Luges, snowshoes, attic monsters, sorority sisters, table murals, and my most startled expression
Firstly, an alluring teaser of me at my finest:
I delight in keeping my life busy, action-packed, and full of adventure. So far this quarter this has been a huge success -- and there have been pictures to prove it. :)
Many things unfortunately do not have pictures and some I am too lazy to upload just now... so I'll write about them. And tthings will be chaotic. This entry'll have all the pictures. Now, let's begin...
The Winter Olympic Pursuits Trip to Muskegon, Michigan.
This weekend I went on a crazy road-trip to Michigan with the OAC and Explore Columbus. Barwick, Weifei, and Jing-jing went too and we had a SPECTACULAR TIME. I am seriously hooked on winter sports now. I especially want to try downhill skiing. But anyway, first off... we luged. Yes. As in actual bona-fide luge.
It was admittedly pretty damn scary and the second time I did it I was going so fast that I slammed into the opposite wall coming out of a curve and bounced out of my sled. I was still holding onto it, though, so sliding at about 30mph I yanked myself back onto it hollering through a mouthful of snow. It was wonderful. And painful. And it almost scared me out of going down the luge a third time and then a fourth time. But go down the luge I did, fast and exhilerated and feeling out of control. Lugging the 35 lb. sleds up millions of wooden stairs on the hillside in between each run was a grounding experience.
Here's my homies showing off their safety gear:
*loves these kids*
After luging we headed out for lunch but stopped at Lake Michigan. The frozen expanse of snow-covered dunes before me had to be one of the most fantastical environments I've ever seen. It was so... unreal. Even when we were clambering on the frozen waves slipping and shouting and falling over crests, they seem impossible. The wind was so cold that our cameras froze and only Jing-Jing's small camera phone was working.
Here we got this photo of all of us balanced on the edge of a wave, with me on the left looking ASTONISHINGLY Asian. Seriously, don't I look like Weifei's sister? I can't get over how strange that is. Wow. I wish we had more images of us in Antarctica...
Next we were set loose with cross-country skis. This was quite challenging at first, and by challenging I mean hilarious for the average person to behold. Fortunately we got into a rhythm and minus the perpetual stripping off of layers we glided along smoothly, falling occasionally but not really having much trouble til we came to the hills. The first down-hill was awesome and scary and I did it just fine, but Jing-Jing went down on her butt and Barwick turned into a snowball at the end. Weifei... well, she had situations. My abs began to hurt from laughing so hard at our antics on the miniature slopes. :)
One steep up-hill will live on forever in infamy. I tried to take a photo of our tangle but me being in it I found this hard. Basically to go up hill in cross-country skiing you have to do some sort of ridiculous duck walk, but this extremely difficult when you consider how long your skis are and how they shouldn't overlap. Barwick, who was leading, discovered this difficulty and fell down and knocked into Jinh-Jing. Jing-jing dominoed into me, I dominoed into Weifei, and Weifei got Kelly... yes. In a matter of seconds we transformed a serene woodland hill into a tangle of skis and laughter. It took Barwick and Weifei a thousand years at least to get up that hill, just long enough for us to make friends with sympathetic passerbys.
We completed the 5K at least a half an hour after everyone else, but we were glowing. It was crazy fun and left me ambitious for real downhill skiing.
This was the end of the first day; we went to a Chinese buffet, wolfed down huge meals, and then returned to the hotel. I unfortunately had to stay up until 3am cranking out a paper on Weifei's laptop, but I did it. I thought I might die at any moment, but somehow the inspiration flowed like honey and I relentlessly wrote and got so much done. Barwick, who I was sharing a room with, fell asleep with her books hours before.
The next morning we returned to the Muskegon Sports Complex and once again went out skiing. It was just so fun, we could not resist. And Weifei looked so hot:
Yeah. We only did a 2K this time because my knee was hurting and we were tired, but it was mesmerizing. Outwardly I found myself complaining now and then about the boring absence of hills, but inwardly, I was awed at how meditational it was to cross-country ski in rhythmic silence. It was entrancing and beautiful. I could easily imagine myself getting up every morning to do this alone, just me and my gods in the snow. I thought about Ancestors often this weekend, and Skadi, and others associated with winter.
After skiing, we snow-shoed:
It was difficult. They were mostly out so I had to wear man shoes and Barwick had to wear baby shoes, and my shoes kept on slipping off because they were too big. The trail also dead-ended, so Dave suggested we simply back-track. It was a good leg workout. And peaceful and strange.
