August, hobbywise, I focused more on writing science fiction stories and the writing courses I am taking. By the end of the month, I finished many of the courses and started a fantastic one with Gotham Writers Workshop online. I wrote several stories I’m proud of, including one about a 40,000 year starship journey and one about a sentient tree. I can’t share them here yet, as I’m submitting them to various science fiction magazines which have a clause prohibiting that. And if no science fiction magazines wants them, I wouldn’t want to inflict them on you anyway! Here’s a small plot diagram of a 19 page story which covers 40,000 years: 
Workwise, I spent some time setting up a machine to prototype new software for the South Pole Telescope, and had some beautiful last walks in the darkness as the sun began to rise. The telescope was mostly well behaved and every day I work with it I’m super thankful to have such an amazing job.
At the beginning of August, we had the Antarctica 48 Hour Film Festival, in which most bases in Antarctica make and submit a film in a weekend which has to include five elements released that weekend. Ours was a lot of fun and was themed as a winterover orientation video. I helped heavily with the idea generation stage, attended the filming, and was on the editing team driving the editing from my computer. Check out the video which also gives a cool peak into the station life! (https://vimeo.com/178029951). Our film didn’t win any awards but it was a great bonding experience and got a lot of laughs from our crew, especially when one of the five required elements ended up being a catwalk scene in which many intrepid male models participated.
In mid-August many of my colleagues spent days in terrible weather building an igloo. The big credit goes to them, but after they were done they were generous enough to let me spend a night camping in it in rather chilly weather. As far as we can tell, I’m the first woman to have ever spent the night in an igloo at the South Pole in winter! If you add enough qualifiers to almost any statement I am sure you too can be a record breaker of some sort today. âAmazingly, the worst part about staying in the igloo wasn’t the cold. It turns out, they are pretty good at handling it (although it was well below freezing, even inside). The worst part of the night was just that the ground being hard made it a bit tougher to sleep than usual.
As the sun began to rise, I got a bit anxious about the change. A lot of winterovers have a favorite routine and even sit in the same seat every day for meals. It seems to be part of adapting to life here–embracing the fact that every day is the same rather than resisting it. This also implies resistance to change, and there’s nothing that spells change more than a giant ball of nuclear fusion about to burn its will upon your retinas. The sunrise was nevertheless beautiful, and lasted most of August! It got light enough for me to attempt selfies out of doors. 
In ERT class we practiced suturing (i.e. giving stitches). I’m now confident I could remove stitches and give them in a pinch.
I continued studying for my ham radio license, though it turns out I won’t be able to take the test while I’m here (the queries for a remote examiner turned up nil), so I will take the exam when I get back to Pasadena.
I participated in a station wide pool tournament, and won my first game, narrowly lost my second game, and played the ultimate winner of the tournament in my third game and lost it as well, being knocked out for good. I was proud at how close the last game was, we were even 3 balls each on the table when the winner, Josh, broke away and won the game in a last turn.
Some science colleagues ran a science day with non-Newtonian fluids and liquid nitrogen demos. It was a popular exhibition.
I mentioned in a previous newsletter that many on station made tie-dye shirts. They are a favored fashion item now. In August we had a group photo with them. The only person missing was a colleague who tends to wear tie-dye almost every day. He has spent over a decade wintering over in Antarctica and is reclusive when it comes to photos. He missed our group tie-dye photo because “it was Saturday and I don’t wear tie-dye on Saturdays.” See what I mean when it comes to winterovers and their routines!
At the end of August I started to learn to weld in the machine shop here. We have more modern welding helmets, but here I am in a classic fit for Halloween.
August 31st it was light enough out that the science experiments affected by light polution were shut off, meaning we could take off the coverings from the station windows that had been up since shortly after sunset to prevent the station light from interfering with these experiments. This was a big deal. A few colleagues went out to take a timelapse, and we went around the station taking the covers off in 30 second increments. It was certainly strange to see the windows again, and everything was a little colder without the coverings. We quickly got used to the new look, though.
That’s all for August. Stay tuned for September where I have two pieces of HUGE news to share which involve writing and space. And don’t forget to get me your address if you want a postcard from the South Pole, and to forward this newsletter to others who might be interested in such a postcard or subscribing to the newsletter itself.
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