Some Post Ski Trip Reflections

If falling means that you’re learning and improving, I’ve become a professional skier over the past week. Seriously, I’ve eaten it so many times that it’s a wonder nothing’s broken (although there’s something funny going on with my ankle). But falling really is how I learn and you know what? I can see my own slight improvements; if it takes a face full of snow to get there, fine. I’ll take it.

Hardcore education

Overall, I’ve pretty much fallen in love with Stowe. It’s probably the largest ski area I’ve ever been to; I mean, how could I not be enamored with its not one but TWO gondolas?! Or is the plural of gondola gondolae? No, I got a red squiggly line under gondolae, so it must be wrong, but I’ll leave it here because we learn from our mistakes right? Right? I digress. Anyway, for the past week, I’ve been blessed with near perfect skiing conditions (I say near because the goddamn snow cannons tend to reduce visibility to approximately nothing). The lodges are beautiful, the lifts are (fairly) quick, and skiing during the week means no lift lines and nearly deserted slopes. The town of Stowe, Vermont is equally perfect. It’s cute, quaint, and all Currier and Ives like. Also, I wouldn’t mind living so close to the Ben and Jerry’s ice cream and Cabot cheese factories. I do love fine dairy products. Stowe (both town and ski resort) gets 1.75 thumbs up from me (if you just tried to do that, you will have realized that it’s a very awkward thumb angle) because it’s awesome. However, a quarter of a point has to be docked because it’s located so damn far both from my home and my school. I can’t day trip it to a resort that’s nearly 4 hours away.

Is this not a perfect snow-globe scene?

Another non-sequitor: I want to say right now that I am BEYOND impressed with the age of some of the skiers I see out on the mountain. I hope that when I’m 70 years old, I’ll be as spry as the fantastically fit grandmothers and grandfathers who play around in the moguls and frequent black diamond slopes when they’re not teaching their grandkids how to ski. I want to be that kind of old person. The kind who lives in the mountains, skis all winter, hikes all summer, and eats trail mix ALL YEAR ROUND. I swear, I’m going to be such a cool old person. I digress again.  I got excited thinking about elder-me.

Omnomnomnom

WANT.

Speaking about the future, I’ve come to terms with the fact that I absolutely MUST take a trip out west to ski America’s real mountains rather than New England’s large hills. I’ve never travelled west of New York before, but now I’m determined to make it out to Colorado for a ski trip. This is my goal for next winter. Anyone want to come with?

I really do love gondolas.

Some Skiing Do's and Don'ts

Skiers and snowboarders belong to a select group of winter sports-people – we’re willing to wake up early, brave frigid temperatures, and pay absolutely ludicrous prices for a cup of Swiss Miss hot cocoa. However, there is a list of rules that comes with the mountain – an etiquette that all skiers and riders should follow, in order for the earth to revolve more smoothly. One cannot simply walk (or ski) into Mordor. Here’s a list I’ve come up with that ski resort patrons should really follow. For the betterment of humankind.

In the lodge

DO 

• Leave your table at an appropriate time after you’ve finished eating/drinking/conversing – Seating is generally tight and difficult to find, so don’t be a table hog.

DO NOT

• Allow your helmet, coat, mittens etc to each have their own chairs – Again, when seating is tight, your outerwear just isn’t important enough to sit in its own seat…no matter how much you paid for it.

This is not your house.

On the slopes

DO

• Ski/snowboard on trails that match your level – Advanced skiers aren’t supercool when they zip down beginner trails. Actually, they just scare the bajesushchrist out of the little snow babies who are tethered to their parents. Similarly, if you’re a beginner, kindly keep off of the black diamond trails. I know you think you’re SICK, DAWG for trying those moguls, but no one likes the kid who snowplows down the mountain, an inch at a time, in everyone else’s way.
• Get up after you’ve fallen – unless something is broken, or the snow is being stained red, get out of the way. Everyone falls, so get up and keep moving.

