Hello all! I’ve had another good week here at the bottom of the world. Nothing too exciting which, in my opinion, is a good thing down here. One thing I have noticed is that time is a really weird concept down here. Last week feels like it was both only yesterday but also hard to believe that it was only a week ago instead of a month or more. Good thing I have my previous blog posts to look back so I can remember what I talked about and hopefully not bring up things that didn’t happen in the last week!
So far I’ve been keeping on top of going to the gym with Josiah (who happens to have an awesome YouTube channel called Joe Spins the globe, you can find it here https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCXKmnJwSdPS6q-LJt-4acqA and should definitely check him out). We had been doing 5 days on and then a rest day but I’ve decided to start doing two-a-days. This morning was chest, shoulders, and upper back. Tomorrow will be arms and then cardio, then leg day, followed by a rest day before starting over. I’ve also started going to martial arts classes. One guy on station is a black belt in a Korean martial art (I don’t remember which one) and he’s doing classes once a week. I’ve also started playing a D&D campaign DMed by my friend Danielle. Our first session was Friday night and we had a ton of fun, definitely looking forward to continuing with that.
As far as other happenings on station, ERT training this week we combined ERT 2 (Fire Brigade) and ERT 4 (Medical) in order to practice victim/patient transport including getting C-Spine stabilization and getting them on a backboard safely. It was a nice refresher for me as the last time I had learned any of that was way back in another (younger) life when I was a lifeguard. I also learned about the “secret” ERT team. It’s not really a secret, but it’s an additional volunteer team that handles technical rescues. That team handles stuff like getting an injured person on a backboard and out of the station sub-floor or any other kind of thing that ERT 2 isn’t regularly trained to handle. I was sad I hadn’t heard about it before because I definitely would have volunteered when everyone else did, fortunately, I asked and was able to join. I’m excited for my first training next week.
Today is Easter Sunday for us so happy Easter to anyone reading who celebrates the holiday. Our amazing galley crew made some delicious treats for all of us and left them outside all of our doors while we were asleep. It was a nice surprise to wake up to though I’m having a hard time not digging into them since I’m participating in “Healthy April”. A group of us on station are taking the month of April to try and have some healthier habits such as eating healthier meals, not eating desserts (which Brian in the galley makes incredibly difficult to do), no alcohol, less caffeine, and working out more. Each day we earn points by completing each item, I may have to give up a point and eat these amazing treats. Today also ends New Zealand’s daylight savings time so we are now I have to remember it’s 6 hours later at home than it is here.
Well I better wrap this one up since we’re going to lose the good satellite soon. As always thanks for reading. I’m still working on pictures, I’ll get them posted at some point.
— Matt “what do you mean that happened two weeks ago?” Butcher
The Snow Butcher 