Brain "warshing"

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I prefer to pronounce brainwashing with an Ohio or American Midland Dialect. "Warsh". Its a catchy pronounciation. Step one of any effective brainwashing is to eliminate any notion or self-evidence of brainwashing. "I am absolutely sure I am not brainwashed. I am an American. I believe in the individual. I believe that all of my ideas and thoughts are my own." Those thoughts are a good starting place. The fact is that you, as a human, are a herding animal. It is a lesson that I found in my time in Antarctica and watching my own herding animals. "No man is an island" --John Donne (1572–1631). Is also a good start. We are all affected by our instincts. Tribalism being one of them. Many of us have lost a lot of our instincts. When we loose enough we probably fall somewhere into the vast ontology and categories of mentally ill. So, You are what you eat, both informationally and physically. Think different. Use what you learned in school about empathy. Pr...

It is difficult to comprehend that I will be leaving in 5 days. I have three missions to complete and I have to finish up other stuff around here. Folks are starting to say goodbye. We are exchanging personal email addresses and talking more about plans off the ice. A lot of folks travel in the off season. I know people who are going the following places for extended periods of time: New Guinea, Indonesia, Africa, China, Mongolia, Tibet, Cook Islands, South America and others. It all appears to come to an end quite abruptly. I am a little apprehensive about being off the ice with all the traffic, advertisements, chaos and everything. I have not seen or heard a radio or television commercial in 4 months. I have not seen the night sky or the sun or plant life in the same time. It is hard to decide what I need to do before I am suddenly in New Zealand.

I have a feeling that my taxi driver in Christchurch will be an individual named Derrick. It was weird; when I was there 4 months ago it always turned out that he was my driver as I had to shuttle between my hotel and the USAP facility 4 or 5 times. He is a native looking kind of middle aged man with large sideburns, glasses and New Zealand cottny way of speaking. I am concerned about the traffic. I have heard stories of folks getting hit by cars just as they get off the ice, because of disorientation, excitement and cars on the weird side of the road.

I really missed the 24 hour internet access at pole. You get so accustomed to things. Although the connections are slow I can get quick answers to questions.

This picture was at pole. I like it because it is a good ol' Rochester Thermometer.

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