You get one shot at a course. You train in the gym all summer and fall for this one run. You freeski, drill, and train throughout the winter for this one run. You tune your skis for thousands of hours a season for this one run. You make one miscalculation and it’s over. Your day is finished. If you’re not weary, your entire season could be jeopardized. You make one mistake and all the money your parents have exhausted are wasted. This is the reality of ski racing. In what other sport, can all your preparation be so quickly foiled? You can ski to the best of your ability, but be foiled by the fact that you didn’t wax the right temperature wax. It is truly a brutal sport. But, I love it.

It takes a truly special type of person to be successful at ski racing. You have to a bit masochistic. You have to be willing to wear a spandex suit in winter conditions while wearing ski boots that are three to four sizes smaller than your shoe size. You have to be willing to accept that on any given run, you could catch an edge at high speeds and blow out your knee. You have to accept vomiting in the gym. You have to fight fear and be willing to push past your comfort. This sport is not for the faint of heart. Without it, I would not be who I am today.

Video of me crashing

I live for vomiting after a workout. I live for taking a gnarly crash and living to tell the tale. Most of all, I live for laying down a good run. Ski racing has taught me that “you can’t always get what you want”. It has taught me mental prowess. Above all, it has taught me that hard work trumps all. Without ski racing, I would not be at Middlebury. I would not be willing to push myself in the gym and the classroom. I may not be the strongest student at this institution, but what I lack in knowledge, I make up for in sheer ability to work hard. It takes courage to be a great ski racer. It takes courage to lead a great life. Ski racing has created the building blocks for my future success regardless of what my results are.

Thanks,

Murph

Today, I had a midterm for my Creative Process class due at 5 pm.  We had to write two related essays about readings we had done in class, and were required to turn in a hard copy.  On my walk over the the CFA at 4:15, I realized just how much I needed a computer for this assignment.  I couldn’t help but think back to the Disconnected documentary, in which the students wrote their essays by hand and transferred their work to a typewriter.  Sure, it wouldn’t have been impossible, but my experience writing these essays would have been long and tedious, and I likely wouldn’t have the energy to sit here and write even a short blog post.

What would typically be a very painful experience was actually painless today.  I plugged my headphones in, pressed play on an iTunes playlist, and flew through my first paper.  I took a 45 minute break to watch the Women’s Soccer team win the NESCAC title (GO MIDD!), then came back to my room to write the next essay.  I finished the assignment in the shortest amount of time it’s ever taken me to complete an essay assignment — just about 3 hours.  I wrote seven pages of what I considered to be quite good material.  I’m really thankful that we have computers and word processors that make it so much easier for us to do assignments like these, because I honestly don’t know how I would have made it through high school or be surviving college at this moment.  Although I’m definitely not advocating for more essays, it really wasn’t all that bad with the help of my little friend the MacBook Pro.

One of the first things I realized when I  came to the United States two years ago was how little coverage hockey got. Granted the majority of the country knows little to nothing about the sport where multi-billion dollar businesses such as the NFL, NBA and MLB dominate, hockey has a lot of excitement and entertainment to offer.

Here is a clip from Chicago during the other night’s Blackhaws-Jets (Winnipeg) game: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fogKPUqt0uU

To summarize what transpired; a Winnipeg player was hit hard into the glass causing the panel to break loose and fall into the stands. A scrum ensued and the recipient of the body check was  pushed into the crowd. This made way for a memorable moment as a drunk middle-aged Chicago fan (you gotta love what alcohol does to some people) reached over and pulled the helmet off the opposing players head. This is remarkable in its own sense as helmets are strapped under the chin securely- in this instance probably not secure enough – and the man was able to rip it off with one hand. He then proceeded to go back to his seat where he put the helmet on his own head and finished the remainder of his beer, all while keeping a straight face.

This got quite the laugh back home in Canada where the video went viral and made it on nearly every news station in the country. Here, however, very few people saw what may be the funniest sports sequence of the year. Interesting considering it transpired in an American city and required no hockey knowledge to understand the humour.

I’m not going to dwell on my bias that hockey should be embraced by the sports fans of my adoptive nation. But I can express my feelings towards something we all have in common: alcohol.

As freshmen we hear about the dangers of alcohol coming into college, and most of my classmates have been able to see the effects it has (firsthand of otherwise) once the weekend rolls around. Voices get louder, the guys get rowdier and decisions become more questionable.

Yes, trouble can often follow alcohol, especially if it’s consumed irresponsibly. Being legal to drink at home, my mom used to always stress that I leave the bars a half hour before they close because that’s usually when “all the bad stuff happens”. At the time I fought her on this, but I have come to realize that when large groups of people have had a lot to drink and have no where to go, fights break out, ambulances are usually needed, and cops are on a field day issuing tickets and making arrests.

Alcohol is dangerous. But what about its advantages? It’s legal, as apposed to recreational drugs, so there must be some societal benefit, right? Although I don’t know for certain why this is, the video of the drunk fan definitely points in that direction. No one got hurt, there were no negative consequences, and everyone got to have a good laugh. We are all a lot funnier when we’re drunk. We do things we normally would never do, we’re less wound, stress free and generally happy. It’s no wonder why drinking is so big in college. Monday through Friday students are buried in work. We are young, we want to enjoy our youth, and alcohol provides us with exactly that while removing us from our stressful academic life.

To conclude, alcohol is a good thing for society despite its negative consequences. I am strongly against the drinking age in the U.S, but like hockey, I won’t get into it.

This weekend, my old Model UN team competed in the Secondary Schools United Nations Symposium which is essentially the biggest MUN tournament in Canada. It attracts teams from all over the world and is always very competitive. After a tough loss last year, we took home many individual prizes as well as the top team prize. As last year’s club head, I honestly couldn’t prouder of my guys. About five minutes after the awards ceremony, I face timed the team as they celebrated. What a great moment.

Within about 30 minutes of the new presidents going up to collect their trophy, I video called them, I sent them all a congratulatory email, I changed my Facebook status, and now I’m blogging about it. It’s interesting to think about the flow of information has changed with technology as my facebook status quickly accumulates ‘likes’. Either way, I couldn’t be happier for the guys – what a big big win <3.