On Being a Good Learner or How I Suck at Skiing and Ski Anyway

A few weeks ago, we were invited to a surprise birthday party that included a Suprise! We're-Taking-You-Skiing at 7 am. David is an avid and talented skier. He's been skiing since he was three, was a ski instructor for a time, and now races down seemingly impossible slopes (or undefined slopes, for all you mathy types). He signed us up right away.

At that point in time, I had been skiing twice the winter before last.

That's all.

So the idea of skiing with a group of experienced skiers made me stressed out for about three weeks, up to and including the actual day. They were all very nice about it, even when I was crying (thanks, Scot and Erika!), and swearing (again... Scott and Erika). After the crying and in the middle of the swearing, I had a minor epiphany. This is what my class is like for a lot of my students.

The mountain is scary. The slope is too steep. I'm the only one who can't do it. I'm a stupid loser face. The toddlers can get off the rope tow on the bunny slope, and I fall on my face. Awesome. Everyone has to wait for me. They're bored and wish I weren't here. I shouldn't have come. I hope it's at least funny when I fall. Nope... no one's laughing.

And my students don't even get the researched benefits of swearing when they're super frustrated. Sorry, kids!

But it made me think about how to be an effective encourager when trying feels like a waste of time. And I don't have lots of really insightful wisdom, but I think me being in that place will make me more empathetic. And, for me, having people there who were pointing out the little things I do well (I'm good at getting off the chair lift. I have reasonably good form. I kept going.) helped immeasurably.

And maybe if I keep practicing, I'll actually be kinda good someday.

Bringing out Rebellion

Sometimes I wonder what it would take to make me break rules. Today, I found out. Five inches of snow and counting. After a truly terrifying drive home (cough cough... before I was supposed to leave work cough cough), my guilty conscience is mostly appeased by the safe arrival home. Multiple close calls, a couple of jerk truck drivers (if you pass me, get all the way in the other lane, please. Two halves of a lane does not equal one whole lane), and half-a-dozen near sliding off the road situations, and I only feel a little bit guilty.

But now, I'm going to do my grading. That's the same work I would be doing at work. But with tea and sweatpants.

Estamos de Vacaciones

I've read somewhere that the anticipation before a vacation is just as good as the actual vacation, but I think I disagree. Anticipation doesn't have enough sunshine to compete, and heaven knows I love my Vitamin D. We left for Puerto Vallarta the day before school got out for Christmas break (ha ha, suckers!), and arrived right about sunset to our resort. We took approximately 897 sunset pictures, so I'll only post one or two. (Ok, ok, in reality, we only have 52 sunset photos, but you still don't have to sit through them all). The resort was awesome.

The view from our balcony.

The all-inclusive resort atmosphere took a little getting used to, though. We met up with one of David's classmates and her husband, who are both a kick in the pants and super extroverted. They had been making random friends for a week already, and kindly welcomed us into their pool-side gang, which already consisted of Canadians and other United Statesians from across the country. Most of the conversation revolved around the crazy antics of a couple from Yellow Knife, Northwest Territories, some of which were amusing, but all of them made me sad. Drunkenness and promiscuity usually do. Especially when the girlfriend was telling stories about the man-whorish behavior of her boyfriend, who just sat there smiling and bobbing his head and looking at her boobs (which, in his defense, was hard not to notice as there were sparkly piercings from clavicle to cleavage). David and I both also overheard a number of semi-racist comments that made us stop and frown. Nothing really overt, but enough to make me want to stop and pull strangers aside. To say things like, "Actually, you are covered in oil and sand and spilled beer. I think you're dirtier." Or, "There are Mexicans in Mexico, turns out. If you don't like them, why did you come here?" I stopped really listening after a while and people watched. And figured out if I switched to glasses of Pepsi, no one tried to bring me more shots because it looked like I was already drinking and I could stop covertly pouring out the shots behind me. After a day, we got tired of the pool and wandered out to the beach. And swam, boogie boarded, went for walks, got massages at sunset for super cheap, and read.

Puerto Vallarta was our honeymoon destination three and-a-half years ago, so one day we took the bus downtown to wander around the neighborhood we stayed in. The city was decked the
halls out, and we had a romantic dinner on the beach at a restaurant we liked before. We walked along the touristy boulevard for a while, and found some fun photo scenes:












David making friends with a stranger on the street.

The hotel had some entertainment, which we didn't take advantage of until our last day. It was Caribbean Beach Party (or something like that), so all the poor entertainment employees dressed up for Carnaval (see below... I think I need to get me some lime green bikini chaps), and gave us a dance lesson. That sucked us in. We love to dance. Then they switched to a dance competition, which we won (t-shirts in the wrong size for both of us, but the pride of knowing we won!).

Take note of the bartender on the left dancing the merengue with a giant tray of drinks.

Anyone want to join us for another vacation? I'm ready to go back.