DON’T

• Cut in front of other people – it’s irritating, dangerous, and again, does NOT make you look superbadass because you can flail all over the trail.
• Go under the black and orange rope that closes off an unsafe trail – that is, don’t become “that idiot” who breaks his/her leg halfway down the mountain and has to wait for hours before he/she is found because the ski patrol is busy patrolling OPEN TRAILS.
• Laugh at little kids – they’ve probably been in ski school since their birth and can consequently ski your pants off
• Laugh at old people on the mountain – because they’ve probably been skiing since before your birth and can also ski your pants off.

This does not belong exclusively to one person. Share.

On the ski lift

DO

• Talk with the random person who sits next to you at the last minute – don’t get all pouty because you thought you were going to get the chair to yourself. If you don’t talk to the other person, the ride turns into a giant, silent, awkward turtle. Also, start the conversation early, because if you wait until you’re halfway up the mountain, that’s awkward too.
• Lower the bar – because if you’re sitting with me, I’ll likely freak if there’s nothing preventing me from falling to my death. And you don’t want my death on your hands. I’m a liability.

DON’T

• Bounce up and down – no one likes “that guy” who turns the lift into a see-saw. Imagine your chairmate ralphing from 40 feet up. In a snowsuit. Ew.
• Yell and scream when the lift stops – because 1. It’s irritating and 2. The lift controllers in their little huts CANNOT hear you. Shut up and wait for movement to resume.

This is not a see-saw

In the gondola

DO

• Make conversation with your car-mates – see note about making conversation with a lift chair-mate.

DON’T

• Smoke doobies in the gondola car – because I really, really don’t like stepping in a car to find that it smells like weed.

This is not a hotbox.

These aren’t difficult rules and they aren’t anything that common sense wouldn’t tell you to do. In general, enjoy the awesomeness of lots of snow and spectacular views. Don’t think you’re MAD AWESOME because you disobey the rules that the nice ski patrollers have posted everywhere. Don’t be rambunctious or act like an angsty, impulsive tween. Oh, and stay off of my lawn.

My opinion of Jane Austen

I'm willing to give every author two chances. For example, I read Of Mice and Men in middle school, with an awful teacher and thus, was left with disdain for Mr. Steinbeck. However, in high school, I gave him another chance with East of Eden and I'm insanely glad of it. I was completely taken with East of Eden found a new love for John Steinbeck. Everyone deserves a second chance, right?

Well, it's a nice sentiment, anyway.

Barf my brains out.

Wrong. As an English major, I should probably worship Jane Austen. I mean, her name is basically synonymous with classic novels. I started with Emma, excited to begin my foray into Jane Austen. I wanted to like it. I tried to like it. But I just couldn't. And for the next year, I steered clear of Austen's works, unwilling to submit myself to her trite and overworked ideas again. But like I said, everyone deserves a second chance, no? So I tried (and just today finished) Sense and Sensibility. It was painful. I've come to the conclusion that I just can't stand Austen's writing style. Here are a few things that I just can't stand about Austen's style:



1. SO.WORDY: Seriously. Each page seems as if a thesaurus threw up on it just before it was published. Austen is a master of exceeding the word limit and repeating one thought a thousand ways. If any modern day editor got a hold of one of her manuscripts, the story would be cut in half before it ever reached the publishing house.

2. Syrupy, sappy vocabulary: Not everything in the world is "pleasant," "lovely," "amiable," or "agreeable." I don't think that I could put together a more empty list of words if I tried. If someone described me with any of these adjectives, I would consider myself dull, dull, and dull.

3. Everyone talks around their thoughts: In the eternal quest to be non-confrontational and politically correct, characters talk around their real emotions. But don't worry; scenes are always pleasant and agreeable. Everything is so...polite. ARG.

4. Disgustingly happy endings: Everyone ends up marrying exactly who they should, broken hearts are mended, and you're left with a sickeningly sweet aftertaste left in your mouth. NOT real life.

