Mountains and moguls and snow - oh my!

Today is the last day of dear Ski Liberty. I feel the need to tell the story of just exactly how I, a horseback-riding, tea-drinking, wannabe-journalist black belt from a farm house came to snowboarding. Last year, winter 2011-12, I had these friends. They were quite simply pretty really totally awesome, and they invited me to come "snowboarding" - this thing of which I knew very little. I had been skiing a few times, and I had fun, but it wasn't "interesting". So they prodded a bit and I didn't come just because I just didn't feel like it. This year, winter 2012-13, they mentioned it again. I gave it little notice until I heard "discount". "Exactly how much does it cost?" I asked. They told me, and it was actually pretty do-able. After all, this is a one time thing, right? I went home and put the date on the calendar. It was the time during the school year where there doesn't seem to be much to look forward to, so I looked forward to going, I suppose.

 The first time I went, the weather was a lovely cloudy gray, and it was about 0 degrees Fahrenheit at the top of the mountain. We pulled in the vacant parking lot (being home-schooled I could go on a weekday :), and I saw a few punks walking into the lodge... I couldn't help but notice that they were all hoisting expensive, shiny snowboards. I wondered in passing what I had gotten myself into.

  So eventually we got outside of the lodge, snowboards in tow, and I watched as my friends who had taken me magically attached their boards to their feet and glided over the snow to the base of a lift. The youngest stayed behind for a moment. He looked at me and said "I think your lesson is in a minute or two. I'll be right back." I watched as both the group of friends departed for a lift to my far right, and the youngest of the group headed to one in the middle. They all got on the lifts, and were gone.

 "Hey, you're snowboarding?" asked a suave dude with a green coat, sunglasses and a bandanna. "Yeah." I said. "Okay, let's get started."
"OH COOL"  I thought. I grabbed my board and was planning on heading for the middle lift when the instructor turned towards the last place I thought I was going - the bunny slope. So my lesson continued. I managed, in the end, to get down without falling. That took a surprising amount of perseverance.

 Three months and many, many falls later, I was at the top of the mountain with my best friends. Maybe it was karate for a few years, maybe it was that I've known them since I was eight years old, maybe it was arisoft, maybe it was even snowboarding, but these people who at first drug me along made my "best friend" list, which is actually a pretty select list. Either way, I was at the top of the mountain. My friends were really REALLY patient with me, and I think if it wasn't for them I wouldn't have ever tried some of the slopes that I did this year. Yes, I did all of them besides the black diamonds. No, I haven't done moguls yet. Yes, I've gotten past the dorkiness of the helmet because it saved my life a few times.... or at least my skull. 

Pictures: Above; me and my friends, down (1) Dear sister and me (2) A photo I made. 

Moguls and mountains and lifts and lights, goggles and boards and snowball fights.

Daydreaming

I was studying pretty intently today, accomplishing a lot. My sister had previously been in my room and had way - I mean WAY - overdone it with the perfume. So I opened a window and shut off the heat. If you live where I do, it's about 60 degrees outside. That's really nice for the day before Easter. There I was, accomplishing things, when I realized that putting my desk next to the window was a really terrible design flaw. I ended up staring out the open window, a warm breeze tickling my face and a steady rush of perfume out the window. Also, I had finished a brutal water fight with my siblings (coughcough I lost coughcough) about an hour ago and dried, so I could smell the grass on me. It was just so warm and pleasant that I got to thinking, upon staring at the field outside my window, just how lovely it would be if I could have horses in that field. I began to wonder how much a barn would cost and how long it would take to build, I wondered what my parents would do if they had to take care of horses when I went to college, college doesn't have to be far away, does it? I wondered if I could take horses with me. I caught myself in the spiral of daydreaming. It was irritating that I had to break from it because I needed to study.

And that is the story of how my textbook got thrown out the window, kids.

5655 down, X number to go.

Interesting thought: I've only been on this earth for 5655 days.
That means I have approximately 22,995 days left.... not as long as I thought.

Hmm.... 23,000 sunrises.


Time to go do something important.

I have never met a slurry with worse manners; the sequel

 I thought I had met the most misbehaved slurry the other day. Today I realized that it really does have the worst manners imaginable.

 A dark, claustrophobic coffee shop was crowded. A line filled the place. It was a line of innocent people waiting for their caffeine. Upon seeing the extensive amount of people filling the place, my Hippie Aunt and I headed for the other side of the stores lining the road. It was a perfectly normal day, and the following story goes to show that a normal day can turn disastrous in a moment.

