GO-SHIP P02: A Day in the Life

In case some of you might be interested, I figured I’d take you through a typical day of mine. My shift is 10pm-10am and this is because I work with two other people on the CFC team. We overlap with each other for 4 hours at the beginning and end of our shifts. This allows us to have someone running samples while someone else collects samples as needed. The remaining 4 hours in the middle are by ourselves but that time moves pretty quickly most days.

8:45 PM : Wake up out of a dead sleep. Snooze alarm because I need a minute to wake up and I don’t want to accidentally fall back asleep.

8:46 PM : Fall back asleep.

8:54 PM : Alarm goes off and I realize I fell back to sleep. Snooze alarm again just in case but this time take it more seriously. I like to take this time to be mad about waking up (I’m always like this by the way), to contemplate my existence, and to remember that I’m on a ship in the middle of the ocean. Then, I get up and start getting ready for the day.

9:25 PM : After fumbling around in the dark trying not to wake up my roommate, I finally head down to the mess (dining room) carrying my backpack that contains everything I might need for the day to avoid going back to my room. I raid the leftovers fridge for “late dinner” and take the rest of that time to wake up.

~10:00 PM : Head down to my work station to join David Cooper who is already on shift and we take turns loading samples, recording data, and sampling. Sometimes we play ping pong when we have time.

~2:00 AM : David goes to bed and leaves me to my own devices. I usually make good headway on running samples and catching up on bookkeeping. If the rosette comes up during this time I have to collect the samples by myself, which is harder, but still doable.