Falling asleep last night knowing that I will be waking up in Antarctica (again) (again as in, waking up daily in Antarctica, not again as in hey i'm having my birthday here AGAIN! i'm not that lucky) to mark my 26th birthday was strange. Talk about travelling to novel and exciting places to celebrate your birthday, HAH! It's been a very quiet day, and I have been feeling absolutely lazy and non-motivated and spoilt all day, which is just how every birthday should be.

My day didn't start till 1pm, due to my gallant efforts last night at trying to consume 3 litres of sangria and self-concocted punch. Spent the day eating scones, opening presents sent from home and reading birthday cards and birthday messages on the FB wall. Thanks Tam for the lovely necklace, I LOVE IT!

And yes, I know I'm in Antarctica but I haven't done anything outside of the ordinary to mark this occasion - we had a mini blizzard last night and I have been trying to keep myself indoors as much as possible. Just being here is already out of the ordinary, and for that I'm very thankful that i'm staring out into sea-ice and icebergs this 27th of May.

Anyway, thanks for the love everyone! As much as I'm enjoying this cold Antarctic birthday, I'm really hanging out for a warm 35 degrees Celcius Malaysian-flavoured one..SOON! xxoxoxoxox mwahmwahmwah and the likes.

Ok guys, ok. I've finally gotten my act together and have transferred all outstanding (by outstanding, I mean, like the 'outstanding' in 'outstanding debts', not 'outstanding' as in 'HOLY FUCK THAT IS AWESOME!') (although, 'outstanding debts can also be the 'HOLY FUCK THAT IS AWESOME' kind) (and by 'HOLY FUCK THAT IS AWESOME', I really mean FML my life is over) photographs on my camera's memory card over into my hard drive.

Anyway, this is going to be one long looong post filled with pictures that may or may not be connected to each other, and most probably will defy any semblance of chronological order too, unless I can be bothered enough to arrange them. Let's just say that this will be a visual representation of everything that has happened over the last 7 weeks of my life. You might even recognise some of them and go, 'What the fuck?? Why is she rehashing old news??', to which I will answer, 'This is my blog, I don't care.' (Actually, I care very much so please don't be mean to me).

Let the pictorial extravaganza begin! BOOM.


1. Joe Glacken, local diesel mechanic, riding his retro bike that he intends to revamp over the winter. It also comes equipped with one of those 'pee-poo-pee-poo' bike horns, like the ones that the breadman that comes around the Taman would sound when he wants your business.


2. Jan, the local doctor, celebrating the leaving of the Aurora Australis with a well-placed hand-flare. Yea, good riddance, you lot! (I'm joking, I miss everyone).


3. Another kind of flare that was used that fateful day. Very very pretty and exciting.


4. Our dessert from the very first Saturday night dinner without all them pesky summerers. It was a heavenly concoction of rosewater meringue, strawberry ice-cream (with real strawberry bits in them too!), some sort of raspberry mush thing on the top, and chocolate ice-cream!


5. Another day, another sunset.


6. Another day, another sunset. This time, with added (although kinda faint) solar pillar!


7. Marzipan bunnies that I helped shape, just in time for our Easter Saturday dinner dessert course.


8. The most amazing chocolate ganache tart from the Bourke Street Bakery cookbook to accompany the marzipan bunny.


9. On Easter Sunday, we woke up to an egg-hunt after morning tea and found ourselves little paper nests filled with decorated hard-boiled eggs, along with a proper (and absolutely divine) chocolate egg from Mornington Peninsula courtesy of the Doctor.


10. On the 14th of April, we had a Titanic-themed Saturday dinner to remember the sinking of the Titanic a hundred years ago. The chef cooked the very last First-Class meal served the night the ship went down. Everyone dressed up. I ate so much, I felt like throwing up. We had Titanic playing on the screen in the background. Someone recreated the Jack and Rose flying scene. We were partying it up like it was 1912.


11. The following Saturday night, we had a 1970s theme. Dieso Joe decided to rock his ultra-funky glasses.


12. After dinner, our station leader likes to hoard all the tea-candles that have been burning away through the night.


13. Got around to decorating my room the way I wanted to - it's now looking a lot nicer and cosier due to these fairy light Hong Yin got me from Bangkok a long time ago.


14. New addition: the lanterns you got for me are up too, TAM!


15. This week (7-13 May), I am in charge of making sure that the hydroponics container and all its inhabitants are growing healthily and quickly. As part of my duties, I have to top of the water levels in the many tanks, make sure that nothing's flooded, and that there are no 'sudden deaths' in our plant communities. As we can't have any fresh produce sent down over the winter, we've got to grow our own. We have lettuce, silverbeet, tomatoes, all manner of herbs, cucumbers, chillis and capsicums. Rather comprehensive, eh? This little thing here is a tomato shootling.


16. PARSLEY ughughugh.



17. Baby lettuce.


18. Not sure what this is, but it looks tasty. I think it might be bok choy?



19. Mama lettuce. It's how the lack of fresh stuff has really turned me into a lettuce-munching monster now. I don't even like lettuce that much! I've never eaten a Big Mac BECAUSE of the lettuce! And now, here I am, rolling them up into little lettuce joints and MUNCHING on them. Ugh.


20. Silverbeet. Also another vegetable I willingly eat whenever it's served up, because it is Fresh.


21. The general lay-out of the hydroponics. This is the lettuce and partial herb room. There is another room just around the corner for the tomatoes and cucumbers, and other herbs.

The End.

We're entering into the month of May now, and I overheard someone in the mess a few nights ago say that we have another approximate 270 days to go on the continent before the ship comes for us. Holy cow, I didn't know if that was a good thing or an evil evil reminder that time waits for no (wo)man!

