Susan Munroe

Check it out – two entries in two days! You lucky dogs. This is less of an update, though, and more of an addendum, an appendix. I was unhappy with the update I wrote yesterday in its dealings with “toastiness” (or, the gradual, Antarctica-enduced losing of one’s mind). I didn’t feel that it captured the [...]

WHALES. The whales have arrived!! At 2:30 this morning I was sitting on the frozen beach of Hut Point (on the edge of town), next to the huge, Swedish icebreaker that is moored at the ice pier in the harbor. I’d taken a nap after work, intending to sleep for only an hour…and woke up [...]

In the film “Memento”, Guy Pearce plays a character with no short term memory. He carries a Polaroid camera and makes notes on the photos in order to fill in the gaps in his memory. “This is my car” one says. Another: “This is where I live.” I need to start doing this. I have…no [...]

…if by Christmas you mean giant wooden candy canes and penguins wearing Santa hats hung on utility poles over rivers of mud under the blinding sun. Welcome to the land of the Anti-Santa, who steals toys from the good children and delivers them to the bad ones; where snow melts instead of accumulating and the [...]

I have the Crud. It’s the McMurdo bane: a common cold on steroids. Sneezy, feverish, achy, with watery eyes and nose that alternates between stuffiness and running. I’m on day five, and the bastard just won’t quit.  The upside is that I’ve gotten a solid three and a half days off of work during which [...]

When I speak of my life here, “here” – Antarctica, McMurdo – is simply “this place.”  This Place.  It’s an enigmatic title.  Vague.  Simple, colorless words that fall flat, providing no descriptive imagery, no information.  And yet it’s the only phrase that works – it’s general enough, bland enough to encompass the space that is…this [...]

A helicopter landed outside of my window two nights ago. The thumping, room shaking sound of its rotors was like an alarm clock jarring one out of a sound sleep: disorienting, confusing, frightening. “Wake up!” It said. “It’s mainbody!” If the three helicopters arriving at the heli-pad less than a hundred feet from my window [...]

It’s 11:00 at night when I step out of the coffee house with Andre, Justin, and Sky.  We’ve spent the last half hour or so cozied up to the wooden, paneled bar, chatting, spinning on our bar stools, enjoying the selection of NZ and Aussie wines and trading banter with Dave the bartender.  It’s way [...]

#1 – Driving in Condition 2 weather! *Condition 2: “weather conditions when any one or all of these conditions exist – wind speed is greater than 48 knots (55mph), temperature is below -75 F (-59C), visibility is less than 1/4 mile” (condition 3 is the designation for normal weather; condition 1 is the most extreme). [...]