The life of an adolescent ski bum. or something like that.

I think I should change my blog title. I really don't talk about anything having to do with life, the universe, or anything. I talk about skiing. If day thirteen (Saturday) was good, day fourteen (Sunday) was perfect. Perfect down to the last minute until we got back to school, after which I had a mountain of homework. But before that, it was perfect. I got up early and had to get the dorm staff to let me out when I left. When I walked over to the other side of campus to meet the van to go to Verbier, town was totally quiet. All I could hear was the swish of my ski pants and the creak of my boots (they creak loudly. I mean REALLY loudly). The sun hadn't come up yet, I could still see Venus shining over the Dents Du Midi, and the snow was glittering just a tad under the still lit streetlamps, even though it was almost daylight. I got to the parking lot to discover that only two other students and five teachers had showed up. We piled into the van, stopped at the Croissanterie for breakfast (fresh pain au chocolate is to die for--the chocolate is still all gooey and hot!). We plugged in an iPod and rocked out all the way to Verbier. Somewhere on the highway I looked around the van and realised I was the only one in the van lacking a Y-Chromosome. Just like all those years at Copper... The skiing at Verbier is awesome. Its right near the French/Italian border, about forty minutes from Chamonix, and on a clear day you can see Mont Blanc. There was a foot and a half of fresh powder, the sun was shining, it was a windless, cloudless day. The definition of paradise. And then theres Verbier. Its an awesome mountain. Steeps everywhere, fresh powder, two guys I could barely keep up with (for me to say I can hardly keep up with someone means they are really freaking fast)...it was some of the best skiing I've done in ages. And yesterday was definitely the sorest I've ever been after skiing. Its great for me to know its still possible for me to work that hard when I'm skiing, because I was starting to think that I couldn't do anything other than never stop to get that much exercise on my skis.
Today was day fifteen. I am absolutely in love with this concept of having four hours of school and then three and a half, four hours of skiing. Thursdays are going to be even better, because we have a sleep in day (classes don't start until nine), my first class is in the basement of my dorm (so I can sleep until 8:15 and eat breakfast in my room) and my last class is also in my dorm building, so when classes get out at noon, I come upstairs, grab a sack lunch, and go ski. Anyway, my ski instructor is awesome. He's originally from South Africa but he's been doing the New Zealand/Switzerland eternal winter skin instructor commute for a long while now. The rest of the team are all racers, yet only three of us can keep up with Neil (the instructor). Today we did lots of technique stuff--its not just racing. Only a couple of us like powder, moguls, off-piste snow conditions, chunky monkey snow, crud, or anything other than perfect corduroy. I understand why, I just don't understand why they don't want to learn. So anyway, tomorrow is going to drag on and on and on and on and on and on and on and on through all seven classes and assembly. But we're supposed to get 20cm of snow tomorrow night, therefore thursday will be fabultastic.
BTW... team just means we get some race training. It does not make me a racer until my instructor decides I'm going to a meet, if that even ends up happening.
And the new nerd is a robotics junkie/mathlete who wears flip flops in the snow. Her dad is the new math teacher here, and shes from ski country. Unfortunately, she's not a hard core skier, otherwise we'd totally be twins. But she's a junior, and is awesome. Like awesomely awesome.
So yeah, thats life. Thats skiing. Thats happiness.