sea ice. On the drive to the hut we saw at least two seals and numerous other black dots off in the distance that we were told were seals. One seal was quite close. Inside the hut, everything is frozen just the way it was when the men left the hut for an expedition to the South Pole (they made it to the south pole but everyone died on their way back to the hut). We saw some all-white birds, I was told it was a rare and special to see these birds and I believed.

My camera broke on the 6-hour tour, which is so sad. If anybody has an inside connection with Nikon and can hook me up, please let me know. The camera just blinks "Lens Error" whenever I try to turn it on. My plan is to send Nikon a e-mail and beg, and to get copies of photos from other folks around campus.

Alex sent me another CD of music and a podcast of 'This American Life' for my listening pleasure. The temperature reached 27F yesterday, the hottest we've seen yet.

All is well.