emma leigh’s antarctic blog

i know, i know. the worst is yet to come!

i have a dentist appointment tomorrow late morning for some fillings. then, the lovely Arlene at the dentist’s office was nice enough to book me wednesday morning at 8:15 to finish that off. rest between fillings? PSHAW! i’ll have none of that. that way i can get my ticket and have all that out of the way. i have exactly one week until i get my wisdom teeth out. that outta be a great time.

let’s see….had a nice weekend full of not getting things done. friday night i went to see The Matador with drew and kevin. what an amazing movie! i recommend it to everyone! then my mom’s cousins ronda and art came up to visit saturday, so my mom and i made sure we were home from target to visit with them for a bit. that was nice. then we had a family brunch at the Dakota yesterday morning. also very nice. excellent food! ronda came up again, with my uncle bob. great to see him, as always.

oh, friday i found out that i will be going to denver on the 9th of february for my psych evaluation. they’re flying me out sometime on the 9th, for the eval early on the 10th. that’ll be neat. this is truly fitting the bill of travelling and having someone else pay for it!

now here i am, trying to get all my paperwork done, and i have to go get a box from my parent’s house to ship my humidifier and my prescription medications in. should be expensive. i have to overnight it. awww yeah.

alright, off to take care of that. more as i know more =)

well, i went to the dentist yesterday morning. wisdom teeth are coming out the 6th of February and i have to get some fillings before i go. i’ve maxed out my insurance just by getting the wisdom teeth out, so that’s going to suck. i also dropped off my medical forms at the doctor. they looked through them and called me back this morning at 8am (who wakes up at that time of day??) and told me that i had to come in for another physical, even though it says that i have to have had a physical within the past 6 months, and i have. not that i’m horribly mad about this all, i just know that insurance won’t cover it, so i’ll have to pay for that out of pocket as well.

in other news, i have a headache and i’m trying not to eat anything so that i can go to the lab that’s about an hour away to get my drug screen and labwork done.

last night as i was trying to sleep, Sally from the ice called to talk to me about the timing of everything and when they were going to try and fly me out to denver to get my psych evaluation done. they’re looking at doing that somewhere around the 9/10 of february. she also suggested to me that i get myself a humidifier and ship it down to myself. she says that if i get it and ship it down today i should still get it as long as i write “WINTER OVER” on it in huge letters. add it to the list!

okay, i’m going to shower and try to call this lab about getting my work done today. hopefully i don’t need an appointment, because i couldn’t get a hold of them yesterday.

okay. i got my deployment itinerary yesterday in my email. i’m leaving on 20 February from Hartford and going to Denver. i’ll be in Denver until wednesday for orientation and safety training. from there i head to LA to pick up my flight to Auckland. then on to Christchurch for just one night, and then to the ice by 25 February. in theory. its been known that it sometimes takes more than one attempt to get to the ice from christchurch. i read that it once took someone 11 tries to get there. hopefully that’s not the case for me. though i am going in very late in the game…i’ll probably be on the last flight onto the ice.

 now, this morning fedex was so nice to drop off to me 2 packages that had been overnighted to me. one had my offer letter and all drug screen kit and all that happy horseshit in it. the other had my lab kit and all the shit my doctor needs to fill out. i’m frankly too frazzled to even LOOK at it all.

 the first thing i did was freak out and become overwhelmed by all the paperwork. then i took it all in bits and pretty much have it figured out. (thanks mom!)

then i called the dentist and rescheduled my appointment again to today at 10am. that way we can get everything rolling and rip out these wisdom teeth if we have to. i also called the doctor’s office and told them i would be stopping by with paperwork for them to look at.

then i looked to see where i have to go for my drug screen. webster, massachusetts is the closest place, so i’m guessing that’s how i’ll be spending tomorrow.

okay, i’m off to the doctor and the dentist. and then maybe i’ll get some packing done this afternoon. blah.

well…this is my first official post of my antarctic adventure. i’ll clue you all in to what’s going on now. i suppose the best place to start this is at the beginning…….

 take a trip back a few months with me to the springtime. i had been looking for a new job at www.coolworks.com as i normally do when i get annoyed with my job. i always think that doing seasonal work could be so much more fun than what i’m doing now.

