Graduate Blog / Graduate Life

Fall 7 Times, Stand Up 8

If you are new to Boston and the New England area, you have probably been warned about the winters already. Even if you are enjoying a bright sunny day in August, you will hear someone say, “Enjoy this while it lasts because winter is not far away”. Maybe the crew of “Game of Thrones” doesn’t say “winter is coming” as often as the North Easterners do.

This winter was my first one here, and it has been nothing short of fun and excitement. And the icing on the cake: the annual Babson ski trip.

The Babson ski trip is organized every year by the members of the Graduate Student Council. While there are some students in our cohort who have been skiing or snowboarding since they were five years old, most of us have never skied. A little bit of fascination and a bit of skepticism took over and we all signed up to go and prepared to stumble down the slopes.

About 35 people were on their way to Killington early Friday morning and we decided to go straight to the slopes. As first timers, we didn’t have a clue as to what we were supposed

 to do. But it is during times like these when the wonderful people you meet at Babson come to your rescue.

The few “pro-skiers” (as we jokingly called them) decided to be our coaches for the day. Some of us started falling down even before we made it to the practice slope. Trust me, the toughest part of skiing is getting up once you have fallen. But our really nice teachers helped us up and demonstrated how we can get up by ourselves once we fall down. The entire first day we spent trying to control our speed and hoping to not fall down. But the fun part was that 10 other people were struggling as much and we all had a good laugh at seeing each other fall. By the end of the day with sore bodies we were better off and had a strong determination to do better the next day.

After an early dinner and an hour of games with my classmates along with lots of chaos, laughter and shouting, we decided to retire for the night in anticipation of another tiring day.

We were back to our coaches in the morning, ready to practice some more and then maybe try our hand on the easy green slope. But our passionate friends who have been skiing for more than 15 years, told us, that there’s another practice slope and we need to take one of those lifts to get there. “Something feels fishy. Ski lift to a practice slope? That doesn’t sound right,” I thought to myself, but then decided to follow them anyway. The height gained by the lift was directly proportional to the pace of my heartbeat. As we went higher, I started wishing I could take the lift back down.

We got off the lift and our coaches, who I thought were friends told us, “You are now on the green slope, go!” I did not sign up for this! But as I skied down, managing to turn correctly, control my pace and stop when I needed to, I thought this is what my parents did when I was learning how to cycle. I thought they were holding the bike only to turn behind and realize they had left it and I was controlling it by myself. I am grateful I found another family here at Babson.