"As it was supposed to happen," Bokonon would say.

That's not me, but you can pretend it is.

Guess what I did right after I wrote my post last Friday? Guess, guess! I did the thing I said I was going to do, which is snowmobiling. Now, I didn't take any pictures, and even though I think my mom probably did, well, her camera and her phone are each about three thousand miles away from me, and I'd rather write this post now than ask her to send me some pictures and wait and wait and wait. Instead, I'll just Google image search "Lofty Peaks Snowmobiling"(the company we used, duh) and see what I can find. Well, I found that picture that you're looking at now. Pretty much what we were doing. We rode a ways out to this meadow tucked away between some pretty big mountains, played around the meadow for a while, then rode back. Obviously, it was loads of fun, but I would have preferred to spend more time exploring different trails that just riding around in one meadow for such a long time. And no, I'm not apologetic about having a great time and wishing it was a little better. Nor am I apologetic about wishing the snow was a little better on Saturday.

You see, we skied Sundance on Saturday, which is a tiny (for Western standards) ski resort hidden on the side of Provo Canyon. Nobody in my family had ever skied there before, and it's likely we won't ever again. It's not a bad mountain, it's just that it's near so many good mountains. If Sundance was next to Big Bear, or in Vermont, or anywhere in the country that's not in the Sierras, Rockies, San Juans, Cascades, Chugaches, Bitterroots, or Tetons, it would be pretty good. But the fact of the matter is that it's in the Wasatch Range, which includes nine other ski resorts, all of which are bigger than Sundance.

So why did we go to Sundance? For one, it's always nice to explore somewhere new, and we've skied almost everywhere else in the Wasatches. But more importantly, Sundance had a better ski report. According to the internet, they got 10 inches while nowhere else nearby got more than six. As it turned out, those were some pretty weak ten inches.

But it was still fun, and considering a couple of positively epic ski days we had in December, I'm not complaining (that much). Now I suppose I ought to write something my audience will care to read.

I had a friend from college over at the Utah house to ski and stay with us. His name's Aaron, he goes by Taco, he's from LA, and he's a good skier, which was very nice, because skiing with bad skiers is quite simply the worst thing that can ever happen to anyone ever forever and ever. I mention him because something somewhat funny happened.

Both Aaron and I flew back to Midd on Sunday, but his flight was much earlier than mine, so he had a cab pick him up at our house at 5:30 am to take him to SLC, while my parents and I weren't going to head to the airport until later in the morning.

So I hear this alarm go off in what I think is the middle of the night. Oh, must be 5:00, because that's gotta be Taco's alarm, I thought. I'll just lay my head back down and go back to sleep once he turns his alarm off.

But the alarm keeps going off.

For ten seconds.

For twenty seconds.

For a minute.

For five minutes.

For forty-five minutes.

Okay, I may be exaggerating. But point is, the alarm was going off for at least 15 or 20 seconds when I realized that Taco just wasn't getting up. So I got up and walked over to his room.

Let me explain. There were two closed doors and a bathroom between where I was sleeping and where he was sleeping, and I heard that alarm loud and clear. When I got to Taco's bead, I saw his phone (the source of the alarm) sitting on his bead, no more than three inches from his face, which was turned toward the phone. And he was dead asleep.

I shook his shoulder, and he immediately jumped up and started getting dressed.

The next day, back at Midd, I heard this story:

"Yeah, so my alarm goes off and I get up and start getting dressed, and then a minute later I notice Derek just standing there, watching me getting dressed. Just standing in my room."

Naturally, I have made sure he knows that his alarm did not in fact wake him up, but rather I did.

And what did I do on my flight back? Glad you asked. As I said last week, I finished J.K. Rowling's book on the flight to SLC. So I needed something to read on the flight from SLC. Due to the longest security line I have ever waited in (and this is not an exaggeration), I didn't have much time to pick out a book. I rushed into the bookstore, spent less than a minute looking around, and settled on Kurt Vonnegut's Cat's Cradle. I wasn't ecstatic about this find because I thought Slaughterhouse-Five wasn't all that great (but I did like Player Piano), but it was the best I could come up with in such a short time.

All I can say now is that I have probably never underestimated how much I would like a book as much as I did for that one. I finished it before I got to Middlebury that night, which isn't saying a ton because it's less than 300 pages, but it's saying at least a little bit because I'm not the world's fastest reader. (I should mention that 90 minutes or so of delay on my SLC-DC flight cause me to have to sprint through two terminals in Dulles (And yes I waved hi in your direction, Rachael. I always do when I'm in Dulles or Reagan.), and as a result of this rush I bumped into this extremely East Coasty middle aged man (you know, he dressed like an East Coaster, had that always-stressed out expression like an East Coaster, and as I found out had that particular way of talking like an East Coaster), and he said something rude to me in a very East Coasty manner, and I silently smiled to myself (and to him I guess) because, let's be honest, this guy way just funny to look at, much less to listen to.) But here's the review: Cat's Cradle is good. Really, really good. As in, I think it might be in my top five all-time favorite books.

Hold on Derek, there's no way it's in your top five. You've read way too many amazing books. That's just too high of praise. You're only saying that because you just read it last week and it's amazingness is fresh in your mind.

Well, Derek, that may be true, but if it is true, then there's nothing wrong with me putting it in my top five right now, and I can remove it from that impressive standing whenever I feel I have moved on.You know what Derek, that sounds somewhat reasonable. I'm going to let you do that.

Excuse me, Derek, I don't think I need your permission to decide which books are my favorite.

Of course you do! I'm you, you're me, and neither of us can do anything, much less make a monumental decision like including some book we've only just finished in our top five list!

