Survivor Ellesmere

We had a bit of Sun today for the second day in a row. And for the n-th day in a row it was colder at the lab than it was at the station. And mildly windy. (-40 is really not so bad until the wind blows - then it's bitterly cold and frost bite inducing.) (Best quote from the campaign: it's better to get frost bite than bear bite.) In the mid-afternoon I was going a bit stir-crazy, so I braved the temperatures with a few other crazy types and went for a quick walk. We were smart enough to walk into the wind on the way, so that the wind was pushing up back to PEARL on our walk back. I snapped this picture before coming inside. (Apparently it was obvious that I had written this on the building. Really, I think Clive is a much more obvious culprit.) (Ok, if you know Clive, that was funny. If you don't...take my word for it!)

I've been a bit stressed the past few days. I submitted a paper back in September, and re-submitted after one round of reviews in January. The day I spent on a plane flying from Edmonton to Eureka, I got round two reviews back. I have to have responses to them, and a revised draft of the paper, in by March 7, at 9:31:01 UTC. (Yes, two seconds past 9:31 is too late.) I haven't had much time to work on it, because I've been looking after three instruments and trying to analyse the data enough to know that they're all working okay. But this deadline has been in the back of my head the whole time. I finally sat down with everything Sunday, and now I think things are almost done, but it's not fun to have important deadlines while you're on a field campaign! I'm also trying to get another paper submitted by March 15 (it's almost like I want to graduate...), but luckily the deadline for that is most likely going to be pushed back a bit.

In final news, today marks the first day of the International Polar Year. It's a year (okay, two years) of intensive research into all aspects (and not just science - anthropological as well) of our polar regions. The UN is sort of coordinating it, and different countries are funding their different projects. It should be an exciting two years, and hopefully by the end we'll understand these regions a bit better. How fitting to be in Eureka for the start of this.