Crap, I'm Getting a Lot of Awesome Ideas

Ummm... so these past few days of surfing the Internet waiting for the day to be over has given me a lot of time to look at the opportunity to pursue a lot of my dreams. Since I don't want my family to freak out about my typical spontaneity and impulsiveness I'll just give you guys some hints with pictures:



Here is something that could be in my VERY NEAR future:




Not so near future:

And I just talked to my friend Ashley from back at Grand Valley. So, yeah...

The Prodigal Roommate Returns

I can't even begin to explain how nice it is to have a roommate again, especially Al. Even though it's only temporary, he's sleeping on the couch, and I have to wake up at 6:00 am to go to work, it still really brings back some of that youthful energy I had back in college (that doesn't mean I'm getting old now, it just means I'm more motivated to go out and do things after I get home from work).

Tuesday night a bunch of my friends out here (Al's old friends from college as well) decided to give him the proper Denver welcome by going out to the Park Tavern for some 2 for 1 drink specials and watch the Red Wings vs. Avs game. Even though the Wings lost, we had a long night of making Al taste different Colorado brews and trying to figure out how Ryan and I could have someone sign us into school on Thursday and Friday so we can start our ski trip earlier.

Last night I went for a 2k swim and then met up with Al at his aunt and uncle's house in Centennial (just south of Denver but still considered Denver metro area). His dad made us a phenomenal dinner (Bourbon glazed salmon, potatoes, asparagus, etc...) and Al hooked me up with some nasty ass beer (Little Kings).

Today is the last day before Christmas break, 2 exams to give, grade a bunch of benchmark exams, kick some ass at Trivia tomorrow and then enjoy the freshies until making the trip back to Michigan!!!

Sub-Arctic Weather

It was 18 below this morning - record breaking low for Denver. In fact, the seat of my car was actually frozen when I went to start it this morning.

This weekend was definitely awesome. Friday night I rode at Keystone for a few hours, met up with Ryan and a friend, then went up to Winter Park for the night. Saturday morning was welcomed with 6-7 inches of fresh powder and over 40 open trails. I was really pumped to get my skis back on and really rip down the mountain. We hit the slopes for about 3 hours before meeting with Kate, Rae, Sarah and Jeremy and then put in another 3 hours of intense tree and bump skiing.

Afterwards, I was supposed to head back to Denver for a Christmas party at my friend Ashley's, but Kate talked me into staying up to enjoy the 6-7 inches of predicted snow for Sunday morning. I figured out earlier this season that it's not very much fun to ski/ride hungover, so we decided to spend only two drinks worth of time at Coffee and Tea and just one drink at ski patrol party before calling it a night.

Sunday was definitely the hi-light of the entire weekend. We made it over to the mountain around 830 to get some breakfast and found my buddy Mike (Jesus) reading a book in Moffat Market. Mike has lived up at Winter Park for about 4 seasons now and knows almost every inch of the mountain - he's also the best back-country snowboarder I've ever met or seen. He rips through the trees faster than most skiers (which is very rare) and can ride bumps like it's his job. Apparently his class didn't make it up the mountain last night, so he had the entire day off to ride with us.

The three of us headed up the main lift and noticed that ski patrol had just opened up the Challenger Lift; giving us easy access to about 10 untouched trails. We made a b-line straight to the new snow and enjoyed first tracks in about 2 feet of powder down some of my favorite runs on the Mary Jane side of the mountain. We skied for about 3 hours on nothing but untracked trails before Kate and I had to head back over to the Winter Park side for a level 2 certification clinic.

Mary Jane - Winter Park is divided up into 4 different peaks: Winter Park, Parsenne Bowl, Mary Jane and Vasquez. The Mary Jane side is probably one of the most well-known peaks in the U.S. because of it's plethora of gnarly bump runs. It got its name from a lady named Mary Jane who used to sleep with the loggers on the mountain in exchange for plots of land. Eventually she owned majority of the mountain, hence its name.

Level 2 Certification - With ski and snowboard instructing, you can get nationally certified as a professional instructor by taking exams. Last year I completed my level 1 Certification which allows me to teach more advanced skiers (levels 4 and 5) and gives me a pretty hefty pay raise. Level 1 Certification is ridiculously easy to achieve as long as you are half-way decent at the sport. Level 2 is a completely different story. It involves a really intense on the snow skills test (you need to pretty much master skiing on bumps) and a movement analysis test on a paper. The movement analysis test encompasses what muscles make you do the most precise and minuscule movements while skiing. It's quite challenging and will unfortunately "gasp" require studying!

