The Normal Routine - NightTime (part 2 of 3)
Tuesday 25th April 2000

In the recreational area of the Red Shed is the station music collection. Currently it consists of at least 300 compact discs, 300 plus vinyl records (dating from the 1950's to the mid 80's) and a fair collection of reel to reel tapes. The CD's are the most popular since they usually contain the latest and more popular music and can be loaded into the 5 CD player, or if you have the patience, the 100 stack CD player. The CD players and the tape decks are connected to Blizz FM which is our own private radio station.

The Mawson music collection - CD's, LP's cassettes and reel to reel tapes.

During the day the slushy has the privilege of choosing the music that is broadcast over Blizz FM to the rest of the station, and after tea it becomes free choice. Unfortunately, one of the annoying things about the collection is that some CD's are scratched and at least once a day the CD skips repeatedly, often for 5 to 10 minutes until the slushy (or anybody in the vicinity of the CD player) presses the next track button. When I am on slushy I like to connect my computer to the system and play back the 30+ hours of MPEG compressed music that I brought with me - which is much easier than loading CD's, and the best thing is that they don't skip.

Just next to the recreational area is the station library. The best thing about the library is the excellent collection of Antarctic related material that it holds. It holds almost every book or title related to Antarctica and many of them are signed by the authors. Even thought I am in Antarctica and I am able to venture out to experience it first hand, I still find it amazing to look through the books on Antarctica and see other places that I have not been to, and that I wish I was able to. I continually remember that there is too much to see and do, and that it would take a lifetime to explore all the facets of Antarctica. Alongside the non-fiction is a generous collection of fiction, much of which has been left at the station by previous expeditioners.

Rob choosing a book in the library - the beer can helps with the cognitive processes

A panorama of the Mawson library with one of the communal Mac's used for send / receiving Internet e-mail

Emails continues in part 3