Finally we ice-skated, which turned out to be shockingly painful to many of us, probably because you steer the luge with your lower inner calves and ours were thus too bruised and swollen to fit comfortably in skates. Either way we made up ridiculous dances on the ice, then later got made fun of our awesome trip leader Steve, who had apparently been watching from the lodge. The lodge, btw, was highly dissappointing... I have a romantic image in my head of roaring fires and cuddly bear rugs and mugs of cocoa that refuses to compromise or accept a big ugly mess-hall crowded with people. Someday, somebody's gonna take me to a place with a big stone fireplace and all of that, and we'll skii all day and then jacuzzi all evening and then do the bear rug justice all night. ;) Anyone?
All in all, good times. On the way home that afternoon we stopped at the legendary Cabela's and I was horrified, and yet I was also intrigued by all of the amazing animals there. They had more taxidermied bovines than I ever imagined in my wildest dreams (or nightmares)... and I discovered that all the Asian deer are cute, dainty, and fanged. I had odd dreams in the van and went to bed not long after getting home and taking an epic shower. :)
I sort of shyly miss the OAC people now... hmm. I wish I could take more trips. I need to rejoin the Mountaineers for spring and get my ass out there.
Now for some incongruous pics and tales...
Minxing in Kent.
Last weekend I went to Michigan, before that I did stuff here and went for a day to Cincinnati, and the weekend before that I went to Kent with Barwick and Anjali. We joined a massive train of Indians intent on celebrating Raj's 21st birthday, which is exactly what we did. In a very big way. It was a weekend of fabulous excess, incredible fun, and irresponsible wildness... in short, a weekend that I needed. This is what happens when Anjali dresses me in her clothes:
Slutty, I know. But effective. :)
But moving back, I just realized that a lot of th eother pics I have are from last weekend.... because we made our own adventures! We explored [and broke] the attic! We also FINALLY painted the table we swore we'd paint, like so:
It was an epic paint-party of many long hours but it was worth it.
Apparently the fact that Kat had a camera there was very surprising to me:
Yeah, what a lovely candid photo. :) It really was a lot of fun, though, and everybody came to pitch in. We also rented and saw Crank after a series of Lessons in Why Frankie and The Girls Should Not Go Out Into PUulic Together. Crank was a good movie. Cheap and amusing without much talk.
I feel that we also went out to eat, but we've done that a lot lately with Hina turning 22, Barwick turning 21, and Frankie just wanting us to go out in general. But more on that kind of stuff later.
Hope you enjoyed the pics. :)
I delight in keeping my life busy, action-packed, and full of adventure. So far this quarter this has been a huge success -- and there have been pictures to prove it. :)
Many things unfortunately do not have pictures and some I am too lazy to upload just now... so I'll write about them. And tthings will be chaotic. This entry'll have all the pictures. Now, let's begin...
The Winter Olympic Pursuits Trip to Muskegon, Michigan.
This weekend I went on a crazy road-trip to Michigan with the OAC and Explore Columbus. Barwick, Weifei, and Jing-jing went too and we had a SPECTACULAR TIME. I am seriously hooked on winter sports now. I especially want to try downhill skiing. But anyway, first off... we luged. Yes. As in actual bona-fide luge.
It was admittedly pretty damn scary and the second time I did it I was going so fast that I slammed into the opposite wall coming out of a curve and bounced out of my sled. I was still holding onto it, though, so sliding at about 30mph I yanked myself back onto it hollering through a mouthful of snow. It was wonderful. And painful. And it almost scared me out of going down the luge a third time and then a fourth time. But go down the luge I did, fast and exhilerated and feeling out of control. Lugging the 35 lb. sleds up millions of wooden stairs on the hillside in between each run was a grounding experience.
Here's my homies showing off their safety gear:
*loves these kids*
After luging we headed out for lunch but stopped at Lake Michigan. The frozen expanse of snow-covered dunes before me had to be one of the most fantastical environments I've ever seen. It was so... unreal. Even when we were clambering on the frozen waves slipping and shouting and falling over crests, they seem impossible. The wind was so cold that our cameras froze and only Jing-Jing's small camera phone was working.
Here we got this photo of all of us balanced on the edge of a wave, with me on the left looking ASTONISHINGLY Asian. Seriously, don't I look like Weifei's sister? I can't get over how strange that is. Wow. I wish we had more images of us in Antarctica...
