Friday, 26 December 2008

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  NO NEED FOR SPEED
  
  
  
  I went skiing with my family on Christmas day. We were one of literally 100 families from our church at the ski resort; it was a total Asian invasion there as well as the hotel. I wasn't sure about going but I knew I had to because I didn't want to stay home by myself on Christmas. Boyfriend is out of town so I couldn't even hang out with his family...
  
  The more I thought about it, the more the whole trip seemed like a social obligation; everybody and their mom was going [literally], and since I usually enjoy trying new things, I figured that I might as well give this a try. Indeed, I was surprised when my mom called this trip a “vacation”. I didn’t understand it then, and after I had actually gone skiing, I still don’t understand the appeal. Skiing consists of nothing that I like. Here is my list:
  

  1. I don’t like being cold.
  2. I don’t like the snow.
  3. I don’t like being wet.
  4. I don’t like wearing bulky clothing.
  5. I don’t like being cold.
  6. I don’t like falling.
  7. I don’t like heights.
  8. I don’t like to travel at high speeds unless I’m safely contained in a big vehicle like a plane.
  9. I don’t like being cold.
  10. I don’t like being in physically dangerous situations.
  11. I don’t like being cold.
  

  
  Why is it that people enjoy strapping planks of wood and fiberglass to their feet, donning goggles/gloves/snowpants/hats/scarves/earmuffs/boots/sweaters/coats, waiting in line to be taken up a slope, sliding down and then repeating the process? It’s so monotonous and repetitive and inconvenient and it bored me. Aren’t vacations supposed to be relaxing and not masochistic?
  
  Skiing is like paying to take a beating. Cracked had a list of "Worst Vacations People Actually Pay For" and I think that skiing belongs on a list like that. I was absolutely shocked to find out that a ski lift pass can cost as much as $50 at regular price. WHAT?! That would be like me literally handing over $6 every time I went up the mountain. I would really rather save that money for something a little less…torturous.
  
  I wasn’t actually bad at skiing. I didn’t think I would be [although Boyfriend certainly assumed differently], and after pondering it, I've come up with a hypothesis: it's because I am immensely afraid of falling. My fear of heights is more of a fear of falling from a great altitude than the actual elevation itself. Thus, since my body isn’t used to hitting the ground, it does everything within its power to prevent a fall, and so my tense form stays upright and balanced.
  
  The only couple of times I went down were not from actual falling but because I was going too fast and I couldn’t mentally handle it anymore. So I sat down and slid to a stop. Skis are hard to stand back up in! I was stuck at the edge of a ditch the first time and couldn’t stand up otherwise I would have slid right into the ditch, and I couldn’t get my ski off so I just sat there cursing my fate until a nice older man [who was obviously pro at skiing] came and helped me up. And then I sat down again 50 feet away haha because the slope was too steep and I couldn’t control my speed. Thankfully the second time down that hill was much better. Obviously, the thrill that other people experience while skiing is completely lost on me.
  
  Even though I didn’t get injured, I still didn’t really enjoy the experience. What really deterred me was the freezing numbness of my fingers and toes. I think that if I could ski down the side of a sand dune in a bikini, then I would enjoy the sport a lot more. Otherwise, I’m never going to really like skiing.
  
  On the way back from the ski trip, we stopped in Madison for dinner. My dad had wanted to eat at a Chinese buffet but none of the other families wanted to join us, choosing instead to eat at McDonald’s or simply driving straight home. Like my father, I was not in the mood for fast food. My mom told me to look up some dinner options since the buffet my dad found was apparently too “cheap”. I understood, and found a list of the “5 Best Buffets of Madison”, in which were two Chinese buffets. I picked the closer one and found the directions and was all excited after seeing the other good reviews online.
  
  However, when we actually got to the buffet, it was completely deserted. As in, the only person inside was the server. This was really unexpected, since it was only 7PM. My mom and I went inside to survey the food selection, and it was as if a ghost crowd had come and left already – the majority of the pans only had a little bit of food left in them. Too sketchy, we decided, and headed towards the buffet that my dad had originally wanted to visit, which was conveniently just down the street.
  
  Astonishingly, this buffet was in an even worse situation – not only was it also totally empty, it was smaller and dark inside. Not a very welcoming scene. Unsettled, we decided to try the Old Country Buffet that we had passed earlier. We were all pretty puzzled as to why the two restaurants would be utterly vacant at a perfectly normal eating hour on a Friday night. “Maybe the people in Madison are racist,” I postulated, “ and they don’t like eating Chinese food.” “Yeah,” said my brother, “when we walk into Old Country Buffet, they’ll start shooting at us.” “I hadn’t even thought about that,” I replied with a grimace. Luckily for us, Old Country was bustling with unarmed customers and we finally got to eat. I’d really like to know what was up with the first two establishments. Looks like a job for Encyclopedia Brown…
  
  {!}
  
  

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