Near-Death

Added another resort to my list of "places I've skied" this past weekend. Since the snow's been crappy, I had not desire to lap ice at the Bird, so I went to Solitude with the boy. Cool resort. We started out on Challenger, which is an excellent groomed run. . . if you have edges. In getting my skis professionally tuned I forgot to tell them not to relieve the edges, so even slightly icy terrain has proven. . . interesting. Regardless, it was warm and sunny and I got to see a lot of the resort; looks like a cool place.

What the Hell am I doing? (WTHAID)

2 weeks into the new year and I'm already having one of those 'what the hell am I doing?' crises. It's not unexpected; part of the second year curriculum in my Ph.D. program is something called the prelim exam. This test is a month-and-a-half oddesy into hell, where you must come up with two ideas for grants (that are not allowed to be closely related to the work you yourself will be doing for your thesis), one of which is selected based on the 5 page abstracts you submit, and 7 weeks later you turn in a 20 page grant and defend it in a room full of 4-5 faculty members. Best part of this test is if you fail, you're out of the program; you get a master's as a consolation prize though. So no pressure, right?

2013 Retrospective

I thought after 2012, what with the hug life changes and everything, that 2013 would seem kind of mellow. How wrong I was. I'm sensing a pattern in that every year is going to be eventful in its own way, which I guess I can live with. What happened this year? Where to start. . .

Day 5 ('13-'14)

It seems I'm becoming a Wednesday morning warrior; of my 5 days on snow so far this year, 3 of those have been Wednesday mornings. That's why living in SLC rocks. Sure I have to work later, but is it worth it? Hells yeah. Today was a pretty perfect day too; it was hard to force myself onto Chickadee and back to the car.

Day 4 ('13-'14)

Someday I'm going to learn to not expect mid-season conditions in an early season setting. Today was not that day. The 'Bird proved to have some great new snow, I know because it was blowing full-force into my face and making Regulator Johnson more of a ski-by-braille situation than I would have liked. The weather did have a pleasant surprise in store: OAT (outside air temp) was higher than expected (double digits positive at the base), but unfortunately wind-chill still made things chilly; especially chilly for those of us who only had their spring gloves (i.e. not arm enough). 2 runs seemed like plenty for me, since the conditions were meh and I was up there alone. Now the debate becomes to ski or not to ski tomorrow; it's looking breezy/gusty again and super fucking cold, but I want the pow. First world problems, I guess.

GFAC 2014

So beyond excited right now: I will be presenting a workshop at a the Girls for a Change conference in Bozeman in April. Girls for a Change is a conference whose mission is “to empower girls to embrace their future, confident about their individuality, supported by friends, parents, and mentors and secure in their ability to lead and to achieve self-sufficiency, balance, fulfillment and success.” I had the pleasure of attending this conference when I was in high school; my workshops included making food in college and African drumming (I chose some random stuff). Honestly, I didn't take it seriously, instead treated it as a way to hang out with my friends (it was a Saturday, don't give me crap about skipping out of school or anything), but there were some really great workshops offered.

Never Slowing Down

Life doesn't slow down. I know we all like to talk about "when things slow down" we'll do this and that, or finally relax, or have more time for things that have fallen by the wayside; we're kidding ourselves. Life is the ultimate perpetual motion machine that, if anything, only speeds up as days go by.