Disaster at Winter Park

My school throws a Winter Carnival every year, where students get discounts on lift tickets for Winter Park, meal vouchers, and things like that. A friend of my invited me to pitch in for a house someone found for only $60 each and overall it was a great weekend.

As a Colorado native, I have been skiing since I was a child, but because of how expensive it is to go now, I rarely get the opportunity to go. Therefore I was really excited—so much so that I was bouncing off the walls on the drive up.

The house we stayed in was HUGE. It was only about ten minutes away from the Winter Park ski resort. It slept nineteen people in beds and there were three pullout couches, and we had twenty-two people staying there. My friend Bailey and I, in our excitement, ran up to the very top and claimed a bed, deeming this room (the entire fourth floor) “the party room,” a choice we would regret after skiing and then having to climb three flights of stairs to get to bed. Also, drinking and stairs don’t go great together either. 

Friday we managed to get out of the house by nine or ten and we hit the slopes. I had never been skiing with my friends before (I typically go with my dad) and it was exciting. I really tried to do my best and go fast and ski well, by keeping my skis in “French fry” mode when I turned instead of “pizza” mode and things like that. I even tried skiing backwards for the first time which was really fun in a sort of terrifying way.

Because of how hard I was trying I ended up exhausting myself, but because this was one of the few times I actually paid for my own ticket, I really wanted to get the most out of it and kept skiing until the lifts closed at 4pm. It started to snow, and visibility was super low, which makes the terrain really hard to distinguish.

I was going down a blue square (medium level) for my last run down, and with the low visibility and how weak my legs were from being tired, I was asking for disaster. All of a sudden, a patch of very steep moguls comes into view about ten feet in front of me, and I knew I would did not have the time or strength to stop. My skis hit the side of a mogul and I biffed it and hit my head, and it hurt.

About a hundred people asked if I was okay, and while I was touched at their concern I was also really embarrassed.

That night we went to a concert that was put on by our school. It was a DJ called “3lau,” which I assume is the German word “blau” meaning the color blue. I really like techno, but I didn't love his techno. Techno usually has that slow build up that keeps building and building until it drops and you get all worked up and dance like crazy and it’s super fun. However, sometimes the drop is low and bass-y and sexy and facilitates dancing, and sometimes the drop goes up and it’s sparkly and happy and the chord progression just makes you so goddamn optimistic you feel like you’re in the opening sequence of an anime.

3lau, unfortunately for me, almost exclusively used this “sparkly” drop and it kept psyching me out because I wanted that deep drop so badly. On a different note, the light show was fantastic and I did have a lot of fun.

I was up until around 3AM Friday night, and after going skiing that whole day and the concert I was so tired. 

Waking up Saturday morning was pretty hard, and at first I insisted I was too tired to go skiing again and that I didn’t want to go. Luckily my friend was like, “Nope. You’re going,” and I dragged myself out of bed, rationalizing that I had already paid for the ticket so I had better not waste that money. Plus how often do I get to go skiing?

After another fantastic day of skiing, (during which I didn't fall!) and once we were back at the house I took a nap. When I woke up there was already partying going on and I quickly learned that I really suck at beer pong even when I’m sober.

Overall it was a really fantastic weekend, and I was quite sad to go. It was like a magical land where I could just have fun all the time and go skiing and socialize with friends every day. It was so depressing to think about going back to school where work, homework, classes, and stress were waiting for me. 

Halloween Costume--Scifi Style

This weekend I made my Halloween costume, and I have to say it was one of the most enjoyable things I've done in a while.

I designed it myself and made it from scratch. It's a dress interpretation of this:

which is a dalek from the show Doctor Who (which I love more than almost everything).

A quick summary:

The protagonist "the Doctor" is an alien that looks like a human called  a time lord, and he travels through time and space with a human companion so he's not lonely and so the audience has someone to relate to. He can regenerate when he's dying, so the show actually holds the record for longest running TV show and there have been 11 different actors who have portrayed the Doctor.

The Daleks are a race of aliens also, who are sort of the antithesis of the Doctor. Where the Doctor is incredibly self-sacrificing and tolerant ("the Doctor: the one who makes people better"), the Daleks are sort of like space-Nazis who believe the Daleks are the only species that should exist and try to exterminate all others.

However, because they first appeared in the very first season way back in the sixties, they look ridiculous and adorable and basically just all-around awesome. That's why I'm dressing up like one for Halloween. Well, that and because I don't really look like any of his companions.

