One Sunny Weekend

Friends, the most remarkable thing happened on Mount Ruapehu this weekend. We had sun. Several consecutive days of it. There were even shadows. It was beautiful. I went on a ski break during my work today. Unfortunately, the snow that was on the slopes was no good (remember the days of rain on the mountain), so I skiied on ice the whole time, but nontheless, this was a completely different experience from the days of zero visibility. The mountain is beautiful. I will have to make a serious effort to take some pictures of it tomorrow.

So far, I have not been on too many ride breaks. Today I went with Amy and a girl named Carla. Carla is the slacker at Rentals. She has nothing good to say, and she brings the rest of the group down most of the time. She is also a typical girl. As an example, lets take today's ride break. The moment I got off, I bolted out the door and got ready as quickly as possible. I wanted to use as much of my free time as possible to explore the mountain. So, I stood there waiting for Carla. Ok, I tolerated that. She was probably just not used to speed-dressing and speed-ski-fitting. (By the way, I am now a certified salomon ski technician. Which means that I know how to adjust bindings. But it sounds cool and I have a certificate!) Then, it turns out that Carla neglected to mention that she basically doesn't know how to snowboard. So I do a turn, wait for Carla, do a turn, wait for Carla. At this point I was irritated because I had made it clear that I was a good skiier and that I wanted to use every second of my ski break to actually SKI. I thought she might have realized that she might be a burden if she was going to snake down the hill. Next thing I know, she sits down in the middle of the slope and takes the bindings off of her snowboard. Long story short, the binding wouldn't go back on the board, and riding down the hill was no longer an option. I was not about to help this girl at this point, since I was wasting precious women minutes. (You crewbies will appreciate that one.) Being the angel she is, Amy was very patient with Carla, helped her try to put the bindings back on the board, and eventually even walked her back up the hill so they could take the lift down to rentals to fix the board. I ended up taking off down the mountain and skiing on my own for the rest of the break. Lame. I'm no fan of skiing alone, and I don't think I will ever be. But it was better than waiting all the time.

Now that I think of it, I think I had such little patience with Carla because I have been spoiled with the attitude that comes along with being on a rowing team. I was used to girls who understand when they can and cannot contribute, who go out of their way to do the work that needs to get done, and who try hard even when they think they can't do things. None of these things were the case with Carla, and I don't think they will ever be.

So, in the future, I will be making sure to take ride breaks with other people. I have previously taken a ride break with a Korean guy named Leo. He's a hoot. You can tell that he is quite The Shit in Korea. The guy has an aura of confidence that cannot be shaken. Plus, he tells hilarious stories of his womanizing ways, and his unshakeable good looks. What makes these stories so funny is that he tells them in complete honesty, without any attempts to humble himself. Example: "Before I had my girlfriend, two girls liked me. A Korean one and a Japanese one. The Japanese girl was very cute. But I chose the Korean one because she was more beautiful. Girls like me. I am very confident and good looking." Man, I just can't stop laughing when he says stuff like that. Anyways, Leo is a decent skiier. Still, he doesn't really ski with his feet parallel, so he is still much slower than I would like to ride. Once, when the weather was really foggy but I had a ski break with Leo, we took out snowboards instead. We are equally bad at that, so we had a good time.

Speaking of snowboarding, I am going to the mountain with Jon tomorrow. We both have the day off, so we are taking advantage of his (and my) season pass. We just received the snowboard we bought for him in the mail today. I hope the thing will be ok for him. I am always afraid of the permanence of buying ski equipment. What if you spent hundreds of dollars on a piece of crap? How do you know it will perform its duty? (For example, I took out a pair of skis today that had absolutely no edge. For you non-skiiers, that means I was unable to make proper turns and just ended up sliding down the mountain at breakneck speeds.) In our case, its ok, since we really didn't spend too much money on the board. As soon as Jon gets better, he will probably outgrow it anyways. Maybe we can pimp the thing out a little before we sell it again. It really looks janky. And I mean JANKY. The bindings look like they were made of spare parts. And they probably were. But in some ways, I enjoy the idea that Jon's board has character. Not like the rest of those kids who buy a slick new board without bindings for $600 on sale, and spend about that much for boots and bindings as well.

Tomorrow, Jon and I will meet up with Taz (who is both a Rental Attendant and a Housekeeper at the Park) and her boyfriend Josh (who is a cook or kitchen aid on the mountain and at the Park) and probably Leo, to go skiing with them. We will see how things go. I might just end up taking out a snowboard if there are enough of us who will be stuck on beginner slopes tomorrow. Who knows, I might get good at boarding!

Good night y'all!
Jalissa