 As I strolled down the sidewalk, bouncing a fist-sized ball and passing absent-mindlessly the millions of shop windows and advertisements, I heard a noise. It wasn't just a noise, it was a crashing. Something was falling. Instinctively, I turned to see. All the while, thoughts rushed through my head, "What did I break? Do we have to take Aunt Jill to the hospital?". I turned just in time to see a sheet of ice plummeting from an awning onto my unsuspecting Aunt. The sheet shattered over her red hair like glass. It wasn't over yet. The ice was followed up .06 seconds later by a smattering of snow. Again, the slush was totally not socially acceptable. It could have thought "Oh, you look cold already, I'll just land a bit to the right." or "It will be most beneficial to the shoppers for me to land just seconds later.".

  I saw my Aunt double over, but she stood back up with her glasses in hand, laughing. Fortunately, minimal damage was done.
Yes, people were staring. I even saw one shopper's jaw drop. We successfully escaped that incident, and the shoppers returned to their shopping, exchanging murmurs and whispers among themselves. Though she did lose a hairpin.... as I said, minimal damage.

Now, for those of you who don't know my Aunt, she always elaborated that she wanted to die in a "freak accident". That's my aunt. All aversions to normality. She came up here from Alabama, expecting some nice white snow. Instead she almost experienced death by ice sheet.

I have never met a slurry with worse manners.

I braved the elements today, with all the mentality of avoiding procrastination. "Today," I told myself "I'll shovel the driveway without even taking time to double-layer socks. Then I'm sure to avoid procrastination." Only a minute later I was dressed and shoveling the thick clumps of the indignant, icy stuff off the pavement. I silently congratulated myself for not procrastinating on this arduous task. About fifteen minutes into the job, I was bent over my shovel, hauling the maximum amount of snow possible, back straining, eyes tearing from the blistering wind, mind focused, when everything changed.

 I heard a low rumbling, and looked up to see my soaking demise. Red, flashing, and screaming in a fury best described as "huge", a snow plow came around the corner. I was happier when my view of it was obstructed by the hill in the yard. Just in the split second that I looked up to see the brutal machine, I saw flying towards me a monumental pile of ice, slush and other unidentified gray matter from the road. In a splendid trajectory towards me, this pile had no plans of stopping or saying "I'll be considerate and land just to your right.". I have never met a slurry with worse manners. So I was to be found, continuing my task of snow removal from the driveway covered (from the fur-lined top of my hunter green parka to the tips of my black boots) in the previously described pile of snow, ice, and gray matter.

 Upon speculating the evidence of my task completed, a clear driveway, I dropped the shovel by the door. I strode into the gloomy garage undefeated. So you see, even though I was indignant towards that particularly rude spray of snow, the snow plow itself was no match for me.

Date a Girl Who Reads

There is story that I nearly fell in love with. Though I see that the world tends to bring dating and relationships into everything. If the story wasn't about "dating", I'd like it a lot more. Never the less; read on.

Date a girl who reads. Date a girl who spends her money on books instead of clothes. She has problems with closet space because she has too many books. Date a girl who has a list of books she wants to read, who has had a library card since she was twelve.
Find a girl who reads. You’ll know that she does because she will always have an unread book in her bag.She’s the one lovingly looking over the shelves in the bookstore, the one who quietly cries out when she finds the book she wants. You see the weird chick sniffing the pages of an old book in a second hand book shop? That’s the reader. They can never resist smelling the pages, especially when they are yellow.
She’s the girl reading while waiting in that coffee shop down the street. If you take a peek at her mug, the non-dairy creamer is floating on top because she’s kind of engrossed already. Lost in a world of the author’s making. Sit down. She might give you a glare, as most girls who read do not like to be interrupted. Ask her if she likes the book.
Buy her another cup of coffee.
Let her know what you really think of Murakami. See if she got through the first chapter of Fellowship. Ask her if she loves Alice or she would like to be Alice.
It’s easy to date a girl who reads. Give her books for her birthday, for Christmas and for anniversaries. Give her the gift of words, in poetry, in song. Give her Neruda, Pound, Sexton, Cummings. Let her know that you understand that words are love. Understand that she knows the difference between books and reality but by god, she’s going to try to make her life a little like her favorite book. It will never be your fault if she does.
She has to give it a shot somehow.
Lie to her. If she understands syntax, she will understand your need to lie. Behind words are other things: motivation, value, nuance, dialogue. It will not be the end of the world.
Fail her. Because a girl who reads knows that failure always leads up to the climax. Because girls who understand that all things will come to end. That you can always write a sequel. That you can begin again and again and still be the hero. That life is meant to have a villain or two.
Why be frightened of everything that you are not? Girls who read understand that people, like characters, develop. Except in the Twilightseries.
If you find a girl who reads, keep her close. When you find her up at 2 AM clutching a book to her chest and weeping, make her a cup of tea and hold her. You may lose her for a couple of hours but she will always come back to you. She’ll talk as if the characters in the book are real, because for a while, they always are.
You will propose on a hot air balloon. Or during a rock concert. Or very casually next time she’s sick. Over Skype.
You will smile so hard you will wonder why your heart hasn’t burst and bled out all over your chest yet. You will write the story of your lives, have kids with strange names and even stranger tastes. She will introduce your children to the Cat in the Hat and Aslan, maybe in the same day. You will walk the winters of your old age together and she will recite Keats under her breath while you shake the snow off your boots.
Date a girl who reads because you deserve it. You deserve a girl who can give you the most colorful life imaginable. If you can only give her monotony, and stale hours and half-baked proposals, then you’re better off alone. If you want the world and the worlds beyond it, date a girl who reads.
Or better yet, date a girl who writes.