Now the benefits of achieving this is that Level 2 "certs" can teach any level of skier (level 7 and below), receive a larger raise and most importantly, the level 2 certification is equivalent to an international level 1 which would allow me to teach skiing in any country across the globe (France!!!!). Ski instructors overseas get paid up to 20 Euros an hours (about $30) and freaking live overseas of course. So I don't think I need to give any more details as to why this might interest me.

After the long day of skiing I met up with some friends at Coffee and Tea for a drink before heading down the mountains. I know I explained before that none of my international friends would be returning (to work) this season, but I've actually met quite a few really cool new employees. One dude that I met is actually from Gaylord Michigan and water skis all the time on Lake Otsego - what a small world.

Last but definitely not least - Al made it into Denver last night. I can't wait for break to start in 2 days!!!

Probability Looks Promising

This weekend has the potential of being awesome.

To start, I got in a killer pool workout this morning. Came into school at 7:30 for 4 hours of professional development before my kids begin their finals - and as a token of appreciation, got a huge bonus check from the principal!!!! HOLY SHIT I was so awestruck and almost put into tears. Never would have ever expected this. I was already blown away by the card signed by the administration, but a bonus!?!

Anyway, Keystone night riding tonight, meeting up with an old friend, skiing at Winter Park tomorrow and half-pipe finals at Copper, then "Ofer-mas" Christmas party on Saturday night and Al arrives on Sunday. I'm on cloud 9 right now - 3 hours til departure!

Little Marissa

I have a student in my class who started out this year hanging out with the wrong crowd and not doing anything classwork. She had a 22% last quarter and about 30 absences. About 2 weeks into the next quarter, she spoke with a counselor and myself and stated "I have been doing everything wrong. I don't know why I was doing what I was doing, but I want to do better. What can I do to bring my grades up."

Now since she basically learned absolutely nothing during the first quarter and math builds on itself, she had none of the previous knowledge necessary to complete the second quarter successfully. She knew this. She spent at least 2 hours every single day after school working to get caught up in JUST my class as well as an hour or 2 every week in the morning. She was failing all of her classes. Yesterday she showed me her updated grades and has about a 3.1 GPA excluding my class. I told her that her grade would not be accurate until she completed her two tests (she needs extra time to complete things) and turned in her notebook.

Today she came up and asked if she could see her final grade since everything is completely updated minus her final exam. She has a C in my class. I never saw a student's face light up as much hers did at that moment.

A Long Weekend

Last weekend provided me with a chance to take another little vacation, see some old friends and watch Sam graduate from college. I flew out extremely early on Friday morning and hung out with Carp for pretty much all of Friday. It was great to see him along with other friends that are still hanging around the west side of the state. I definitely planned on this weekend being a time of relaxation and maybe catching up on some lost time, but turned into a weekend of stress and no sleep.

Saturday we went out to breakfast before Sam walked and the eggs at Big Boy were definitely not cooked properly. I spent the remainder of the day trying not to throw-up until it finally overtook me around 6 o'clock that night. I spent the next 13 hours sleeping.

Sunday I felt fine when I woke up but still had absolutely no appetite. I grazed pretty much the entire day and just took it easy. Monday I flew out at 5:50am (terrible idea by the way) and still had no appetite. I forced myself to eat later on that day and struggled to keep it down. Once I got back to Denver I decided that I really needed sometime to recover mentally and physically. So I packed up my car, went to the chiropractor and drove up to the mountains for some night riding.

It was closed. For some reason Keystone only has weekly night skiing during the first few weeks of the season, then changes it to only weekends. So I basically drove 2 hours up the mountain to gear up and walk to the Gondola and hear "we close at 4." To make this trip not a complete waste, I met up with my friend Carly for a little while before making the trip back down the mountains.

The drive home was complete hell. A huge snowstorm rolled in and added about 30-45 minutes of driving to the return trip. I definitely should have stayed up in the mountains, called in sick(for safety reasons of course) for one day and spent all day today riding the pow .

Well here I am today, just finishing off the week. The students are using this entire week for review (which is good because I still have no appetite and am still feeling quite a bit under the weather).

Being the Student

So today I have a formal evaluation of teaching :) I'm actually really excited, I've worked here for a year now and this is the first time somebody will actually be sitting in on my classroom and giving me some feedback. I think this is one of the most important pieces of being an excellent educator, so wish me luck!

