PENGUINS! on a TV screen

pots, dishes, pot, dishes, pots, dishes, pots, dishes, pots, dishes . . .
I watched a documentary tonight (coming soon to a local pbs station near you - support public media, Yeah!) on the penguin colonies (emporer and adell?) on the ross ice sea shelf. Afterwards the researchers that made the video stepped out of the audience to field questions! You feel really connected to the research when you're working among the researchers, near the location that the research is taking place, and working (indirectly) to support that research. Quite Amazing.
So I've learned that my antarctic experience is going to be marked by long days of tedium followed by moments of spectacle. Pinned under a mountain of dishes, I am constantly peering past the broken plates, food spills, and baked on pizza sauce, to winter wonderlands, penguin colonies, and glacial volcanoes.
Tomorrow is my day off. I've heard that if you volunteer for the diving team as a diving attendent, you get to go to some pretty gnarly places, and see plenty of penguins and seals. So cross your fingers, my post tomorrow may be a detailed description of antarctic sea life . . .