The Ides of July

Posted onAuthorCorbett

Last we spoke we were in the middle of a medevac, which was highly successful. 

The plane was parket on slats to prevent it from freezing to the ice:
Here are a few collected articles on the medevac:

In addition to the patients making it out safely (primary mission), we got a delivery of fresh fruit (secondary mission). Here I am with my rations:
Someone’s cute kid drew this dramatic rendition of the medevac events:

Life at the South Pole has gotten back to normal since the medevac, and we’re all happy everyone is safe.

I’ve gotten very into audiobooks, and have been listening to them while I’m walking, and when I can while I’m working. I also have been taking (7!) creative writing classes online. I recently finished 4 of them. My goal is to write interesting and well crafted science-fiction, and I’m starting at concentrating on short stories. I wrote over 54 pages for these courses in July alone. If you’re a reader, friend me on Goodreads:

In July I completed my 20th one hour one-on-one Chinese lesson. We had an open mic night, where I sang and played ukulele. We did a tie-dye craft day, and now everyone on station is supporting stellar threads. This is my black and white creation:
I got some minor frostnip (update: fully recovered) after an especially windy day in which my best balaclava was in the wash so I wore my backup balaclava (update: always go with the best).
WE INTERRUPT THIS NEWSLETTER FOR YOUR REGULARLY SCHEDULED ASTRONAUT BULLETIN FROM THE SOUTH POLE
I got word that me, my SPT colleague Amy and the person looking after the BICEP telescope, Hans, all are getting our references checked as part of the astronaut candidate selection process for the class of 2017. Really exciting news!
BACK TO YOUR REGULARLY SCHEDULED TINYLETTER
I published my paper about my work on a 5-qubit quantum computing simulator here:
And IBM Research did an in depth interview of me!
My work even prompted them to add some features to the IBM Quantum Experience interface, including the ability to copy in code rather than visual program.

I started working with a fantastic executive assistant, who will be helping me organize several conferences and a wedding over the next year. Since she has some free cycles, she has been helping me schedule calls with friends every Sunday. With everyone’s busy work, family and social schedule it’s been a huge help in getting the chance to say hi. If you want to schedule a call, just send me an email by replying to this newletter.

July saw the tail end of total darkness. Already as of mid August we are an nautical twilight.
We had a ladies night and split some personal items from a package that arrived for a female summer contractor too late to be of use, and which were saved for some midwinter joy. 
In early July, we were alerted we had a gift box for mid winter somewhere in the building that houses our telescope. I found it, finally, on top of a cabinet in a small white box labeled “calibration equipment”. Sneaky! It contained candy, lego sets, and some funny books, as well as a stellar Einstein t-shirt:
We had a 4th of July Party and a Poker Night.
I’ve continued with my astrophotography.

I’ve been making a lot of progress in yoga and can now do poses like crow, crow to headstand and side crow. I also started doing a workout series called “Insanity” and “Asylum” with a few others on station twice a week.

I tried to make a HAM radio connection to New York with the help of a friend, but we were unsuccessful. The fun of trying inspired me to start studying for my license.
We had a “Christmas in July” event replete with a gift exchange (I got a saved orange and some vegan chocolate!) a “family” meal, cookies and decoration. I cooked a quinoa dish for the event.In clinical assistant training we learned how to put on and remove casts. Here’s me as a demonstration “victim” (no arms were harmed in the taking of this photo). The cast was on and off within an hour. I also placed a cast on someone else.
We had an emergency response team drill in which there was a simulated (with a smoke machine) fire in an outbuilding and a “victim” of smoke inhalation. The temperature was -90F. All and all things went well. 
I gave a talk remotely at the Blue Dot Festival in the UK. Other speakers and acts were physicist Brian Cox and musicians Brian Eno, 65daysofstaic, AIR and Caribou, all some of my favorites:


I spent a week as a guest tweeter for the @astrotweeps account. Check out the storify of my tweets describing life at the South Pole:

You might be interested in some live webcam views of the  South Pole:
We’re now at well over 700 subscribers! As always feel free to forward or refer your friends to this subscribers only letter. I’m hoping to get to 1000 by the end of the season.

​Last letter I sent some Midwinter greetings around Antarctica. These were so cool that TinyLetter decided to feature it in their “TinyLetter Forward” a newsletter which selects the coolest TinyLetters of the month:
http://tinyletter.com/forwards/letters/fwd-midwinter-greetings-from-everyone-on-antarctica

Since I sent that letter we got a few more greetings which I’ll include at the end of this letter: