Outside reading #2 and or #3

I am now on page 163 of my outside reading book, and a lot has happened. Nielsen arrived in Antarctica and found out all about the crazy life on the ice. She arrives at the main "city" McMurdo in Antarctica, which actually surprising that people live there. "There was a barber shop, a two-lane bowling alley (set your own pins), a coffee house, and two bars,all housed in shoddy prefab boxes"(43). I had no idea that Antarctica had any sort of public places, I definitely thought of it more as a place where only scientists, researchers, and people craving adventure went to.  After a few days spent there, touring the medical facilities, she ventured south to the Pole, where she would be living and working for the next year. The pole is very very different from McMurdo, and it overwhelms Nielson. She describes it as "The next thing that hit was a cold so deep and complete it was surreal. My first breaths torched my throat and chilled my lungs.  It was a cold from another dimension, from an ice planet in a distant galaxy"(46). I really like this quote because I can sense the cold and it seems more like Antarctica that I would think of. 

Nielsen is going to be the only doctor at the pole and has to get trained by the previous one. Her job seems so hard and demanding I really can't imagine it. She is the only doctor at the whole place, which means that she is on call 24 hours a day, and she is responsible for every accident and emergency. This puts tons of pressure on her, which is definitely not what she was expecting or what she was used to. "It would take me some time to abandon the tenants of third-party payer medicine that had controlled my life and judgement for so many years"(58). 

This quote shows how practicing medicine on the ice is completely different then at hospitals in the US. I think it would be really hard to make this change because it is like transitioning from a huge high school into a one-room school house. When her best friend became hypothermic and unresponsive, Nielsen was very scared. "Oh dear god here comes my greatest fear, I was thinking as I walked in the short hallway to my examination room. The terror of a doctor in Antarctica is that one of your friends (and that includes everyone) will be seriously sick or injured and there won't be much you can do about it"(149). That would be extremely scary to have the life of somebody close to you be in your hands, and I think that would be a really scary thought all the time.

Another thing that is interesting about this book is how many people visit the South Pole and Mactown during the summer, but how the people who stay there year round really look forward to winter, because that is really when Antarctica is isolated and amazing. "Antarctica was a place so alien and hostile to life, that life sang out, and every small breath was a triumph against nothingness. You were forced to recreate yourself again and again or risk being swallowed in the emptiness, and to do that you know you had to know what you were made of"(148). This quote said by Nielsen really captures the feeling of Antarctica. It makes it seem like it is completely different world from the one we are living in, and it really sounds like an amazing place to experience. It kind of surprises me how excited Nielsen is for winter, because I would be very scared and nervous. "For me, the coming of the terrible and terrifying darkness is exhilarating!"(159). If I were her I think I would feel more scared and nervous, because I have no idea what it would be like to be in darkness all the time.

I think that to be able to spend a winter at the South pole you have to be really strong and you have to really want to be there. It seems really dangerous and scary, and I don't know how anybody could take the cold. "By now it was minus 90 degrees F and falling, a new record for mid march"(155).  To me, 90 below would be crazy, I don't even like it at 20 degrees above. It would take a lot of getting used to, plus the darkness would be scary. There is also a lot of foreshadowing of her oncoming breast cancer, which makes the cold and dangerous seem even more scary. This book is very suspenseful because I can sense Nielsen's anxiety, and it really seems like she knows she might have cancer, but is doing her best to forget about it and ignore it. "My mammogram had been negative only six months ago, so I wasn't particularly worried. I decided to keep an eye on this lump and wait a month to see if anything changed"(144). I would be extremely nervous if I were her because of how isolated she is. Also, she is the only doctor, so she would have to fix herself or if she didn't, there would be no one to help anybody else who got hurt or sick.