i might not be around much

The season's begun.

Two hour snowboard clinic in the rain = wet, cold, happy.

Less stupid. More awesome.

Awesome: I got picked by my boss at the mountain to go to a women's snowboarding clinic in Vermont. The mountain is paying for the hotel room and everything.

Stupid: My infuriatingly vague and pompous professor had scheduled two dates for our portfolio presentations for this hellish program I'm so glad I'm almost done with. He then decided we didn't need both and of course cancelled the one that doesn't coincide with the clinic.

Awesome: I never would've thought to ask him if I could present on a different date if I hadn't been encouraged to by my mom and another professor, but I did (after all, there's a football player in my program, and he got to miss class for practice all the time!), and he said yes!

Stupid: Instead of just letting me present my portfolio on the other date he had originally scheduled, my professor picked a date two weeks in advance of those two original dates. So instead of a month to finish all the papers and assignments for the entire semester and prepare my portfolio, I had two weeks.

Awesome: I am almost done with everything...

Stupid: ...except that he keeps giving me back assignments with the recommendation that I revise them. Which I wouldn't need to do if the assignment had been sufficiently explained in the first place. AND I am working on an assignment right now that he describes in the syllabus thusly: "grading plan." Yep, that's all. I don't know what the hell that means. I've googled it and I was working on something similar to what I found, but then I got a reply to my desperate-cry-for-help email to my fellow studets, and discovered that instead of a plan directed to him, the professor, I am supposed to write a plan directed to the students and parents. The semester in a microcosm: Well, if that's what you wanted, you should have said so!

And here's the capper.

Awesome: My best friend, who lives in Dallas (and whom I've seen three times since we graduated from college in 2001), is going to be in the area right after Thanksgiving.

Stupid: On the same damn day as the snowboarding clinic that I rearranged heaven and earth to attend.

Oh, wait, one more.

Awesome: The same boss that gave me this clinic opportunity also picked me for a pro form (a card with a PIN and a password that entitles you to massive discounts from the snowboard company that issued it).

Stupid: Even though I need a new board--mine's six years old--I can't afford anything because I couldn't work this semester because I was doing this ridiculous, overrated, completely disorganized and unstructured program. (Bitter much?)

bad blogger. no cookie.

Well, actually, I'm totally eating a cookie RIGHT NOW. Despite not having posted, or read anyone else's blog, for two months. My current excuse is my insane schedule: I work four days a week as a snowboard instructor (hello, dream job, my name is Cari, let's make love.), am taking twelve credits at my mom's university (not that she owns the place, just that she teaches there) toward my M.Ed., and have a ten-hour-a-week graduate assistantship at said university, working for some of my mom's lovely colleagues who totally intimidate me for two reasons: a) they are friends of my mom's and thus must not be let down, and b) they are middle-aged second-wave feminists, who may wear twee cat-motif brooches on their sweaters but are made of steel and will totally cut a bitch. (They are really nice though, and however demanding they may be, they always say thank you.) So my life is full to overflowing right now and the only thing keeping me going is the aforementioned dream job, which pays peanuts in actual hard currency but big bucks in all the intangible, meaningful ways. Naturally this means that I am getting enormous amounts of exercise and following it up with healthy doses of beer, which then takes a toll on the homework situation, which then takes a toll on the sleep situation, but I figure I can sleep when the snow melts.

Yesterday's all-day dumping made for a rare occasion in PA--actual powder. After my last lesson of the day I went free riding with a revolving assortment of fellow instructors (all of whom, well, most of whom are pretty fucking awesome) for four hours. Don't tell the rangers, but we poached some closed trails--it was the kind of indescribably great experience that makes me speak in all four-letter words because there's just nothing else strong enough. The phrase "better than sex" was tossed around. Several fucking times. Afterwards I could not stop smiling. (Well, not until I got home and had to shovel the driveway, since my dad is out of town and I dislike and distrust the snowblower.) I had to bust out the facemask, which is why you may not recognize me from the little cell-phone portrait there.

I don't have much time to knit, sadly. I'm still working on my dad's Christmas socks but I needed a break, so I started a Quant with some heinous self-striping Paton's Merino that I liked on the skein and now am hating. I'll have to get some pictures up and get some feedback, but the combination of the colors and the shortness of the stripes and the entrelac is just... no.