13 January 2023 Are you allowed to have fun?!?

Journal

Work comes first!

We do spend a lot of time working here at the South Pole. After all - that is what we came here to do! I helped an Askaryan Radio Array (ARA) team member, Alisa, plug in some cables to fix an antenna for calibration.

Woman plugs in cables to a black box — Alisa plugs in her calibration device at the IceCube Laboratory. Photo by Elaine Krebs.

We also have done a lot of digging! We needed to remove some sensors from the ARA sites that are buried under snow. This was a relatively easy one that was only about 3 feet down. Today we are digging out one that is 8 feet down!

A group of people open a wooden box in a hole in the snow — It only took about 20 minutes to dig out this vault. Pray today's digging goes just as smoothly! Photo by Elaine Krebs.

Plenty of time for activities!

The South Pole is a really cool community. Every night there are multiple events like movie nights, trivia nights, soccer and volleyball matches, and hobby clubs like photography and crafting!

Photography Club

The first week, I attended photography club! I consider myself very much a newbie photographer but everyone was very supportive. And it was cool to see some AMAZING pictures of the auroras that people had taken from winters here.

A group of people in a conference room looking at pictures on a TV screen — I am walking among giants in this group! We have some AMAZING photographers here! Photo by Elaine Krebs.

TV Shows

I had downloaded one of my favorite shows, Brooklyn 99, on Netflix before coming down here, and it turns out, there are a lot of fellow fans! So we plugged into one of the movie lounges here (there are 2!) and our group grew from 3, to 5, to 8, to 10 to no more seats!

A TV screen in a darkened movie lounge. — It was super fun to share one of my favorite shows with so many other people! Nothing like comedy to bring strangers together. Photo by Elaine Krebs.

Pickleball

There is a full-size gymnasium here at the South Pole Station for lots of different activities! Someone left up a pickleball net so of course we got a game going with some of my friends who are leaving the South Pole today. :( I think we played for 3 hours!

Five people standing in the South pole gymnasium with pickleball rackets — I am very sad my friends left. :( But I'm so glad we got to have so much fun before that! Pictured left to right: Elaine, Cameron, Kylee, Jeff, and Avilash. Photo by Elaine Krebs.

Cribbage

The South Pole is obsessed with cribbage. There is currently a tournament going on and if someone doesn't know how to play, there are so many willing teachers! We've been playing games after dinner just for fun almost every night.

We're going live!

I only have one week left here at the South Pole and I can't believe it! I will be going live on Zoom to share my experiences with you on Wednesday, January 18th at 10am PST. Register here!

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