Fun Fact #1: Here at Pole, we do actually have internet access for personal use (obviously, since I'm posting this blog). I think this is pretty impressive given our remote location and that none of my other field work locals have had internet access other than the rare cyber cafes with dial-up. But, there are some downsides to the internet offered here. We connect through 3 different satellites, and the connection is sloooow! How slow varies between the satellites and station-wide usage. I can actually write a full postcard in the time it takes one page to load with one of the satellites! And, the other downside is that coverage is not continuous. One satellite passes out of range before another comes in. Sometimes the gap is an hour or two, and other is 6-7 hours. (Incidentally, we can also only make phone calls when a satellite is up.) Fortunately, there is an intranet site that tells us when a particular satellite will be available, so you can plan according.
How is this relevant? Last night, I had a blog post typed up and ready to go, but the next satellite wasn't available until 12:30 am. I was eager to diligently post, so I stayed up for the satellite, which ended up not coming online until 1am. Our group meets for breakfast at 7am. So, I got less than 6 hours of interrupted sleep.
Fun Fact #2: One of the side effects of being at a high elevation is having trouble sleeping and/or waking up often. This is probably due to a combination of a higher than normal resting heart rate (mine is 85-90 versus 75 at normal elevations), changing blood chemistry and ph, reduced partial pressure of oxygen leading to gasping in your sleep, and *ahem* increase urination, which is a natural effect of being at elevation as your body tries to reach a ph equilibrium and is also a side effect of Diamox - used to treat and prevent altitude sickness. … So, basically poor sleep and little sleep, so I was dead tired this morning. But, so was everyone else, so I trudged on. In the morning, Guy and I unloaded quite a bit of equipment from crates into our workspace in the cryolab. [Fun Fact #3: The cryolab is quite warm, but they keep tanks of liquid helium there, at temperatures of 2-3K!!!!] Guy had told Mike and Thomas that we'd need their help with some of the boxes since they are heavy, but when they showed up, we'd already unloaded them. They looked at me, apparently surprised. I like when people are impressed with how much I can lift (I didn't actually think they were that heavy.), but also frustrated. In daily life, I love a little chivalry, but not in the field, why would people want to work with me in the field if they think I can't carry my weight because I'm a woman? It's not so much that I love carrying heavy things around, but rather that I want to be a full participant, not the person people have to plan around because I'm a girl. (Although, there are exceptions… I'm pretty sure that we got a space in the station dorms and not in the couple summer dorms where other temp. scientist are because of me. There are no working bathrooms out there and they have to use pee bottles if they don't want to trudge here outside at night. I wouldn't have enjoyed that.)
In the afternoon, we started building a test station. We didn't quite complete it, and that's on the agenda for Sunday. We are technically supposed to fly our first mission on Monday, but no one thinks this is likely. We are second priority, so we'll only go if the first priority team has bad weather at their site. Tuesday is more likely for our first service run.
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