Look, Mom! No...

Squelch!

So, I went skiing the past couple of days. If you can call what I did skiing. I think it was more like falling and never actually staying on my feet. Okay, so I exaggerate a little as you all (yeah, an army of one...woohoo!) know I am prone to do. But I'm not far off the mark. ;)

Skiing Pre-days

So, one of the biggest reasons for doing shift in Argentina in the middle of Southern Hemisphere winter is that we could go skiing. While I wasn't thrilled about having to do shift (it can be pretty dull), I thought that at least I would finally be able to do some skiing. I had never gotten a chance, and everyone who had was always telling me that it was great. So, I had always wanted to try it at least once. Well, we get here, and, stupid me, I volunteer for the first shift crew. Okay, not so stupid me. We had some good times and got some data without much ado. It turned out that shift wasn't as dull as I thought it was going to be. Quite the opposite as a matter of fact, but that's another story.

So, we finally switch shift groups, so we don't have to do shift for the next couple of days. Yay! The other group had already been skiing, and we got to see their pictures. Amazing! Despite the fact that I was very nervous just thinking about skiing, I found that I couldn't wait for my turn. The first non-shift day, we go to rent the ski equipment. There weren't any difficulties there, but at one point, the post-doc asks me to tell him my weight (he needed it for my skis). I wish I could have seen my face then, because I'm told that I looked absolutely horrified. Of course, knowing that he needed to know, I told him my weight, but I was thoroughly mortified, until I realized how funny it was. No one seems to care about that except me. ;)

Skiing Day 1

We begin our day by awaking at what I consider an ungodly hour, especially after I spent half of the night talking (I know, I just can't shut up...;) ). I and the other girl I was with looked completely asleep at breakfast. That earned us a chuckle from the post-doc. After that, we get ourselves together and set off on our little adventure. When we get there, we realize that the weather is quite a bit less than optimal for skiing. Oh well, we already paid and we only had two days (plus, the hotel had vouchers which knocked off like half of the price as long as we skiied two days!). So, we get to the practice area, and the post-doc teaches us the finer points of skiing. ;) After practicing for a little while, we decide that we're ready to brave the bunny slope. So, we head towards the ski lifts (cruel machines, it turns out...), naturally. I get on the lift with the other girl, and it surprised both of us. I mean, you get up to the point and stick your behind out (that's funny enough). You think that this seat comes up so that you can just sit down. Well, that's sort of how it works. Boom! We are tripped into the seat. Ohhkaaayy. But we're on the lift. When we get to the top, we wait for our post-doc. Then, we brave the slope for the first time. Yay! Poof! I fall within the first few minutes. On the bunny slope? That's sad. Well, I managed to make it down the rest of the slope without falling...until the very end. Well, past the end, actually. I and the other girl both managed to go the wrong way. Instead of turning we just kept going straight. There's a lift in front of us leading to another slope! "What? Why is this person coming towards me?" Luckily, we missed the people, so we didn't hit anyone, but there was a bump right after that ski lift. I'm skiing along (and it's probably a good thing that bump was there or else I'd have kept going), thinking everything is great, and yay, I didn't fall again, and all the sudden, "Whoa! Where'd the ground go?" Poof! I'm in the snow. The post-doc skis up to us, laughs, and tells us that we were supposed to turn. So, we hit the slope again. "Wow! I actually didn't fall this time." At some point, we went to lunch. I and the other girl are wet, but ski pants are amazing things. Even when wet, they're still warm. The only real problem was the gloves. Those things are good for awhile, but if they get wet from too much snow, and it's already very cold, they're useless. After lunch, we took the bunny slope once more. By the time we went outside, it had started snowing harder. As I went down the slope, I was faced with a dilemma. I couldn't see because the snow flakes would hit my eyes and I'd squint. I'd try putting my goggles, but they had a lot of condensation on them, so I couldn't see through them. So, I had to choose between not seeing and not seeing. Hmmm... Tough choice, that one. I opted for putting the goggles on because limited visibility through them was better that not being able to see at all. I ended up falling. Surprisingly, it was only once. When I get to the bottom of the slope, I realize that my gloves are all but useless at that point. My fingers are so cold that they are hurting. This is a bad sign. My jacket and hat (actually borrowed from other people) are also wet. The the other girl is in the same boat, so we go back to the cafeteria to have a coffee and warm up. The post-doc, who isn't nearly as wet as we are, decides that this is his chance to hit the much tougher slopes. So, we bid him farewell and seek shelter from the cold. About an hour later, he appears. He's soaking wet. He tell us that he had intended to find one of the intermediate slopes that he was thinking we could try the next day, but it was closed, so he took another slope. No one knew which way the trail went, so he took one of the paths that was open. It turned out to be an advanced course. He fell a bunch of times, hence why he was soaking wet. We finally got a chance to return the laughs. Even after that, he still wants to ski. His gloves are soaking wet, though, so he borrows mine, since they had been by the radiator for a little while. After about an hour, he comes back, still soaking, and has a cup of coffee. Then, we head home. Now, it so happened that the car we had rented from the airport was absolutely dirty. Literally. There was dirt all over the outside of the car and some on the inside. This was our fault. That's yet another long story, but it's funny also. As a matter of fact, there was so much dirt that the girl I went skiing with drew a cosmic ray airshower in it. Well, no more. Amusingly, just after we had been musing about whether we should clean the car before we return it, the snow cleaned it for us. Ask and ye shall receive. Of course, the snow on the road back meant that the other group wasn't going to be getting data that night. I'm still trying to decide if we were disappointed about that.

