Q2 Community Service:
This quarter i will be doing a total of 5 hours of skiing while getting to know random people on the ski lifts. throught htis project I plan to find more about the people that i ski with on the mountain i am also trying to meet a wider range of people on the lifts. This hopfully will inspire other skiiers and boarders to do the same and create a more friendly enviorment at the mountain.
This can work....please post, however, about several different people you meet as well as your general impressions. Include what worked to jump start conversation with certain people....did the same thing work for everyone?
ReplyDeleteIs this going to happen this weekend?
Week 1.
ReplyDeleteThe firs thing that felt odd was that i could not ski to music. going up the chair lift without any tunes and skiing down the hill without anything to help get me into that zone really changed the personal aspect of skiing. But riding up the lift without any music yielded a different result. I met people from all over. I met a family up on a weekend vacation. They were wearing at least 4 more layers then i was. However they loved to ski. Skiing is one of those things were you can talk to anyone who is into it and instantly start having a great chat. I talked to the people from Florida about how i was going to be visiting Sanabel island this February break and they were excited about that. I also met a few long time attitash faithfuls. These guys loved attitash and everything it brought. This group of 2 guys are the type of people that get up every weekend morning at 730 to get to the mountain just when it opens at 8, they ski till 4 and ski the whole mountain every day. It was nice to run into people that have the same interests as you do, its also easy to strike conversation with these people because all you have to do is comment on the conditions or the weather and you have got yourself a conversation. Talking with these people is not like trying to start a conversation with a stranger in boston, it's easy. Everyone is out on the mountain for the same reason, we all love to ski. Skiing is a community not just a weekend hobby. Another interesting aspect about skiing is that no matter your skill level there is always a common ground between your skiing and the person you are talking with skiing level. I think this is because we all know what it feels like to glide across the freshly groomed snow, there is something about it that you cant find anywhere else.
Week 2.
this week was COLD, i mean really cold. i got out of my car and within a minute my mustache had started to freeze, the hairs on my face were already stiff and it hurt when they moved. I was thinking to myself, how am i going to get my soc project done in weather like this, there is no way i will be able to stay out long enough to get it finished. so i went up the dreaded first lift ride with my face freezing and feeling some frostbite coming along on my face. My first lift ride up i was paired up with a guy from the local town, North Conway. He was about 35 and he Lived, Ate, and breathed skiing. This guy Jordon told me that he had never missed a day of weekend skiing in 20 years, he also told me he had been skiing since he was 2 so i could relate with him there. It was pretty cold out so we chatted about the weather for the remainder of the lift ride. as we got off we did the usual "have a good one" departing phrase that is commonly said after getting off a lift. I watched him ski off and immediately he got into an athletic stance. He started to shred turns down the trai, this guy loved skiing. This deviates from my original plan but i talked to my friend justin about his knee injury. Justin goes to school out in boulder CO. He went to a school in CO so that he could ski, "skiing is the only thing that makes me happy." So we chatted, i asked him about how it feels to go from skiing 6 days a week last winter to now not being able to ski at all. Obviously justin was not happy, he says living in the Rockies is painful because he cant even ski. His goal is to take a year off after this year to gain some work experience and get re-focused on school because he has no drive as of right now to do well in his classes. Justin doesnt think he will graduate college but everyone of his close friends is pushing him to finish. Justins real goal is to in the end be a ski bum in CO his whole life. He wants to work enough to get him a house a car and pay for his skiing. Justin is outdoorsies so i can see him being a guide for hikes in the summer as well as a climbing instructor and then skiing in the winter either being a ski patrol or working in a ski shop.