Well, this was a mistake

The worst part is, I did this to myself. I read Sense and Sensibility of my own volition. I know that I'll be faced with Pride and Prejudice sometime before I'm allowed to accept my English degree and I'm already dreading it. I don't want to read it, I don't want to analyze it, and I don't want to write a paper on it. But I suppose that's getting ahead of myself. For now, I'll relish the time that I'm spared from her works.

Please, god NO.

Call me a bad English major. I can take it.

Who am I?

I have no future. It's pretty much settled. 


In a panic that I absolutely MUST do something productive with my summer, I began scouring the internet for internships last night. At some point in my world wide wanderings (at some unreasonable hour of night) I stumbled across this site and readily made myself a profile. Then I noticed a quiz! A "what's your best internship?" quiz! I love quizzes and couldn't wait for the internet to tell me exactly what I'm going to do when I grow up. The internet is basically omniscient and omnipotent anyway, so it couldn't possibly lead me astray, right? Right?

NOT FOR ME

I began the quiz, thinking my responses seemed to target me as a pretty creative, literary, humanities-type person. I figured that it would tell me to be a teacher, because I've heard that a million times before. I was expecting kindergarten teacher, I was expecting lawer, I was expecting library sciences. I was not expecting what I received. According to the future-savvy internet, I enjoy:

• Higher education
• Research
• Medicine
• Science
• Computer industries
• Engineering/design fields

Higher education, check. But that's about where it ends. I'm really rather baffled as to what buttons I clicked that would indicate I'm a science person. Strange... But there's more. According to these results, I would apparently enjoy internships in:

• Computer software design/development
• Venture capital
• Legal mediation
• Financial analysis
• Economics
• Music
• Intellectual property
• Web site design
• Investigation
• Strategic planning
• Pharmacy
• Network integration

Something is not right here.

FALSE. Seriously, all of this. I like good paper, nice pens, and musty books. I write stories, not lines of computer code. I must have received someone else's future results, but these certainly not pertain to me. I like creative ideas and allusions and literary form. I like spending hours debating morality, politics, and literary analysis. 

Pharmacy? Where on earth does that fit in? I am not a science major and I am not pre-med. For everyone's sake, let's give that internship to someone who's a bit better versed in biology and chemistry than I am.

Finances? I could hold a fairly well versed conversation about world trade, economics and currencies, but that's because I read the newspaper everyday, not because I play the stock market like a businessman. 

Overall response to this internship quiz: Either I have no future ahead of me or I really really don't come across as a humanities person. Either way, I need to get it together. Okay, it's GO-TIME. Time to get some sort of focus and stop misleading the intertubes so that they can help me get all rich and famous and YEAH actually make something out of my life. 

Oh, but that's right. I'm only a sophomore. A confused student with a hazy, hazy future ahead of me.

MOTHER OF PEARL, I need to get it together.

Tired, slightly windburned, and very happy

And FINALLY, my skiing season started. It certainly took long enough, considering we're almost halfway through January and I just now made it to a mountain. Mount Snow, that is. I've visited the resort at least once per year since I was about 9 years old, always on a bus trip through my town's parks and rec. committee (yeah, the ski trips are pretty much the best thing my town does all year). I love me some group-discount tickets. Here are a few ups and downs, because I refuse to believe in complete perfection:



Epic wins:

• Fresh, ungroomed powder
• Continuous natural snow throughout the day (but not so much that I couldn't see)
• An entire day of skiing. Enough said.
• Sitting next to an attractive ski instructor from Berkshire East on a lift
• Getting the gold chair on one of the lifts on the North Face
• Bruised shins - I love battle scars
• New snow pants and mittens  (mittens > gloves)
• Moguls that actually had snow left on them (much preferred to the icy bumps that are generally left around at the end of the season)

Only pansies stay inside during wintertime. 

