merry, merry, merry, Merry!

And a very Merry Christmas to you! or, Happy Peace to All People Day!

Christmas in McMurdo has involved many happy times. It kicked off with a happenin' town holiday party Sunday night after work in the vehicle maintenence facility, a big metal box transformed with tinsel, plywood cutouts, Santa in his sleigh, a trash-material Ruldolf, and various other decorations into a celebratory hall. The party kicked off with carols from the Holiday Party, including traditional Deck the Halls, The First Noel, and The 12 McMurdo Days of Christmas. A few choice lines: On the nth day of Christmas a penguin gave to me, ... 7 hours resting, 6 days a-working, 5 skua eggs, 4 free meals, 3 , a pair of bunny boots, and a flight on a C-130! Then of course we wished them a Merry Christmas, but we wouldn't go until we saw some fuzzy penguins. :) Scotty, my heater-maintenance friend, made my eggnog a little happier and dancing wrapped up the night.

The next morning we climbed to Castle Rock under beautiful blue skies, and I remembered not to be grumpy on such a glorious day. While curling up before a fire with a good book also sounded lovely, the fire is banned and the book just involved more sitting around. I spent the rest of the afternoon working on my Christmas gifts for folks here (3-d, cut-paper snowflakes) before going to dinner. The tofu with apples, allspice, and rosemary was topped only by the chocolate lava (think flourless chocolate torte-like goodness in a cupcake paper).

After dinner Kevin, Rob, Yoann (my French recovery colleague), and I enjoyed the hilarity and thoughtfulness of Rosencrantz and Guildenstern Are Dead. The Tom Stoppard play was brilliantly acted, and all of us were delighted with the bits of physics dropped in it. Paper boat in a bathtub, watch the rise and fall as he starts to get out and sees it himself. ... I would highly recommend this even if you don't like movies. And it was good enough that even Yoann, who has serious work ahead of him for basic English comprehension, enjoyed it.

We ended the night with the lessons and carols service. I sang again with the choir, which continued to exceed my expectations. The readings rang too much with "thou shalts" for my taste, particularly given the decrees daily passed down from on high without regard for reasonableness here. But I was in it for the music, which satisfied.

Christmas morning I slept, and slept... and slept! It was lovely. Then the choir had one last gig: singing over the radio to the field stations and South Pole. SP and Siple Dome checked in, and South Pole even sang, impromptu, carols back to us. What a way to spread the joy. :) At dinner I distributed my snowflakes and hugs, then I chatted with Anne as her partner Peggy worked at the Coffee House.

Tomorrow it's back to the regular. I'll go out to LDB with Yoann and get out the recovery tool kit and other bits, ski with Anne at lunch, and bring the linux desktop back to Mactown for continued work. I'm looking forward to Thursday, when the 2 soccer teams I picked up with play in the finals. Even if we don't win, it'll be great to run around with teammates. ...Speaking of which, plans are still in the works for some outdoors ulti. !!

Friday and Sat I have snow school, where they teach us how to survive and build igloos... or at least piles of snow to crawl into! And supposedly there's time to build a snow bar into the snow wall. :) Sunday and Monday we have another 2-day weekend for New Years, and I have high hopes for more joy and revelry.

Which will make a nice contrast to mourning my Grandpa's passing. It was too soon and I miss him dearly. At least tech will help out again: I'll be calling my Aunt's cell to attend the funeral.

And so I wish you a season of peace: not the absence of noise and bustle, but the stillness within it.

More firsts...

Sunday:

• Fresh fruit for breakfast!! Amy says Jin-A and I look the happiest she's seen us all trip. After all, we finally get my freshies, and I'm about to play ulti and go on a huge adventure!
  
• Ultimate frisbee in Antarctica. 4 on 4 in the (tiny!) gym, and I suggested we play make it, take it. We have a nice fast game. Pepe from Brown is solid, Rob is good, and most importantly, everyone is fun to play with.
• Castle Rock! 8 miles, almost all on cross-country skis. We walked the first dirt and ice 1.5ish mi, and I skied the rest. Spectacular. Good company: Brett and Nick, two fish guys, Rob, Jin-A, Michele who was a wonderful help for us newbies, and myself. A wonderful get-outta-town trip. Traying joy down the bottom bit of hill. Happily, we both got a shuttle from the Kiwi station (otherwise another 1.5 mi hike on the road over the ridge to McMurdo) and had dinner waiting for us in the galley after our 7hr exploration. Possibly my best galley meal yet.

Monday:

• My first solo yoga teaching. Sat after work Rec'd scheduled me for Wed so I'd have more time between getting off Ivan at 6.15p and getting to class at 7 instead of 6.30p. I went to open yoga today to stretch after yesterday's pretty intense workout and found two newer-bies wanting to do yoga. So they got to be my guinea pigs for a mostly flow session of sun salutations, warriors I & II, triangle pose, half cow-faced pose, and pigeon pose (for my bum & hips :) bookended by breathing and shivasana. Afterwards, the gal said she felt like she'd just released all the pent-up tension of the last 3 years (since she'd done any yoga) and had a big smile. The guy, an airplane mechanic, also seemed pretty happy, so I guess I did it. ... Wuh-hooo! But my teacher-friends are right, teaching doesn't help you do your own practice. I think I did enough for me for tonight though, and the act cheered my spirits. And then... (aaannd theeennn... ;)
  
• my first snow in McMurdo! It's pretty rare here; the whole continent is desert or nearly so. But even rarer is that it's not particularly cold, making for the perfect snow-wander.