Next we were set loose with cross-country skis. This was quite challenging at first, and by challenging I mean hilarious for the average person to behold. Fortunately we got into a rhythm and minus the perpetual stripping off of layers we glided along smoothly, falling occasionally but not really having much trouble til we came to the hills. The first down-hill was awesome and scary and I did it just fine, but Jing-Jing went down on her butt and Barwick turned into a snowball at the end. Weifei... well, she had situations. My abs began to hurt from laughing so hard at our antics on the miniature slopes. :)
One steep up-hill will live on forever in infamy. I tried to take a photo of our tangle but me being in it I found this hard. Basically to go up hill in cross-country skiing you have to do some sort of ridiculous duck walk, but this extremely difficult when you consider how long your skis are and how they shouldn't overlap. Barwick, who was leading, discovered this difficulty and fell down and knocked into Jinh-Jing. Jing-jing dominoed into me, I dominoed into Weifei, and Weifei got Kelly... yes. In a matter of seconds we transformed a serene woodland hill into a tangle of skis and laughter. It took Barwick and Weifei a thousand years at least to get up that hill, just long enough for us to make friends with sympathetic passerbys.
We completed the 5K at least a half an hour after everyone else, but we were glowing. It was crazy fun and left me ambitious for real downhill skiing.
This was the end of the first day; we went to a Chinese buffet, wolfed down huge meals, and then returned to the hotel. I unfortunately had to stay up until 3am cranking out a paper on Weifei's laptop, but I did it. I thought I might die at any moment, but somehow the inspiration flowed like honey and I relentlessly wrote and got so much done. Barwick, who I was sharing a room with, fell asleep with her books hours before.
The next morning we returned to the Muskegon Sports Complex and once again went out skiing. It was just so fun, we could not resist. And Weifei looked so hot:
Yeah. We only did a 2K this time because my knee was hurting and we were tired, but it was mesmerizing. Outwardly I found myself complaining now and then about the boring absence of hills, but inwardly, I was awed at how meditational it was to cross-country ski in rhythmic silence. It was entrancing and beautiful. I could easily imagine myself getting up every morning to do this alone, just me and my gods in the snow. I thought about Ancestors often this weekend, and Skadi, and others associated with winter.
After skiing, we snow-shoed:
It was difficult. They were mostly out so I had to wear man shoes and Barwick had to wear baby shoes, and my shoes kept on slipping off because they were too big. The trail also dead-ended, so Dave suggested we simply back-track. It was a good leg workout. And peaceful and strange.
Finally we ice-skated, which turned out to be shockingly painful to many of us, probably because you steer the luge with your lower inner calves and ours were thus too bruised and swollen to fit comfortably in skates. Either way we made up ridiculous dances on the ice, then later got made fun of our awesome trip leader Steve, who had apparently been watching from the lodge. The lodge, btw, was highly dissappointing... I have a romantic image in my head of roaring fires and cuddly bear rugs and mugs of cocoa that refuses to compromise or accept a big ugly mess-hall crowded with people. Someday, somebody's gonna take me to a place with a big stone fireplace and all of that, and we'll skii all day and then jacuzzi all evening and then do the bear rug justice all night. ;) Anyone?
All in all, good times. On the way home that afternoon we stopped at the legendary Cabela's and I was horrified, and yet I was also intrigued by all of the amazing animals there. They had more taxidermied bovines than I ever imagined in my wildest dreams (or nightmares)... and I discovered that all the Asian deer are cute, dainty, and fanged. I had odd dreams in the van and went to bed not long after getting home and taking an epic shower. :)
I sort of shyly miss the OAC people now... hmm. I wish I could take more trips. I need to rejoin the Mountaineers for spring and get my ass out there.
Now for some incongruous pics and tales...
Minxing in Kent.
Last weekend I went to Michigan, before that I did stuff here and went for a day to Cincinnati, and the weekend before that I went to Kent with Barwick and Anjali. We joined a massive train of Indians intent on celebrating Raj's 21st birthday, which is exactly what we did. In a very big way. It was a weekend of fabulous excess, incredible fun, and irresponsible wildness... in short, a weekend that I needed. This is what happens when Anjali dresses me in her clothes:
Slutty, I know. But effective. :)
But moving back, I just realized that a lot of th eother pics I have are from last weekend.... because we made our own adventures! We explored [and broke] the attic! We also FINALLY painted the table we swore we'd paint, like so:
It was an epic paint-party of many long hours but it was worth it.
Apparently the fact that Kat had a camera there was very surprising to me:
Yeah, what a lovely candid photo. :) It really was a lot of fun, though, and everybody came to pitch in. We also rented and saw Crank after a series of Lessons in Why Frankie and The Girls Should Not Go Out Into PUulic Together. Crank was a good movie. Cheap and amusing without much talk.
I feel that we also went out to eat, but we've done that a lot lately with Hina turning 22, Barwick turning 21, and Frankie just wanting us to go out in general. But more on that kind of stuff later.
Hope you enjoyed the pics. :)