It’s past time for my February newsletter! Thanks to everyone who has subscribed. We’re more than 400 Antarctica interested folks. Feel free to forward to friends and family who might like to follow. I hope to get up to 1000 interested friends, family, and friends of family/friends by the end of the year.
First Third:
The first third of the month was dominated by my finishing training. Flights were still arriving, and packages with them.
February 1 a package from my mom arrived and one of my two packages arrived for myself. Some of the (soy)milk had burst, in a bag, but the bulk was salvageable. Looking at the package you could understand why it might have had some integrity troubles:
What do you mail yourself in Antarctica? Most of our daily needs are taken care of (food, housing, social events). I mailed some protein powders and bars, a few snacks and books. Mom mailed me homebred cookies, still good. Later on in the month packages from Casey (an electronic cello! among other goodies) and other friends arrived, as well as my second package, this time soy milk intact. February 12 came with it the departure of our second trainer and Amy and I were alone on the Ice, responsible for a beautiful 20 million dollar telescope with an operating budget of 16 million per year. 
We had our first winter “all hands” meeting and for the first time I saw the faces of the 48 member crew all at once, the only faces I would see for 9 months. It also was the last time to send mail. I was really thankful for all the mail that I got, postcards, letters, even tea from my future grandmother-in-law, and a peruvian scarf from a friend via Poland. I set about replying to everyone, and writing several letters in advance for future un-enveloping. I was able to use up my entire collection of space themed stamps (thanks FBZ!).
Somewhere in there I assisted one of the meteorologists or “mets” launch a weather balloon. 
Here I am signing the weather balloon sensor after helping to program it!
CHECK IT OUT: Check out this educational podcast and illustration series I made on the cryogenic fridge cycle of the South Pole Telescope: https://codexgalactic.com/2016/02/26/when-antarctica-just-isnt-cold-enough-south-pole-telescope-spt-fridge-cycle/
Second Third: 
Just a few short days later, that beautiful telescope lost its GPS signal during the course of some routine work. GPS isn’t used for positioning, but for timing, and it was critical to analyze the data to know what was taken from where exactly when. Without the “exactly when”, without the many sensors of the telescope synchronized down to the microsecond, it was pointless to take data. We spent some days in conjunction with our collaboration up north ruling out software glitches as a potential issue, and finally decided to replace the GPS hardware with backups we luckily found on station. After a few days work, the telescope was back up.
Definitely was a trial by fire, and though it ended up not being a software fix I learned a lot about Linux kernel device drivers. In there the last big plane left taking with it everyone on the station who wasn’t wintering over. We’d have a few visits of smaller planes, but those would soon stop as well. 
Somewhere in there I finished my application for the astronaut class of 2017, with the confidence I was becoming a better candidate for a mission to Mars by the day.
CHECK IT OUT: Check out this video I made about the last big flight: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ASOyF67GGz
Third Third:
A tiny pepper from the South Pole Greenhouse:
With the telescope under “normal operations” I took a few days to mentally recover, doing routine work but nothing above and beyond. And then I got to working on several issues I had inherited, things which weren’t time sensitive but would be great to fix. I also started brainstorming with the collaboration about a data analysis project, to keep my scientific skills sharp and to earn even more about what happened to the data after Amy and I ensured it was in good shape. I started back up on my hobbies. About once a week, we had a minor hiccup which involved some routine debugging, to get the telescope back to work. Amy and I had agreed to switch off being “on call” week by week, and to be the primary person in charge of operations day by day. We’d both be doing work every day, but it helps to have a point person, and it helps to have a break from that too.
During this time I also had the chance to take advantage of the sign up sheet for Skype hours. We were told we would not have the ability to video Skype but it turns out we can at select times. I saw my fiancé in real time for the first time in 2 months! We get the chance to talk on the phone every day, via VOIP, and a short conversation is 1hr 45 minutes. I guess that’s why we’re getting married!
At the end of the month, on the 29th, we had an emergency response team drill, the mock victim was the head of the station, who was injured in an outbuilding and pulled a fire alarm. The whole station responded in their teams and quickly and safely got him to the medical bay. He called off the drill right as we were about to start an IV. I wonder why?
We’ve had some fun social night, including a ladies night where we tried our best to follow a full Bob Ross painting instruction video in real time.
My training as a clinical assistant and medical emergency response team member continues apace. This month we learned how to do use bloodwork we take to do various labs, as well as practiced administering oxygen and transporting a patient.
Free Time:
The South Pole climbing gym:
I had a lot of goals for my free time coming here and so far I was doing a middling job at meeting them. Early on I decided to keep a checklist of my work, hobbies and self care. I’ve heard it’s easy to get “toasty” in the winter, meaning some kind of lack of motivation combined with brain fog. I hope to avoid this as actively as I can, and have also made sure to keep my iron, omegas, B vitamins, and vitamin D up and meditate regularly. My non-professional goals include writing some stories, working on computer projects, keeping up at the gym, learning more cello (Casey helped me to ship an electronic cello), learning to sing, reading a lot, and studying Mandarin Chinese.
I will say that every day my routine gets more conducive to working on goals. Some challenges have been how do you make running on a treadmill entertaining?; lack of time; keeping the cello in tune; etc. All usual. I’ll share more about tips and tricks in a future newsletter.
A failed attempt to make running more interesting by watching the Boston Marathon at high speed:
March:
Looking forward to March which will bring sunset, and the traditional sunset dinner. It will also bring my 2^5th birthday. It happens to fall on a Sunday, March 13 (give me a call! 720-568-1636 between the hours of 4:30pm and midnight NZDT 3/13, noting that we are a day ahead and a few hours behind of you, probably). Sundays are “fend for yourself” here, every other day we have 3 square meals cooked for us. But this particular Sunday I’m cooking a big brunch with a great menu for the whole station, luckily with the help of two sous-chefs (shoutout to Amy and Oregano), as a birthday party. Really looking forward to it.
Full satellite schedule if you want to call on 3/13 in NZDT time:
| 1:30 AM – 2:30 AM | TDRS-6 | |
| 4:38 PM – 9:59 PM | NATO 4B | |
| 9:38 PM – 10:52 PM | TDRS-6 | |
| 9:56 PM – 3:56 AM | GOES-3 | |
| 11:26 PM – 12:32 AM | TDRS-6 |
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