So, after we got back, all of the Chicago people go out to this trout place. They all thought that I was going to have a heart attack because of eating fish. I didn't, but I did feel bad about it. I mean, I knew that I still make exceptions for fish, maybe even more than my allowed "dosage" if circumstances are such that it is warranted. At that point, I knew the Spanish speakers were starting to get sick of having to make sure that I didn't have a hint of meat on my dish in a country where vegetarianism isn't nearly as widespread as it is in the U.S. I feel bad about that. I certainly don't want to be a burden on anyone, but at this point, meat (except for fish, that is) probably would make me sick. Plus, the alternative was to stay at the observatory despite the fact that I wasn't on shift and either be forced to find food myself (and take some big risks there since I don't speak the language), or eat with someone who speaks Spitaliano and have to answer her questions about why they didn't invite her to the trout place and allow her to very nearly drive me crazy. Another long story. Put it this way, realizing that the only other real option was to eat dinner with the crazy Spitaliano speaker, I knew that my peace of mind would be more disrupted by this alternative than by eating fish. However, even knowing this and accepting it didn't make me feel any less guilty. Kind of bothers me, that. Not so much that I was upset about eating fish. After all, that's why I chose this lifestyle in the first place. The thing is that I don't want this to become a way for me to judge others. I've said it often, but I'll say it again, I'm a vegetarian because I realized that I can live a healthy and happier lifestyle without eating meat. Sailor Moon once quoted an old Japanese proverb (Chinese? and forgive me for messing this up), "There is no path on which I am better, so I choose this one." However, I'm not one of those vegetarians who thinks everyone else should be one. Well, not really. I do think that in the ideal world, everyone would be a vegetarian. But this is not the ideal world. People have health and psychological concerns that factor into the equation. Everyone has to weigh all of their options and choose the lifestyle they think suits them. Now, I definitely think that everyone should choose or try to find the lifestyle which provides them with personal improvement, and I do have problems with people who don't do that. But that goes above and beyond choosing to eat or not eat meat, and vegetarianism is not always going to be part of that lifestyle, anyway. Hence, vegetarianism is not for everyone. Finally getting to my point, it shouldn't be a hard moralistic issue. A person who eats meat is no more a bad person than a person who refuses meat is a good one. It's one thing to say it's wrong for me to eat meat. It's a completely different thing to say it's wrong to eat meat. I hope that I felt the way I did because of the smaller moral issue instead of forcing it to be the bigger moral issue.

To Be Continued...