Last night was a blast, I really miss hanging out with Erica. I picked her up after work and we went over to watch a couple of my students' wrestling match. Unfortunately one of my favorites lost (but he was up against one of the top students in the state) but it was the first wrestling match I've ever been too - and it was pretty cool. Afterwards we went out and grabbed a drink and some food to catch up on the past year or so. Good times :)

On another note, I've rediscovered coffee. I can completely understand why so many teachers drink it. I have way too much energy right now and don't know what to do with it. I've already completely prepped myself for the entire school day....and the next three days to follow. Great, I'm on drugs.

It's snowing in Denver!!!!

The Return of the Hairy Buffalo

So I almost completely forgot that one of my really good friends from Grand Valley is going to be out in Denver this week training for her new job! Erica and I were on staff as R.A. together and I haven't seen her for like a year. She just moved from L.A. out to Arizona and for some reason has training in Denver. My last memory of when her and I hung out was her chugging majority of a Hairy Buffalo at a crappy bar in Grand Rapids and falling a sleep in her high heels. So I think tonight we'll take it a little easier and maybe just go get dinner.

Unfortunately I've been under the weather since Saturday or Sunday - which would explain why I felt so crappy at the end of snowboarding. I also decided to put in 90min of intense training on Monday which definitely put me on my ass for the night and all of yesterday. However, I do feel a little better today and will be taking it very easy the next couple of days so I can be close to 100% for this weekend.

Turkey Break

Thanksgiving break began last Tuesday and lasted until last night. I was so excited to get this much needed break and the chance to rip the powder for 4 or 5 days.

I left for the mountains Wednesday morning and rode Loveland all day and Keystone for a little bit at night (Keystone is the only major resort with night skiing out here). Afterwards I met up with my friend Samira (volunteer in my math class) and chilled at the bar waiting for her friend to get off work and give us a couch or floor to crash on - never happened.

So neither of us wanted to drive back down to Denver and then back up the next day to ride at Copper, so we thought it would be clever to just car camp. We found a dirt road along the side of one of the mountains and decided it was secluded enough. For those of you that forget, I drive a Wrangler so it was quite a feat to set-up camp inside of it. So I blasted the heat for about 30 minutes, lined the soft top with clothing for insulation, crawled in my sleeping bag, wrapped that in my comforter and laid my head on the wheel well and passed out immediately.

11 pm, Samantha calls and wakes me up. We kept the phone call quick because I wanted to be back a sleep before I realized how cold it was in the Jeep (I could definitely see my breath at this point). As I laid back to sleep, I could here Samira talking on the phone in her car (hopefully to her friend) and eventually passed back out.

4am - This is where the fun begins. I move constantly when I sleep so when I awoke, my sleeping bag was open, comforter on the floor and ice sickles hanging from my nose. Holy crap it was like 25 degrees!! So I put on another sweatshirt, situated my bed and somehow managed to pass back out for about an hour.

5am - Woke up and decided this was stupid and too damn cold, so I turned the car on and read the Onion for about an hour before a cop rolled up. Apparently we weren't breaking any laws so we actually just talked about snowboarding with him for about 10 minutes and he went on his way.

Thanksgiving I rode Copper mountain hard for about 5 hours. I can officially do a front-side 180 on my board and a mute grab :) Around 1pm we called it a day and I headed down to my friend Ashley's and had Thanksgiving at her house. I really appreciate this since Thanksgiving has always been my favorite holiday and this was my first without seeing any of my friends from back home or any of my family.

Friday and Saturday I went back up to the mountain and stayed with my friend Carly B. The snow was ridiculous. Each day the mountain got at least 6 inches of snow, so I experienced my first powder days on a snowboard!!! Let me tell you that riding on powder is like night and day compared to a groomer. It felt just like slalom skiing.

So on another note, I've started to really get back into training. I spend at least 90 minutes a day doing a combination of swimming/running/biking. I think I hit around 30-35 miles on the road last week, 6 days in the pool and 2 days of biking (inside of course). I'm really excited for the next triathlon season and am about 90% sure I'm going to do the Grandma's Marathon in Minnesota (or maybe Wisconsin?) this March.

Other than that, I'm just finishing off the semester. This is our last normal week of school, then it's block days, half days, assessment days, etc... Two weeks til Al comes to visit and three more weeks til I return back to the mitten.