 i came across a link that said “Work in Antractica” and being the type of person i am, i clicked on it! there before me was the chance of a lifetime. a chance to work in Antarctia on one of the science bases for a few months. i debated with myself, and then got a resume together. alas, by the time i did all that, all the jobs that i was even remotely qualified for were not posted anymore.

 fast forward to a few weeks ago. i had just logged in to the site that has the job listings and found that they were indeed hiring again! and this time there were two positions that i felt i could get hired for! i quickly submitted my resume to both positions late on a sunday afternoon. the following friday i received an email from the company saying that they would like to go further with the hiring process if i was still interested. i had to tell them by monday if i was still interested. well, i was giddy, let me tell you. i couldn’t sleep, my mind was racing. i emailed them saturday morning and told them i was definately still interested.

that monday evening i got a call from the woman in HR, but alas, i was asleep. we played phone tag until wednesday evening when i finally got to speak to her and had a preliminary interview. she thought i would be great for the job, and was going to pass my info on to the hiring manager who was currently “on the ice”. she warned me that it would be a bit before he would be calling and i may even get an email from him first asking when a good time to call would be.

 again. i couldn’t sleep. it was nearly 6pm, and i had to get up for work in 4 hours and i had a total of about 45 minutes of sleep. just as i was fading back into dreamland, at about 9pm, my phone rang, and it was the hiring manager! he was just calling to set up a time to call, but i told him there was no way that i could sleep so we may as well do it then. he told me that he’d get all my info together so that he could give me the attention that i needed, and he’d call back in 15 minutes. well, here i am, alone in my apartment, jumping up and down, watching the phone and waiting. and waiting. and waiting.

 after about a half hour i said to myself “i have to shower for work in case he calls and we’re on the phone right up until i have to leave!” so i put the phone in the bathroom and take (what i feel was) the quickest shower in the world. just as i was getting out, the phone rang.

 ”hi, emily? so sorry about that, we just had someone drop off 6 tons of freshies on our back door step. we had to get all that inside before it froze. on the upside, everything now smells like bananas…” (freshies = fresh fruits and veggies - quite the luxury)

and on to the interview. i passed with flying colours! the person hiring me won’t be my boss when i get there. he’s summer help, and he does the winter hiring. and vice versa at the end of our season.

 so in about a month’s time, i will head to Denver to have a physical, dental and mental exam. hopefully i pass all of these and then i head straight to LA, then to Auckland, and then Christchurch, which is where i will be until i fly to the ice. in Christchurch i will receive my EWC (extreme weather clothing) that is provided to me. after all this is done, and everything is fitted and whatnot, i wait for my flight. i could fly to the ice that day, or a few days from there.

i’ll fly to the ice on either a LC-140, a C-141 or a C-17. the time it takes to get to the ice depends on the plane. more on that once i get down there =)

 anywho…basically i have to get everthing ready to go ASAP and give my notice at work. i’m wicked excited and can’t wait to get on my way! or course, i go through bouts of “what exactly am i doing?? am i totally insane to leave a perfectly good job with good pay and benefits to work for less than minimum wage until October?!” but then i tell myself “its all in the experience…its worth it.”

so i leave in february, come home sometime in october. once i get to the ice, i can’t leave, as it will be the winter and we will get no new flights in until the weather is acceptable. the sun actually sets on my birthday, what a cool present =)

more details about what i’ll be doing and where i’ll be exactly.

i’ll be stationed at McMurdo, which is on the Ross Ice Shelf, just below Australia and New Zealand. this is the largest of the US bases with about 200 people in the winter, up to 1100 or so in the summer. its pretty much a little city, from what i have read. its about 85 buildings and there’s actually stuff to do there! there’s a gym, a climbing wall, a bowling alley with 2 whole lanes (though i hear one is warped) and a manual pinsetter. there are 2 bars (one smoking, one non-smoking) and a coffee house. they even have a pottery studio! those classes i took with my mom will pay off =) i’m sure i’ll have plenty to keep me busy in the little down time that i’ll have.

 i’ll be working 60 hours a week as a dining room attendant (DA from here on out). its six 10-hour days. but honestly, what else is there to do? it will mostly be physical labour, but that’s good. i’m hoping i’ll lose a bit of weight while i’m down there as well!

 i guess that’s all i have for now, i’m going to attempt to get some errands done this morning and try to get packing. i have a lot to do in a very small amount of time.

any questions, drop me a line =)

 ~*~em