Stack o' Literature

Just a picture of books that I own and have to read.

I'm making my New Year's resolution right now.
"Read through this list of books"

Books on my e-reader that I don't have pictured here are:
Green Tea, Joseph Sheridan
The Legend of Sleepy Hollow, Washington Irving
The Blithedale Romance, Nathaniel Hawthorne
Emma, Jane Austin
Sense and Sensibility, Jane Austin
Story of My Life, Helen Keller



Thoughts on these titles?

Have a Very Geeky Christmas.....

Doctor Who is my favorite. "Party like it's 1705, 2015, 1991, 1942, 1233, 302BC, 1998."



( I hope Hank sees this xD )

How Not to Comfort Someone

 It hurts to see how inept the human race is at comforting a fellow human. We're the same species, after all. So, read this, and get an idea as to how not to comfort someone. Pay much attention to the "NOT" part of this. If you try to comfort someone in these ways, it's worse than just leaving them be.

 Number 1: Try to change the subject while they're telling you about a traumatic/painful situation. When they're disclosing, it's their turn to talk about what they NEED to talk about, not what you WANT to talk about. It doesn't seem as though this needs said, but it does. Changing the subject will not create an easier situation for anyone.
"I just miss her so much, I -"
"So, did you see that Bears game?"

Number 2: Tell them to move on. Seriously. A person doesn't simply "recover" from a traumatic/painful situation. If it is a terrible thing, especially loss, they likely will think about it every day of their life. They will not move on because someone alluded to the fact that they should. They need to COPE with the grief, not move on.
"I can't believe it's been a year since [thusandsuch] happened."
"Only that long? Time to move on."

Number 3: Upon hearing of the event, message them on Facebook, email, etc. Use your phone to CALL them, if you must, but for the sake of sanity, no Facebook. These messages are impersonal and seemingly not thoughtful. Unless you have no vocal cords to utter the words, CALL them. Or, in select cases, visit them. Unless it is a death in the family, and the family wants to be alone to grieve together. Oh, and when you make this phone call, be prepared to... are you ready for this? *LISTEN* TO THEM! They might need to unload some thoughts, and hey, you have EARS with which to listen! It is amazing how consoling an open ear can be. Which brings me to my next point.
[instant message from ---]
"hey man. heard wut happned. srry. need anything u can lemme know dude."

Number 4: Well, you'll have to say something, right? WRONG. You can just let them talk and unload their thoughts, without saying a word! If you're honestly prepared to listen, you're the most useful to that person. Avoid asking questions pertaining to the event. They'll tell you the information they want you to hear, asking questions will likely lead to sometime that will trample their feelings or make them feel as though you do not feel the gravity of the event.

Number 5: Tell them you know how they feel. You don't. It doesn't matter if you've experienced the same situation, you haven't. Every situation is unique. Nothing gives you permission to tell them how great you are comforting someone.
"My grandfather passed away. His heart failed."
"Oh yeah, mine did too. And I know exactly how you feel. This one guy tried to relate to me but he totally didn't get it."

In summary, be there for them, but don't prod them or tell them how to cope. Healing will come with God and time, but you can't control either of those.


Go comfort someone.

Dragon's breath and tears

 You may have heard of dragons,

compared to legends of old;

they are not fictional jargons

as many have been told

Indeed, they are actual!

Not as they have been perceived,

For the safety of a damsel 

Dreamers this thought conceived. 

They exist in each of us,

In their own separate form

Some are true and zealous, 

Others, dark like a rainstorm. 

Sometimes, we meet with our dragon

Their hot breath pours over us, 

It's acidic and blazon,

More beautiful than the lotus;

because it was meant to be.

When it has consumed all, 

It begins the work on thee.

The eyes are the last brawl.

Slowly but surely they burn,

And tears closely ensue

It is not a concern

For just then comes rescue

As water tends to do.

To soothe the burn, a tear, my dear.