Laundry duty = fun times!

I am well into my second week and things are still spectacular...well, even better than before in fact because I am pretty used to the work schedule and my room and such so I am much more rested than last week. In the past couple of days I have finished training on all the buildings and even had some time for special projects, such as laundry duty. We had to go in team of four and pick up all the dirty laundry packs from the first floor of each dorm and load them into the back of a van and take them over to laundry. Believe it or not it was the most fun I have had since I got here. The weather was pretty nuts, wind that you have to lean forward and walk into just so you aren't blown back a bit, wind that made the car doors fly back and required zipping your parka up all the way. We formed a chain from the bags to the van throwing the laundry to eachother so nobody had to run back and forth. Then when we got back to the laundry room, van full from floor to cieling with laundry, I was the person stationed inside the van who had to push all the bags to the back so they could more easily unload them. With the van so full this usually meant climbing (in full gear, mind you) on top of all the laundry and frantically shoving laundry bags out the door til I could reach the floor. So. Much. Fun. It sounds weird but it's true. Some guy at the coffee house was talking to my boss and he said he saw us loading laundry and thought "I should help them" but then he said "but they looked like they were having so much fun that I decided to let them do their thing." It was incredibley cold and exhausting but it's the type of weather that makes you feel like you are actually here. I also got to tour Crary lab, which is building #1, it's where all the scientists work and it's the reason we're here. Next time I'm there I will get some pictures. It's pretty pristine, probably the cleanest building on the station (and that includes the clinic...trust me, I've seen the mop water) and is gigantic. It was a total contrast from the day before where I was cleaning building like the VMF (Vehicle Maintenance Facility) a.k.a "The Heavy Shop" a.k.a building 143, which gets so dirty and greasy it is cleaned twice a day. This week I get Saturdy off and only half to work a half day on Sunday because I volunteered to do "Sunday Run", which means me and one other janitor empty all the garbages in all the dorms, clean all the bars, and clean and mop highway 1 (the main ay). It has to be done between midnight and when the bars open the next day and usually takes about 4 hours and I am pretty excited to basically have 2 days off. I went to the outdoor safety lecture so I am allowed to go hiking now so maybe I will get out and see the sights. The safety lecture mainly consisted of how to register your trip with the fire house via an internet program and check out a radio, how to recognize hypothermia and frostbite and a lot of "Stay on the marked path or you DIE!" Registering your trip with the fire house is a complicated process because you have to say when you will be back and actually check in around that time. You don't want to underestimate the time it takes because if you are 5 minutes late about 70 people get paged and start suiting up and after an hour they will launch a search and rescue. But you don't want to overestimate your time either because if the trip only takes 3 hours but youdecide to give yourself 8 just to be safe you could end up breaking your ankle out there and no one would know to come looking for you for like 5 hours. So they are big on the realistic expectations for your trip and you can always radio the fire house if you think you will take longer and let them know you're okay but slower than you thought. On the long hikes they have little warm up shacks that people calls apples, because they look like red submarines and one has a phone so that is the weather takes a turn for the worst and for some reason your radio doesn't work they can find you, so all of you who worry about my turning into a human ice cube or coming back with a couple of fingers missing you can be assured they are just as concerned here. Saftey is drummed into our heads here, we have a safety meeting every week in our department, and we each take a turn learning about a topic and then talk about it for 15 minutes. This week, my fellow janitor Annabell gave a lecture on the importance of hydration, and she even brought props...three glasses of urine in various states of hydration. She actually put cups in the urinals and then went back to collect them (we do spend a lot of time around urinals I guess)...It was hilarious, we were all sure she had just used food coloring but no...it was urine. As you can tell, I work with a fun group, more and more this becomes a home away from home. I just rearranged my room into what Adam and Jesse call the cave formation (they invented it), but basically you arrange the wardrobes around you bed to make a fort, it's pretty cozy, hence I have been sleeping pretty well. The other reason I have been sleeping so well is I worked in the laundry room the past couple of days and Barb (the laundry lady) takes good care of her own (we are all in the housing department) and hooked me up with good pillows and blankets. Well I guess that's all for now...