So I'm Stranded on Ross Island (NOT tropical) of Antarctica for the next Six Months, What Exactly Will I Be Doing?

There have been very few, if any, times in my life when I didn't have a game plan. This winter is no exception. Plans A, B and C are mostly solid, plan D is in the works. Of course, if I shared the details of these plans, you'd be restricted to only leaving your house on Tuesdays, only wearing yellow and a life void of chocolated-covered pomegranate seeds. Generally speaking, however, here's my plan:

First and foremost, a huge chunk of my time will be spent working. Over the summer the work I did consisted of customer service and inventory control (i.e. helping people find the crap they need and counting all the crap we have). During winter, there are not as many projects or people, so my primary objective is to "receive" all the materials that were brought down via Vessel.

Good Ol' Electrical Supply
As with any industry, there is a fair amount of industry lingo. The majority of that lingo involves a ridiculous number of acronyms, but that is standanrd for government operations, or so I'm told. (Example, "I've got to go down to 155 to get my ECW for my ATO duties at 13:00" or "FEMC has kept me busy all morning, my Green Brain is almost full and I still need to Pickle those VMF parts"). While I can try to explain the lingo, the actual experience of it can only truly be appreciated first hand. Despite all that, I'm going to try to explain the general principles anyway.

Receiving seems like such a simple harmless word. I had visions of myself opening boxes with shiney new and brilliant things in them, skippingly placing these shiney objects on the shelves whilst dancing to David Bowie, and the summer people coming back to a magically stocked warehouse when they return in August. The reality of the receiving process is not quite like that. At all. Receiving is a word of agony.

The trick is that is does SEEM simple. Until I open a box that has something that looks like it came off of a space station with a description like, "Fluke Multimeter" or "Definite Purpose Contactor"...really? Sure, that seems like a Fluke Multimeter to me, check.

The first round of boxes I went through had me totally fooled. I would open a box and inside would be one tiny part. Let me show you...

A nice enough looking box...

bubble wrap...

and ONE tiny item in this huge, super cardboard box...

seriously?!?!?!
Having read the entire participants guide about seven times before departing for Antarctica, I am sourly disappointed in the amount of plastic and ridiculous packing material that comes down. Though we are said to recycle about 65% of all our waste here, there has just got to be a better way of doing this.

On Tuesday (see, Tuesdays are significant) my wish came true and I got a box full of parts!

A FULL BOX!
And yet, my dreams were dashed in an instant when I realized all the parts in this fabulous box did not match the accompanying paperwork. Which then resulted in me filling out a form for each wrong part. This form is called the WODS (Wrong/Over/Short/Damaged) form, and it took me the rest of the afternoon to complete the 16 forms required, make the required copies, and put the parts away.

Sadly, I will be doing this all alone...

without Bamma!

Because I'm evil, only not evil enough apparently as I wasn't able to convince her to winter with me!
Yeah, so that's what work will entail for the winter. I'll be doing receiving for three different warehouses: 121 Electrical Supply (where I worked for the summer), 120 IT Supply and 141 Electrical Wire Supply. Somehow I doubt I will be skipping much, there will, however, be plenty of David Bowie.

Now, in my spare time...

Surprisingly, while I have the same basic schedule, I do seem to have more free time. I still work 7:30 a.m. to 5:30 p.m., Monday through Saturday, but once I head to BLDG 155 for Dinner, I'm already 'home', so overall 'travel time' is reduced.

In this lovley, newfound, magical free time I plan to do the following:

Mondays: Volunteer in the Library/Dedicated reading time.
Tuesdays: Stitch-n-Bitch (YAY KNITTING!!!) I plan to knit/crochet a bunch of fun items for the winter craft fair and for the fun of creating! And, we will be making a community quilt to donate to charity.
Wednesdays: Volunteer in the Craft Room - this doubles as my own art time to work on paintings, poetry, sewing projects, photography projects, etc.
Thursdays: Laundry Night! (Ummmm...yeah...WOOT!)
Fridays: Movie Night!
Saturdays: Be social, or something (which may mean I'll even have to go to the bar).
Sundays: SLEEP IN, EAT BRUNCH, Outside Activities if it's not too cold and I'm not too lazy.

I need to get some gym time into the schedule, which may mean I have to get up earlier (GASP! - NOT THAT!). Finally, I am starting The McMurdo Writers Outfit, which will meet monthly...the first meeting is schduled for March 14 and hopefull there will be a nice turnout.

Well ladies and gentlemen, that's the game plan. After typing it all out, it seems a bit crazy, but what is life without a little crazy? Right? Of course there is always the possibility that I simply end up hibernating in my room for the season, but at least in that case I'll get lots of good sleep.