I was going to start with a picture of a beautiful Antarctic vista, but I realized I haven't really ended up with any new ones in a while. This is because I am only allowed to wander within a very small, contained area, and all my pictures start to look the same because there are a limited number of vantage points. So instead of a photo, here is a comic that addresses the very tight leash that I am kept on, and how I choose to deal with it:
Obviously I failed at posting on my day off. I think I instead ended up locking myself in the record room all day and drawing, which I needed for my own sense of sanity. I am doing my best to keep you abreast of my continued shennanigans down here, but I am tiiirrreeeeed. Very, very, very tired. I was talking to a friend down here, and she said that you have just enough time to do one thing outside of work, and that most people choose to make that thing drinking.
This is a very true statement.
I'm trying to keep up my usual Tessa pace and do about 5 things outside of work (on that note, I'm going to start posting playlists from my radio shows... eventually... at some point... when I find time... (also, I apologize to all the people I owe letters to! I'm working on them...)), and am definitely beginning to feel pretty worn down from the effort. At the end of this contract, I intend to give myself the sort of vacation that I usually consider to be my personal version of purgatory. I am going to find somewhere comfy to collapse-- preferably a hammock on a warm beach-- and drink cocktails with tiny umbrellas in them and keep my decision making to such compelling issues as, "Which section of the Sunday times would I like to read first?" and "Do I want to nap now, or nap later?"
Anyways, since my last post, I hosted the first opening for the Under the Bed Gallery. The vague theme of the show was "Things That Have Come to Seem Normal," and the idea was for people to make art about the strange things they'd adapted to after being down here for too long. Some people decided to go with that theme, but for the most part it was a delightful free for all. Instead of rambling on, I'm just going to post pictures. I even took some videos for you at the end of this post.
Keep the Outside Notions of Antarctica submissions coming!
So... For context, someone pooped on a chair in one of the lounges. It was discovered by the janitors, and no one is fessing up to who did it or why. It has been the talk of the town for weeks. Various McMurdo bands have written songs about the poop chair, and it's a common party game to ruminate on the context leading up to its creation.
Part of our ridiculous bureaucracy down here involves filling out Labor Allocation Sheets (LAS), in which we account for literally every minute of our work day. We break down our hours into such inane categories as "Safety Meeting" or "Stretch Break" or "Preparing Flight Lunches." These categories are absurdly specific, and I think there are something like ~80 options of common activities, and then a write in space for "Other." I really, really wonder what you would have to do at work such that there wasn't a line to write it in. We have to fill these out every day, and we get angry emails if we don't have them filed by 10:30am. Each friday we have to Lock and Certify our hours, and if we don't do that on time, then the world ends and the universe implodes and we get written up and have to have meetings with our big HR bosses. I find this all quite fascinating, as bureaucracy is something I have always avoided like the plague.
Anyways, Jason made an LAS sheet accounting for all 24 hours of the day. It's a little depressing. But also funny.
This is a pretty accurate depiction of the kitchen. We have a lot of fun at work. There are many spontaneous dance numbers and discussions of dinosaurs, and sometimes we lose our voices because we decide to spend four hours loudly singing along to all of our music in the style of Cher.
My favorite piece. Video of it at the bottom of this post.