Epic Fails:

• Gale force winds and slow lifts
• Hoards of children wanting to show off their MAD SKILLZ because it was "youth pay their age day" GET OFF OF MY LAWN.
• Totally eating it...on a lift trail where lots of people could watch and laugh
• Waking up at 5am to catch the bus. And consequently becoming Queen B*tch, from the land of "I Hate Everyone and Everything" for the next couple of hours.

Deliver me from misery.

Furthermore, skiing makes me feel like I'm exploring in Narnia (major props to my girl Izabel here). I love the snowy evergreens and scampering and fluttering wildlife. I like thin, secluded trails and interesting glades. I've never gotten to a ski resort through a wardrobe, but I'll find Narnia, yet. Wait for it... Bring on the Turkish fudge and the ice castle.

And I'll be best friends with Mr. Tumnus. Obviously.

Okay, so now that I've presented myself as slightly neurotic and enamored with mythical snowy lands, who wants to rent a zip car for a day and go skiing with me once we get back to school? I won't even talk about Narnia. Much.

Remnants of Florida and my first balmy winter

I've never spent a winter someplace warm before.

Until this year, anyway. Having just spent the last 5 days in Tampa, I'm forced to ask myself "Why do I live in the Arctic tundra of Connecticut every winter, when Florida is so beautiful?" I arrived home less than twenty-four hours ago, and I'm already compiling a list of things that I miss about the sunshine state. Here it is:

1. Sunshine: Because it pretty much leaves the northeast for all of winter. Connecticut winters tend to be overwhelmingly gray in the skies, and I was shocked to see so much blue down south.

And they mean it.

2. Palm trees: The only green trees left around here in the winter have needles, not leaves. And who wouldn't want to live in a tropical paradise? It was like visiting the Bahamas (or another tropical island of your choosing), but without a passport. I'm enraptured by the palm trees. They line the roads of Florida. Like purple loosestrife. But not invasive.

But what are the bulbous things at the tops?

3. A hospitable climate: I ran around outside in a tank top in Florida. In the middle of January. I should be wearing parkas and scarves and mittens and hats. I rode in a car with the windows down. Without freezing. I didn't see my breath even once.

This is a chart for Tampa. This is not fair.

4. Bike riding in January: My bike becomes a lump of cold and sad aluminum in the winter time. Actually, I miss playing outside just in general in the wintertime. Snowball fights are okay, but I also like fresh air that doesn't make my lungs burn.

I'm so hardcore. Just kidding. My bike has a bell on it.

5. Birds: Or to be more specific, the birds that migrate away from the northeast for the winter. I'm not supposed to see ducks for a few more months. There's something exciting about seeing mallards splashing in a pond in the middle of my winter. Don't judge me. I like birds.

All the cool kids migrate.

***On a related note, I also saw my first real-live pelicans. Which I thought was really comical, at the time.

Its beak is just so silly looking.

6. Beautiful people: I've heard that the south is prettier than the north, but didn't really believe it. Jogging through midtown in shorts and a T-shirt really does look more attractive than shuffling across a slushy road in a parka and boots, though. Just wait for the summer though, when one can actually see some northern bodies.  We're hot too. I swear.

But they're comfortable!

7. Fresh seafood: SO GOOD. And so local. I wish that good fish was more readily available here. I like protein.

Okay, so it doesn't look so good when it's raw.

8. Happy people: Directly correlative with the sunshine and hospitable climate factors. People are just bound to be friendlier on the sidewalks when they don't have to worry about wind and snow and ice.

Of course, ol' chap! Have a pleasant day.

9. A sweet downtown: Because my town sure doesn't have one. And I've pretty much fallen in love with the convenience, amenities, and interesting architecture of downtown Tampa.

Not even close to my hometown....

10. Shimmering, sparkling waters: How pretty is the Florida coast? The water is clear, the waves ripple ever-so-slightly, and the boats in the channels are sweet. Too bad boats in the northeast have to spend their winters inside of garages. Oh wait, it's because lakes freeze and the ocean becomes miserably cold. The only fishing we have is through holes in the ice and I promise that no manatee will ever make its way into the Connecticut river. 