THERE'S NO NEED TO GET ANGRY! I JUST WANT TO LET MY READERS KNOW HOW MUCH I LIKED THIS BOOK! And isn't it funny how even when you write in caps lock, you instinctively hold shift when writing the word "I"?

Interior dialogue aside, Cat's Cradle really is one of my favorite books I've ever read. Maybe not top five, but definitely . . . well, maybe top five. No, let's not go there again. It never gets boring, it never doesn't surprise, and it's finally really funny. I say finally because I'm so used to hearing how funny Vonnegut is, but I never found his stuff that funny, not until last Sunday. Max, if you're reading this, or if you aren't, I advise you to read this book. I think you are a prime candidate for Bokononism. At least, that first quote I put up there makes me think of you, and to only a slightly lesser degree the second one does as well. The second one, incidentally, also reminds me that Nicole may be asking me for travel suggestions around the Northeast in the near future. So I ask her to remember that if mine are peculiar, I am nothing more or less than God's associate dance instructor.

Also, Cat's Cradle may have the best last line of any book I have ever read. The only last line I can think of that I like better is from Borges' "The Form of the Sword". But that's not a book, it's a short story. That all of you should read right now, because it's only six pages long and still my favorite short story I've ever read. But anyway. Cat's Cradle. Great last line.

So Derek, how did your first week of classes go?

Well, inquisitive alter ego, I attended five classes in my first two days of the semester, with the knowledge that I would be dropping one of them. This turned out to be tough choice because I really enjoyed my first and last period of "Introduction to Western Music" (essentially a history of music class), but it satisfies neither a major requirement nor a distribution requirement that I need, and the other four classes I looked at were all interesting as well. So let's take a looksie at the four classes I'll be taking this semester, shall we?

History of the American West

Considering that your average US history course is really an Eastern US history course with one chapter on manifest destiny, I thought this would be fun and worthwhile. Might as well know as much as I can about the Best Part of the Entire World, right? I don't have the syllabus in front of me right now, but I believe it says we're going from the 1830s to the 1990s, i.e. from the Texas War of Independence to the Rodney King riots. So far, we've talked and read about the Alamo, Santa Anna, the Mexican-American War, the Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo, John C. Calhoun, and, ever so briefly, the love of Rachael's life Henry Clay. These pictures I grabbed from the swirling nether represent my romanticized image of what the old west looked like, which my professor will rightfully but unsuccessfully attempt to dispel from my mind. Also, Chuck's in this class. Yay for Chuck. AND! The discussion section for this class is in the Atwater dining hall, which is indisputably the best of Middlebury's three dining halls, so now I have to have Wednesday lunches at water (geddit?). As the surfer dude from Spongebob would say, A-a-a-a-a-a-a-a-wesome.

We started this class on Monday with the prof handing out a map of the continental US and asking everyone to draw a line delineating where the West begins. As you would expect, lots of people drew lots of different lines.

Geopolitics of the Middle East

You didn't think I would let you off without looking at some maps this week, did you?

Most of what we've talked about thus far has centered on the question, "What is the Middle East?" Which, believe it or not, is not an easy question to answer. Consider, why don't you, a few maps, all of which I found by searching for "Middle East map" on Google. And consider, why don't you, how differently they define "Middle East".

Saudi Arabia and Iraq and Lebanon, well, they're obviously in the Middle East. Egypt, Afghanistan, and Turkey? I thought they were in the Middle East, but apparently not everyone else agrees. Kazakhstan and Algeria in the Middle East? I didn't think so, but I could be convinced. But Mauritania, really? And that one map even seems to imply India?

Just as for the American West, different people define regions differently.

Geopolitics of Europe

We're about to go three for three in classes that begin with a discussion on the definition of a region. Europe, as it turns out, isn't that much easier to define than the Middle East. Consider that French Guiana is a member of the EU, but Switzerland and Norway are not. Most people say Russia is part Europe, part Asia, but they disagree on the location of the boundary. Perhaps the most controversial questions are those of Turkey and Cyprus. To demonstrate how much disagreement there is about the precise definition of Europe, our prof showed us the map you're looking at, which shows all the places that have landmarks claiming to be the geographical center of Europe.

Foundations of English Literature

No, this class did not start out with a discussion of what the definition of England is. Although, come to think of it, one of the things we read for the aforementioned Geopolitics of Europe class was an article asking if Britain was European. Apparently a lot of Brits don't think so. But back to lit. We're reading four books this semester:

The Canterbury Tales, Chaucer

Much Ado About Nothing, Shakespeare

Othello, Shakespeare

Paradise Lost, Milton

Besides what we read of Chaucer in 12th grade, I haven't read any of these, so I'm definitely looking forward to getting them under my belt. We are reading Chaucer in Middle English, which isn't particularly easy, but his sense of humor is still evident.

Things That Are Not Classes

The Ducks (who are still sitting atop the Pacific!) are playing the Red Wings tonight, and I'm still writing for that Ducks blog. Last night I wrote a game preview for tonight's game, and tonight I'm going to write the game recap. Feels good to be involved.

On a not even marginally related note (unless you consider hockey games played at Joe Louis Arena to be near-cataclysmic events, which may in fact be a valid connection), have you guys seen this?

Whoa.

Quick note on the near future: There's a track meet in Bates today that quite a few member of the Midd teams are competing at, but not me 'cause I wasn't fast enough to qualify. No matter, because the only person I care to see at Bates is coming here! (Not implying that Bates is full of people who suck, by the way. Simply pointing out that I don't know them.) Yes, Nicole is going to somehow find her way to Middlebury on Sunday, and she'll be staying with me for a number of days after that. Should be a figurative hoot. Hey, Nicole likes Vonnegut. Maybe she's read Cat's Cradle. Fantastic, someone to talk to about that book. Maybe even someone in my duprass.