I have been meaning (HAH haha, yea I've been meaning a lot of things) to put up some photos taken from the previous weeks, but I am lazy.

I am so lazy these days, waking up has been a dead-set bitch of a chore to do. I'm really amazed at how much the lack of sunlight is affecting  me, and how much I've been taking it for granted. Waking up without light pouring in through your window is a pain, and because I've never been the sort of person to wake up before the sun rises, the pain is doubled.

A few days ago, I attempted to fill up the tanks in my bitch-of-an-aquarium (ok la no, I should stop yelling abuses at it and kicking it) and realised that, in the cold, anything and EVERYTHING will fuck up. I had an (un)fortunate associate giving me a hand, and the both of us were working in -20 dC conditions, with winds picking up to a brain-numbingly cold 15 knots, which brought our wind chill factor to about -35 dC fuck our lives. It took us 90 minutes from punching a hole through the ice, to stamping and crushing the hoses to unfreeze them, and finally having water pumping along and into the tanks. All was going good for about 20 minutes, and then the pump ran out of fuel and died. By the time I managed to refill the fuel tank and start the pump again, the water had all frozen in the hoses again MCB FML! At that point I was tired and cold, with my fingers frost-nipped, and in a very very foul mood...so foul in fact, that I was thiiiiissssssssss close to bursting out in tears and asking whatever demi-god of the Antarctic to just give me a fucking break will you JUST GIVE ME A FUCKING BREAK!?

ahem.

But I didn't; I persevered, canned the whole operation and packed up those hoses, now weighing triple their starting weight because of all that damned ice freezing in them, proper solid good. Fuck. Anyway, the hoses are defrosting now and I'm gonna wait for another good warm-ish day to resume my business.

Le sigh.

97th ANZAC Dawn Service at Davis

As the 21st member of the 65th ANARE at Davis, I'm finding myself feeling more and more obliged to immerse myself in all things Australiana. Even though I've been in the country since 2005, I've never felt compelled to go beyond understanding the accent, memorising the public transport routes and knowing the best spots for eating (all three are essential things if you want to survive here). Ever since winter started, I've found myself entering into footy tippings (both NRL and AFL, of which the former I was once Score Leader for 4 weeks but now have to share my place with another insubordinate, le sigh), watching weekly footy games, flogging 'howsit gowin' and 'no worries' like there's no tomorrow, drinking Bundaberg rum (ugh) and eating crackers with vegemite and melted cheese.

Yesterday, my Australiana education took one giant step forward, and I found myself participating in the Davis ANZAC Day Dawn Service. For those of you who don't know what ANZAC Day is, please read this. When I heard the words 'Dawn Service' uttered by the Station Leader, my mouth went dry, because I knew that Dawn Service back in Australia meant getting up at 5.30 in the morning. However, seeing as we are in Antarctica and going into winter, Dawn here means 10.00 am. Sweet.



 

All of us assembled out at the flagpoles, listened to an address from Ali, the flags were raised then lowered to half-mast, we played the Last Post over the sound system, and I had the opportunity to read out a very lovely poem from a John McCrae.

In Flanders Fields the poppies blow

Between the crosses, row on row

That mark our place; and in the sky

The larks, still bravely singing, fly

Scarce heard amid the guns below.

We are the Dead. Short days ago 

We lived, felt dawn, saw sunset glow, 

Loved and were loved, and now we lie, 

In Flanders fields. 

Take up our quarrel with the foe,

To you from failing hands we throw 

The torch; be yours to hold it high. 

If ye break faith with us who die 

We shall not sleep, though poppies grow 

In Flanders fields. 

We then proceeded to spend the rest of our day drinking rum and watching Australian war movies. We went through Breaker Morant (Boer War), Gallipoli (WWI), Kokoda (WWII) and The Odd Angry Shot (Vietnam War). They were all great movies, but it made me feel really depressed towards the end (especially after watching Breaker Morant and Gallipoli back to back). They completely highlighted the futility and wastefulness that is war - and it was really heartbreaking to watch the enthusiasm of the young men signing up for WWI, because to them, I assume it was more for the adventure than the actual realisation that Death was waiting for them around the corner.



On the last page of the pamphlets that were handed out to us at the Dawn service was a short epithet:

Sacrificed to the fallacy

That war can end war

Second Lieutenant A.C. Young

Royal Irish Fusiliers

Born 9th October 1890

Died 16th August 1917

All photo credits to the other fine and outstanding members on station. 

it is nearly a month since the ship came and left us as winterers. time is flying by, but then again, it's not - you get? the days are peeling itself off the calendar, sure, but it feels like they aren't really going anywhere. perhaps it is the repetition, or the routine that i find myself in now. it's not bad, but, to borrow a line from 'In Bruges' (although it is totally out of context, because in 'In Bruges', it was in reference to the dreamy settings of Bruges in winter),

I know I am awake, but I feel like i'm in a Dream

the only markers i have around me that tell me time is passing are:

1. the extreme shortening of daylight hours with each passing day. the sun doesn't rise till 10.00am these days, and when it does, it hangs around till 5.30pm, and then POOF it is gone. waking up is getting harder and harder.

2. having to babysit that fucking aquarium now that i am by myself my god i feel like committing a murder/suicide (aquarium/me) every time i think about the fucking thing. i don't believe it is 'just an inanimate object' (as some wisecrack pointed out to me a while ago), i believe that it has a soul and a personal vendetta against me. but i will persevere, and i will come out of this the victor because i'll be damned if i let 'an inanimate object' get the best of me.

3. waking up with a hangover every Sunday. if my hangovers could talk, it would have a heavy mafia-esque italian accent. 'eeyyy HELL-low! iz me aggen, yaa?' HAHAHA ma and pa, i joke i joke. i never get hangovers.

anyway, much to do and see and another aquarium to check up on. toodles.