And nary a tropical fish.

I left a 72 degree Tampa and arrived in a 28 degree Hartford. Something about that just seems so unfair. I want the tropical back. I want the beautiful weather back. I want to know why on earth I don't live in a sunny paradise. 

On a positive note, I'll be spending all of tomorrow skiing at Mt. Snow, in Vermont. Oh yeah; that's why I'll always live someplace where it snows. Because I couldn't actually go an entire winter season without my skis. Let's be real now.

I do love me a tall mountain.

Why I don't usually watch football

I hate football. I don't understand the appeal of watching grown men run around in a violent mele like two combating chimpanzee groups.

I LIKE FOOTBALL. AND I'M ANGRY.

I'm a flaming pacifist and really don't like the idea of athletes running until they're hit so hard that they can't get up again. What's more, I don't like the idea of being smacked around when I'm running at all. These football players take hits, fall on the ground, and get up like they're still BFFs with whoever just pushed them over. Okay, I know that I said I'm a pacifist, but I think that I'd turn around and demand an explanation from whoever just body checked me. I'd like to deck him in the face, actually. I'M JUST RUNNING MMMKAY? DON'T HIT ME.

DON'T TOUCH ME, BRO.

I don't know who this is. I just Googled "football player."

It's also quite frightening that teams have X-ray machines in their locker rooms because, you know, someone's spinal cord might be snapped during play. And that they have to wear helmets, mouth guards, and super-pads all over so that they don't turn into broken heaps with every play. In fact, the padding makes them look like angry chimps with their hair fluffed up. Clearly, chimpanzees would be awesome football players.

Oh look, a football player.

I also don't like football because I don't understand it. Five people now have tried to explain the game to me. I know vocab words like "downs" and "quarterback" and "yardage," but I couldn't string them together in a coherent sentence if you quizzed me. I just don't get it. They run and they stop and they fall and they turn around and all of a sudden, one team is winning by 7 points or so. Ummwhat?? It all seems so nonsensical to me... like a game that would have taken place in the Colosseum, right after the lion vs. human fights.

That said, my hometown pride trumps my bias toward football, and I thought that I would watch UConn play the big game in this year's Tostitos fiesta bowl.

I have UConn pride thanks to the astounding number of my friends and family who attend or are alumi of the school. HUSKY PRIDE. And despite the fact that they were predicted to lose to the Oklahoma Sooners in this game tonight, I would support them, because I'm sitting in UConn territory right now (a.k.a. my house).

JONATHON

My Huskies failed me tonight. It was a 48-20 UConn loss that led to a lot of Sooners cheering in the crowd. This is how football is supposed to impress me? My team can't even win? I give up. I'm returning to my blatant disregard for the game. Whatever.

New Year's Eve Mediocrity

Happy New Year y'all,

Did everyone have a rockin' New Year's Eve, filled with happiness, debauchery, and photos? I certainly hope so, because I'd love to live vicariously through people's Facebook photos. Personally, my New Year's Eve consisted of watching a DVD in my living room, but that's mostly because I think that New Year's is a sham of a holiday. Here's why:

1. Our calender is arbitrary. There's no real beginning and end of the year, so many, many years ago, a couple of ancients decided that they would put the start-stop point some time in the middle of a season.

Well, if you want to be all mainstream.

2. New Year's doesn't even mark the beginning of a season. Wouldn't it make more sense for a year to be a complete cycle of spring, summer, fall, and winter (or any variation of this pattern, depending on one's position on the planet) -- the next year would start at the beginning of the next spring (or other beginning season). Okay, this is really an offshoot of number one.

LOOK. One year. One complete year.

3. We just had Christmas/Hannukah/Kwanza... we don't really need another holiday just yet. I'm still recovering from that sugar shock.

