FNG's (pronunciation: fin-gees)

Okay, so my blogging is long overdue. It's been all of 6 days since I left, and it honestly feels like I've been gone for 1, maybe 2 days, tops. Instead of throwing up one huge rambling post, I'll try and break up the stories a bit. You guys can catch up in snippets at your leisure.

Right... so I arrived in LAX with little fanfare or excitement. Filing through security to get into the international wing, I couldn't help but glance around at the faces of others headed for my gate. Who, I wondered, were my fellow Antarctic travelers. Tough to tell, really. With the exception of families with kids in tow, and elderly couples, just about any man or woman could be headed for the ICE. I guess I was expecting big grizzly men and tough-as-nails women, but then I caught my reflection in the dark window and realized that I look nothing like my preconceived notions.

I took my seat in the middle of the 747, one empty seat to my right and two to my left. As I'm thumbing through my book, I hear a cheerful voice say, "Hey buddy, guess we're sitting next to each other."

Delaney is looming in the aisle - a big corn-fed kid from Lincoln, Nebraska. He's all smiles and forearms, greeting me with a firm handshake. Delaney and I, as it was to turn out, would become good buds. The powers that be at Mother Raytheon (the big-bad defense company signing our checks) would throw Delaney and I in the same hotel suite in Christchurch, and more to our surprise, we would find ourselves as dorm roommates in Antarctica. Delaney's another first timer, headed down to the ICE to be a General Service Hand (shoveling snow, he thinks).

Eventually the seat to my left is occupied by Chipotle (as he calls himself), a computer tech guy from the Denver area. He's a tall wiry kid donning thick-rimmed glasses and a head of fuzzy hair. He talks fast and unknowingly sprinkles in tech-jargon that makes his conversation indecipherable half the time. He's a great kid though, and I think about this motley crew sitting in our aisle and realize I need to shelve all preconceived notions for the next 4 months.

Soft-spoken Dan fills out the last seat in our row, and he's the only one amongst the four of us whose been down to the ICE before. This is his third season, and he'll be one of the lab techs at the Crary Chem Lab.

After introductions, Dan strokes his wispy beard and says to us, "So, all three of you are FNG's, huh?"

In unison we query, "Fin-Gees?"

"Fuckin' New Guys (FNG)... you're first timers."