Friday, February 10, 2006
My Tuition Dollars, Hard At Work
Since escaping the social doom that was high school and coming to this enlightened land, University, I've learned to take life a little easier and worry less about the things that seem important but actually make me miserable. In a few syllables, mellow out. With mellowing out came the newfound ability to be somewhat spontaneous - something I don't think I'd ever tried before moving away from home. Now, spontaneity, I'm pretty sure, is more-or-less non-existent in my genes, and after a lifetime of never even buying a drink without considering all the factors involved, it was a little unusual to actually BE impulsive for the first time. I couldn't help but worry about the consequences of my actions at first, but, for once, I decided to actually listen to that little fun-starved voice in the back of my mind and just let all my responsibilities go for a time.
So when Carling called me late Monday night and asked me if I could hand in her Hinduism assignment for her the next day because she was going skiing, it felt really satisfying to say to her, "Hell no! If you're going skiing, I'm fricken' coming with you!" And I did. And it was glorious.
There was no freaking out about missing a couple classes, no agonizing over what other people would think, and no fretting about the expense. We just dropped everything for the day and went out to Fernie with Carling's hardcore skier friend, Steve, to do whatever the hell we felt like. I know it doesn't sound like the best use of my tuition, and I can clearly picture my parents' frowns, but even they understand that everyone needs to be irresponsible once-in-awhile, and they'll soon forget the frowns and ask me if I had fun.
I was so excited to get going the next morning, I somehow woke up a few minutes before my alarm went off at six and I wasn't even grumpy! Skiing is one of those rare activities that can actually motivate me to get up before the sun does without me wanting to murder the first person who speaks in my direction. According to Carling, I had the morning wood version of a "ski boner." When both Steve and I were picked and loaded up into Carling's car, we made the obligatory run through the McDonald's drive-thru (mmm... hashbrown) and finally set out onto the highway with hard-rock blasting from the speakers at deafening levels. With the sun newly arrived over the horizon, we pulled into the Fernie parking lot, geared up, bought lift tickets, and climbed onto the chairlift without waiting in line for even a minute - apparently no one skis on Tuesday mornings, not that I'm complaining. The conditions were near-perfect the entire day, and there was so much fresh snow that I finally understood the lack of it further east - the clouds seemed to have dumped EVERYTHING onto the mountains. Steve, being the super-experienced skier he is, acted as group leader for the day and took us on the hardest, most amazing runs he could find - runs that hadn't been touched by anyone else; we couldn't see even a trace of previous tracks. We skied across and down narrow cliffs, through and under clumps of trees, and all the while, on powder so deep that if we slowed down at all to catch our balance, we sank a couple feet into it. Carling and I actually had one adventure involving an impassable forest, a VERY steep bank, and a not-quite-frozen stream, where - when I fell and had to remove my skis to right myself again - I sank into the snow all the way up to my ribs. It was a better alternative to falling into the stream though... head-first.
Near the end of the day, the three of us were climbing off the chairlift when Steve suddenly looked very preoccupied with something ahead of him. He told us to wait for a minute so he could go "see something," and proceeded to walk over to some random snowboarder who had just gotten off the lift himself. They talked to each other for a second and then give each other huge hugs out of the blue! When we were all finally introduced, it turned out that the snowboarder was Timmy, an Australian guy Steve had met in Sicily who had traveled to Canada to work and board in Fernie for the season. Talk about a small world situation! So the four of us rode around for the rest of the day, then went into the lodge where Timmy bought us a couple rounds and I had a friendly argument with him and his Aussie companions about whether or not vegemite was the foulest substance on earth (it definitely is).
And, of course, we took pictures. :) Here are a couple from the end of the day before we drove back to our regular, well-thought out, scholastic lives:
Even though I've been stiff and sore for two days, nothing made sense in today's psych lecture, and my bank account is down another hundred bucks, our impulsive ski trip was worth every bit of it. I think I'll have to listen to that little voice in the back of my mind a little more often, and perhaps feed it a little more fun every so often. I'll try to take it one step at a time, but maybe don't be too surprised if you get an e-mail from me one day saying I've picked up and gone off to Australia to sample different brands of vegemite. Just to check.
So when Carling called me late Monday night and asked me if I could hand in her Hinduism assignment for her the next day because she was going skiing, it felt really satisfying to say to her, "Hell no! If you're going skiing, I'm fricken' coming with you!" And I did. And it was glorious.
There was no freaking out about missing a couple classes, no agonizing over what other people would think, and no fretting about the expense. We just dropped everything for the day and went out to Fernie with Carling's hardcore skier friend, Steve, to do whatever the hell we felt like. I know it doesn't sound like the best use of my tuition, and I can clearly picture my parents' frowns, but even they understand that everyone needs to be irresponsible once-in-awhile, and they'll soon forget the frowns and ask me if I had fun.
I was so excited to get going the next morning, I somehow woke up a few minutes before my alarm went off at six and I wasn't even grumpy! Skiing is one of those rare activities that can actually motivate me to get up before the sun does without me wanting to murder the first person who speaks in my direction. According to Carling, I had the morning wood version of a "ski boner." When both Steve and I were picked and loaded up into Carling's car, we made the obligatory run through the McDonald's drive-thru (mmm... hashbrown) and finally set out onto the highway with hard-rock blasting from the speakers at deafening levels. With the sun newly arrived over the horizon, we pulled into the Fernie parking lot, geared up, bought lift tickets, and climbed onto the chairlift without waiting in line for even a minute - apparently no one skis on Tuesday mornings, not that I'm complaining. The conditions were near-perfect the entire day, and there was so much fresh snow that I finally understood the lack of it further east - the clouds seemed to have dumped EVERYTHING onto the mountains. Steve, being the super-experienced skier he is, acted as group leader for the day and took us on the hardest, most amazing runs he could find - runs that hadn't been touched by anyone else; we couldn't see even a trace of previous tracks. We skied across and down narrow cliffs, through and under clumps of trees, and all the while, on powder so deep that if we slowed down at all to catch our balance, we sank a couple feet into it. Carling and I actually had one adventure involving an impassable forest, a VERY steep bank, and a not-quite-frozen stream, where - when I fell and had to remove my skis to right myself again - I sank into the snow all the way up to my ribs. It was a better alternative to falling into the stream though... head-first.
Near the end of the day, the three of us were climbing off the chairlift when Steve suddenly looked very preoccupied with something ahead of him. He told us to wait for a minute so he could go "see something," and proceeded to walk over to some random snowboarder who had just gotten off the lift himself. They talked to each other for a second and then give each other huge hugs out of the blue! When we were all finally introduced, it turned out that the snowboarder was Timmy, an Australian guy Steve had met in Sicily who had traveled to Canada to work and board in Fernie for the season. Talk about a small world situation! So the four of us rode around for the rest of the day, then went into the lodge where Timmy bought us a couple rounds and I had a friendly argument with him and his Aussie companions about whether or not vegemite was the foulest substance on earth (it definitely is).
And, of course, we took pictures. :) Here are a couple from the end of the day before we drove back to our regular, well-thought out, scholastic lives:
Even though I've been stiff and sore for two days, nothing made sense in today's psych lecture, and my bank account is down another hundred bucks, our impulsive ski trip was worth every bit of it. I think I'll have to listen to that little voice in the back of my mind a little more often, and perhaps feed it a little more fun every so often. I'll try to take it one step at a time, but maybe don't be too surprised if you get an e-mail from me one day saying I've picked up and gone off to Australia to sample different brands of vegemite. Just to check.