The cookie jar isn't even empty yet.

4. It's a time to make resolutions that we know we won't keep past January.

Truth. I change for no one.

5. There's nothing left to celebrate at 12:01am.

Party's over.

6. New Year's decorations are crap. The tacky cardboard glasses, overabundance of confetti and rainbow of glitter are sad excuses for decorations. I'm wholly unimpressed by New York's giant sparkly countdown ball.

NOT THAT COOL.

7. The TV specials generally gets pretty crappy performers for the midnight performances. This year was Lil Wayne. Sorry, but I'm a hater. And haters gonna hate. 

Go home.

8. There's no traditional New Year's food. Christmas and Valentine's Day have cookies, Halloween has candy, and Easter has eggs. What does New Year's have to show for itself? Champagne. And no one really likes champagne anyway. But in any case, champagne is not a food. So there.

The pop is cool. But that's about it.

9. New Year's thinks that it's all about fireworks. But that's the 4th of July's territory. So New Year's should step off.

HAPPY INDEPENDENCE DAY, AMERICA.

10. New Year Eve day thrives on TV marathons of shows like House, NCIS etc... But these happen all year. And they're really just not that special when they occur so often. 

It's pretty much on 24/7 anyway.

So that's it. Happy friggen' New Years. Here's to casting out 2010 and making the broad assumption that 2011 is going to rock our socks off.

CHEERS

Self-acknowledged scaredy cat

I'm making a poor decision as I write -- I'm currently watching Zodiac. You know, that movie about a psycho killer with a riveting calling card that no one can seem to track down? Oh yeah, I suppose that it is pretty formulaic. But the thing is, I do NOT under any circumstances watch horror movies. I hate being afraid. I don't visit haunted houses, I skip out when my friends go to the latest thrillers, and I don't even particularly like Halloween. I spook like a jittery cat and have the interesting capacity to stay afraid of what I've seen for days after I see it. And for that reason, I have a strict personal no-horror-movie policy. If my parents watch one, I leave the room. I've left a party and read a book for a few hours in order to avoid watching...something particularly gruesome. Yeah, I'll ditch my friends for my own sanity. I'm not kidding about this.

NOT GONNA HAPPEN

The first and last horror movie I've watched straight through was The Ring. I watched it years ago -- in 7th or 8th grade, and it was an awful, horrible, terrible idea. Truth: I slept with my bedroom door open and the hall light on for over a month after watching it. Truth: I had to invent a regimen of things to think about each night before I fell asleep so that my mind wouldn't wander back to scenes from the movie. Truth: If I was more vindictive, I would have sued the film company for psychological damages (and lost the case, because it would have been an emotionally charged and utterly stupid claim). I'm not even putting a picture of the film on here because frankly, I don't want to Google image search it.

Too true.

I am a delicate flower. No one makes their potted plants watch horror movies, and I too have little to no desire to intentionally raise my blood pressure, spike my adrenaline, make myself uncomfortable. Would daisies be as happy and proud if they were afraid? Would daffodils look as shiny and cheery if they didn't smile their flowery smiles? I won't speak for the entire garden, but I'm willing to bet that flowers hate horror movies -- it's just logical.

This is me as a delicate flower.

For the aforementioned reasons, I've been dutifully staring at my laptop rather than the television screen since my father flicked on this movie. Now, I know that I said I normally leave the room when someone watched a horror film, but the living room is the warmest room in the house and my laptop is plugged in here. And as we've seen not so long ago, my laptop is about as delicate as I am, and I hate moving it around. I'm going to try to stick out the rest of this movie (I think I missed the first hour or so), but seeing as how I'm a creature of habit, I'll probably end up hitting the power button and running up to my room within the next quarter of an hour. Am I facing my fears, or writing a recipe for disaster? We'll just have to see if I can fall asleep tonight.

WHY don't I have a night light?

In other Zodiac related news, I'm a libra.