icecapades

i just got back from a weekend ski trip with a bunch of high schoolers. only recently have i realized that maybe other people would not want to spend their time like this - in relationship with high schoolers. it seems so ingrained to me that i assumed that everyone did.

my body is complaining about the pain i inflicted on myself - in the neighborhood of 10 bruises including 2 on my stomach after diving over a folding chair. i know that someday i will not be able to do this kind of thing, and i probably even shouldn't be doing it now - but i do it anyway and probably will for a long time. my immune system seems to be firing on all cylinders, as i have not fallen ill. getting rest helps - by rest i mean falling asleep for 2 hours in a chair with my nose in a book.

i'm not a huge fan of snow. at least i am not a huge fan of driving distances to go where there is snow (i didn't mind living in cities where it snowed). nor am i a fan of driving in snow. or driving with snow chains. if you miss the noise, i think it would sound a lot like putting a length of chain in a clothes dryer, climbing in after them and then turning the dryer on.

besides that, i enjoyed myself, laughed a lot, and ate a lot of food (these things are all i really need to have a good time). i consider how i felt a year ago and marvel at how different i feel, even though the circumstances haven't really changed a ton. last year, some kids were looking at pictures on my computer from my grad school days and asked why i didn't smile like that anymore. kids can be like that - flippantly asking something that somehow cuts to the core of things. while i struggled for an answer, they had already moved on. now, it is not hard for me to smile. that's the simple way of explaining things, and pretty much the bottom line.