Here is my original sketch of what it would look like:

and I'm actually amazed at how well it turned out. I bought the fabric and materials primarily from Jo-Ann Fabrics and Crafts, but also got a few things at Walmart. Jo-Ann's was great because they were having a sale on Halloween fabric and I found the most perfect fabrics, which really is the foundation of the costume. In hindsight I bought WAY too much fabric, but I always worry about having enough (especially when I'm going off of my own design instead of a store-bought pattern). The clerk who checked me out also was like, "Hey, you know there's a smart phone app that has a bunch of coupons if you download it really fast." So I ended up only paying $100 for what would have been $150 worth of materials.

I spent basically all day Saturday working on it, and then I went on a Walmart adventure because I needed something for the eggbeater thing which shoots a lazer, and the toilet plunger thing which does sucky things, like grabbing things and suffocating people and sucking information out of computers and heads. This is what I ended up with:

I'm not thrilled with the eggbeater, but I think the sucker thing is super fantastic. I made it out of a mysterious item from the auto section of Walmart and a tire pressure gauge. The process of finding these items took like an hour though, because I think I literally walked through every single aisle in Walmart (except groceries) looking for random things that could work because the real toilet plungers were WAY too big.

I stayed up until around 5am working on it, and then got up at noon on Sunday and worked some more until I finished around 4 o'clock. Here it is hanging up:

And here it is spread out on my bed:

Here are the head pieces on my little sister (because she's cuter than me :3):

And then here's a picture of it on:

There will be better pictures posted once Halloween is actually over and I've worn it around.


The head pieces are little battery-powered LEDs inside plastic containers I found at Jo-Ann's, and the dots are Styrofoam spheres that I cut in half and then stapled metallic fabric to, and then hot-glued onto the panels of the skirt. It's all lined and everything, which I usually don't do because I'm super lazy. The yoke and the trim at the bottom are this super-nice upholstery leather that I found, but I think it really does a good job of looking like the rubber on the daleks. I used a really firm interfacing on the vinyl rectangles on the skirt to try to give it the right shape and I think that worked pretty well. I also am wearing a ruffle underneath to support the shape.

The main problem that I've had with it so far is that because on the bodice the outside fabric is gathered and the lining is not, it keeps "ungathering" and folding over so the neckline gets messed up. I think I have an idea of how to fix it, but I won't have time before this weekend so I'll just have to deal with it I guess. Also it doesn't breath at all, so it gets hot really quickly. Like I said, it's lined with breathable fabric, so it's not miserable, but it still kind of sucks. I'm just hoping it's chilly on Halloween weekend (which I'm sure it will be in Colorado).

I really enjoyed working on it though. I started a quilt this summer, but besides that I haven't done a sewing project in probably over a year, if not almost two years. Because of that I was really worried that I was being over-ambitious with this project and my sewing skills weren't going to be up to par. Through the entire process, as one piece and then another was finished, I just kept squealing to myself because of how well it was going. My nerdiness was thriving :) To see it come together and turn out almost exactly like I had planned was really a fantastic feeling.

I also really love playing in it. When I tried it on for my friends I definitely was quoting the daleks ("Exterminate!" "Explain!") and spinning like they do in one episode and waving the little attachments around. I can't wait to run around in it with my friends that are dressing up like the Doctor this year too. It's just way too fun and fantastic.

Sources of Happiness

My psychology class requires us to participate in psychological studies held on campus, and dictates 5% of our grade. The professor says this is to familiarize us with the practical world of psychology, but I think it's more likely just to make sure they can get enough participants for their studies.

One of the studies I signed up for only required me to fill out a seemingly endless survey, which asked about emotions and whether or not they were "good" or "valuable." The second half seemed to be dedicated more to discussing happiness, and what it entails or what brings someone happiness. I've been reflecting on happiness pretty frequently, and I think a reflection on happiness is something that can occupy a majority of one's thoughts quite easily.

Many of the questions in the survey were along the lines of, "To what extent does the following constitute happiness? Being able to buy things you want. Having authority over others. Being surrounded by people you care about. Etc." Many of these were a bit banal, or at least seemed so to me. Some others, however, inspired some critical thinking about what happiness is for me.

Happiness through Money

One thing that I really didn't understand until I started college and was finally (at least on a day-to-day basis) financially independent, is that money really doesn't bring happiness, to a point. Clearly having enough money to be comfortable is important, because if every day is a struggle for simple survival, happiness is likely going to be hard to come by. What I realized, though, is that the little extras that seemed so difficult to do without during high school when I wasn't working, e.g. the extra cash to go see a movie, or to buy a shirt that I really want, aren't really that necessary, firstly, and secondly, aren't that expensive even when only working around 15 hours a week at near minimum wage.

