busy busy busy

I have been quite busy lately with all of our work stuff. On Thursday we went out with Jen one of the full time staff and she did a day specific to working with kids. This was pretty cool learning about the difference between and adults posture and a child's posture. Adults are able to separate movement between the top and bottom of their body. Children however turn all in one movement. When you ask them to look to the left their whole body turns left rather than their torso and head turning separate from their hips and legs. This reminds me a lot of when I was first learning how to drive. As I merged onto the highway I would look over my shoulder to see if their was a car coming in my lane but this would almost always end up turning the wheel with the movement...not safe haha. Now as a more experienced driver I am able to look for cars without turning the wheel as well just as a more experienced skier would be able to make a C shaped turn without rotating their entire body. This was really challenging to get sorted out. Jen had us pair up and try to get our "student" to "pour the cocoa out of their boots creating a shift in weight that doesn't carry all of their body in the turn. We did one run where our student was deaf and talking to them telling them how to do it wouldn't work. This looked like a bad game of charades on my part because I don't know sign and neither does my partner so I was just trying to show with my hands and arms how the turning was supposed to look. My attempt was not very good and my poor student just about went off the edge because I couldn't communicate that they needed more edge on the snow.

Friday morning consisted of more lectures for a few hours. We learned more about the sit skis and fitting them. We took turns fitting each other in the 4+ different types of sit skis we had. This seems like the bajillionth time we have done sit ski stuff but it had been very educational. After this part was done we had lunch and then headed up on the mountain to do a "free ski" day. This consisted of the instructors meeting up with us on the mountain and getting paired off into groups. My group was my roomie Amy and I with a girl named Ashley. We spent the afternoon hittin' the slopes and getting feedback. Ashley watched us go down the mountain and gave us pointers. I was exhausted by the end of the day, there were so many things I needed to work on it was a bit overwhelming. Trying to stay out of the "back seat" of my skis, getting my shins to the front of my skis, arms forward, arms up, relax, athletic stance etc etc the list went on for days. At one point she told me to pretend I was riding a horse so I wouldn't keep my legs so close together while I skid. No kidding I think I looked like a crazy person swooping down the slopes in what I'm guessing looked like someone who peed their pants or something. It was awkward and horrible but she made me do it the whole way down on top of everything else I had to think about. NOT MY FAVE....anyhoo after this awkward moments filled day we went back to the ski office and had a BBQ with everyone to mix and mingle. I am realizing that the BOEC is very much like a family. They take care of us interns so much and really value us a lot. It feels really nice to know that they think we know what we are doing (even when we are all confused and lost). I recently found out that over 100 people applied for this internship and I was lucky enough to get 1 of 12 spots. I had no idea how prestigious it was to work for the BOEC. I also learned that the BOEC is the #1 adaptive ski program in the world. As I hear these I wonder how in the world did I end up here doing this? How did I get to lucky to have gotten such an awesome job with awesome people??

Speaking of awesome people, I feel like I have really gotten more comfortable here with our intern group. I have gotten really close with a few of the interns and am becoming closer with the others. One intern Kevin is from Holland and he and I get along really well. We are super silly and goofy which makes working with him fun and easy. Not to mention he is helping my mom plan her trip this summer to Holland. His roommate Adam is also pretty awesome, his sense of humor cracks me up. Between the 3 of us it's constant jokes and laughing which is awesome. Yesterday Amy, Charley and I went to Walmart to get a few things we needed. This was Charleys first trip to Walmart so obviously we needed a picture of her in front, ULTIMATE TOURIST =) I sort of made her do it but I'm sure it will be on her Facebook in no time! Last night we all got dressed up in goofy outfits for our roommate Wendy's 24th birthday. The boys were all in dresses that looked just stunning and the girls all had on funny outfits as well. After our family style dinner we changed and headed downtown Breck for some drinks and dancing. I had so much fun dancing m butt off at Salt Creek. At one point a group of us were having a dance of in the middle of the dance floor. All the best moves came out like The Sprinkler, the basketball shooter, the funky chicken...ALL THE BEST MOVES! Today we had the morning off which worked out great since we were all in need of sleep, showers and food (no way would we make it for our usual 7:30am meeting time). This afternoon we had a seating clinic with a professional wheelchair fitter named Joe. Joe was a wealth of knowledge and had all kinds of tips. He also brought with him a multi gold medalist adaptive mono ski champ who gave us personal anecdotes about the perfect fitting mono ski seat. This part was interesting learning about how to accommodate for different things such as shortened ham string muscles or tband issues. All of this is factored in to their seat fitting because it essentially is their ski boot and if it doesn't fit them well it can throw off their entire day of skiing. After this was over we headed home for burgers and movies. Kevin and I ended up hanging out just typing on our computers and chit chatting, I also managed to find a good Jodi Picoult book that I am loving. Kevin decided that he is going to get me to learn dutch by the end of our 6 months here. First step is going to be a dutch book that he plans on sitting with me and teaching me to read...this should be interesting!
Hope you are all well, miss you mucho,
xoxo
<3 L