Cosmic Raspberries

Greetings dear readers!

It is currently 01:20 on Tuesday, 15 October 2019.  I am warm and cozy sitting in BL165 in our new dispatch room.  The merger that we’ve all been pushing towards and sorta stressing over the past few weeks is done.  We have abandoned the dispatch room at the Firehouse for the summer season and are operating in our new home.

For the first half of the season, I’ll be on night shift.  I am scheduled to transition to day shift on the weekend before my birthday in December. The switch to day shift is something I am very much looking forward to as I worked nights all last season.

So, here are a few things that have been happening!  And I’ll add pictures later, or post an entirely new entry of nothing but pictures with descriptions because I forgot my phone cord and am unable to upload any pics from my phone.

My roommate, Robin, arrived on the 30th of September.  He is another dispatcher who worked here last season.  I wanted a roommate that I already knew so I asked him before he came down if he wanted to room together.  He said yes and things have been working out perfectly.  We work opposite shifts and have opposite days off but, so far, we have tried to have at least one evening a week where we have “spa day”.  This means we sit in the sauna of our dorm for about an hour, going outside every 15 minutes or so to stand in freezing temps just to watch the steam rise off of us.  Then we go back in and warm up.  During the course of the going in and out of the building, we will put on clay face masks.  Last week, we were joined by our new co-worker, Kris.  The three of us went out and laid in the snow at one point and we couldn’t quit giggling.  People were walking by looking at us like we had lost our minds.  Perhaps we have.  It’s too early in the season to tell.

The official move to the new center happened.  Unfortunately, I did not attend the walk over and official opening because I was stricken with a migraine.  Thankfully, I don’t suffer from them often.

The last member of our dispatch crew arrived on 10 October and I am so glad he’s back for this season.  Jonathan and I worked night shift together last year and we love to pick on each other.  At least I enjoy it.  He’d probably argue otherwise.

We have had some spectacular sunsets over the past week.  Again, I unfortunately did not bring my cord with me but I will be sharing the photos as soon as I am able.  Perhaps this evening as I will be off of work and will need to stay out of the room so Robin can sleep.

Let’s see, what else…  I have gotten permission to bartend this season so I am looking forward to that.  I didn’t bartend last year but I have previous seasons and I rather enjoy it.  Especially when I get to work Day Bar.

Also, I am writing postcards this year and hopefully once the plane gets fixed I can get them in the mail and on their way their intended recipients.  If you’d like a postcard from Antarctica, email me your address at victoriaTparker@gmail.com.

**The T doesn’t have to be capitalized but when it’s lowercase, it has a tendency to be overlooked.

OH!  One more thing, the title of this post.  Cosmic Raspberries.

One of our new tasks is monitoring HF frequencies as they will be used to communicate with field camps and people doing Science throughout the season.  We frequently get weird transmissions that sound like someone blowing raspberries in outer space.  It can be amusing when you’re sitting in dispatch and it’s pretty *q word*, then all of a sudden “thppt!”.

Be excellent to each other!