It's all about moderation and self control. Whenever my parents would take me shopping in high school or earlier, the goal was always to purchase enough clothing/school supplies/whatever to last me as long as possible, preferably through to the end of the year. Obviously this translated into quite large purchases and a lot of excitement, but I've realized that while this may be the only way to do this within a family for practicality, it's far from the best way in order to create or maintain happiness. Most can relate to the joy of getting something new, whether it's a gift or bought with your own money. One would think that this joy would increase as the amount or worth of the purchase(s) increases, but what I've found through personal experience is that it really doesn't. Yes, buying two shirts is more exciting than buying one shirt, but not 100% more exciting, and a third shirt wouldn't be 50% more exciting. I would pose that the excitement based on value or number of the purchase(s) is a logarithmic relationship, with the increase of excitement exponentially decreasing, eventually leveling out to where there would be no increase whatsoever.

With this in mind, the way to get the most happiness out of one's purchases would be to spread them out over time as evenly as possible, so that each individual item provides the most happiness it potentially can. This is also much more practical with budgeting, as one isn't spending large and inconsistent amounts of money and therefore has more financial security. I am aware, because this was the case within my own family, that going to the store every weekend for one pair of jeans or one package of markers isn't practical, and often school dictates when large purchases need to be made, but the way to extract as much happiness from buying things as possible would be to keep gifts and shopping excursions as consistent and evenly dispersed as possible.

Happiness through Others

Examining how one can get happiness from others is difficult for me. I've always been a very introverted person, so much of my time is spent alone doing quiet, reflective activities (such as this). At the same time, however, the primary source of any unhappiness is almost definitely myself, in that I've spent too much time mulling over something in my head and I've made myself depressed or paranoid or something along those lines. I was in a committed romantic relationship for the duration of high school, so typically if I was having trouble with this I would turn to my boyfriend for consolation or advice. After our relationship was over, however, the largest and most surprising difficulty was keeping myself happy without that close, romantic relationship. My solution to this at the beginning of this past summer was to surround myself friends as often as I could, so that I simply wouldn't have time to get stuck in my head and drag myself down. In this way I was gaining happiness from others, but really only because they were a distraction from my troubles.

There's also the happiness that comes from close relationships with other people. For me, this comes from being validated through the mutual respect within the relationship, as well as the peace of mind that comes with being able to be completely open and honest with another person, free from fear of judgment. The sense of connectedness also provides validation, in that you have x and y in common so the x and y parts of you are valid. There is too just a general sense of comfort that I think nearly everyone enjoys. So I think close relationships with other people, romantic or platonic, are also valid sources of happiness.

Happiness through One's Accomplishments

Many of the questions in the happiness portion of the survey discussed personal accomplishment as a source of happiness. For me this has always conflicted a bit with modesty, but I think generally it's easy to see how personal accomplishments can bring happiness. The feeling that one is working for a betterment of society in one way or another is followed by the idea that through that betterment, one leaves his mark and becomes immortal. I don't think I've ever met anyone that doesn't want this sort of immortality in one way or another, whether it's through an invention, children, education of others, or a new idea.

Here I want to digress into why I really want to stay in academia. A long time ago I stumbled upon this infographic that shows how education causes one to specialize more and more until one is able to finally add to the knowledge of humankind. While this encourages breaking out of the current academic system in order to find interconnections between subjects and ideally see "the real big picture," I think it properly illustrates why I want to get a PhD. It says that through academia one can't make those connections between subjects, but I feel like I do that all the time. I'll concede that I am getting a liberal arts education, but I think it's really the responsibility of the student to make these interconnections whether one is receiving a liberal arts education or not, as even liberal arts professors aren't going to make those connections for you.

For example, on the surface, or at least to those unfamiliar, my majors and minors all seem fairly unrelated, besides all being within arts and humanities. International studies, philosophy, and German, however, are all quite interconnected in my mind. Clearly, as Germany is another country one can see the relation there, but philosophy too frequently discusses politics, and one could argue that international studies is really only a contemporary example of philosophy. Additionally, much of classical and contemporary philosophy is written in German, so in order to gain a more thorough understanding of philosophy, and thus international studies, reading the texts in the original German is incredible useful.

So how does this, then, relate back to happiness? For me, adding to the knowledge of humankind through papers written as a tenured professor is the mark I want to make on the world, in addition to educating students and raising children. It isn't so much about immortality through fame, for me, as it is knowing that I brought something new to the table that can then inspire others to bring their own new ideas to the table. This for me would bring a great deal of happiness.