Skiing 101

In this course, you will learn how to have a successful skiing holiday with your colleagues and students. This semester, we will prepare for the Nassfeld skiing resort in Carinthia, where 1,500 students from all across Austria will convene to participate in a week-long Ski and Snowboard Course.


Pre-req's:

• Three days or less of any ski experience, the longer ago, the better.
• Somewhat limited knowledge of language in which you will be instructed, in this case, German.
• No shame. There is no room for shame if you are to be in the beginners group with two fifteen year olds. It would be a good idea to practice your choked-up voice for those especially tough days, when your spirits are low and the mountains are high.

Materials:

• Very little luggage. In fact, cram as much as you can into one backpack and one small duffle bag. Your students will enjoy looking at you oddly and whispering.
• Borrowed ski clothes. This will provide an extra challenge and incite you to worry about tearing, ripping, marking up or ruining the clothes all week long.
• It is important that your ski boots are too small and severely bruise you the first two days.
  

How this class will work:

Although you might be very nervous about joining your HAK (Handelsakademie) on their school Skikurs week, you will learn how to survive the week unscathed and ecstatic about next year's Skikurs. We will achieve this mainly by learning how to "step out of your comfort zone" and talk.

You will share every meal with your colleagues and will get to know them quite well. Never go to bed early. Always remain the trooper, no matter how exhausted you are, and stay up past midnight as your colleagues perform their nightly duties, mainly Checking-In and Controlling the students. Every Skikurs includes a box of wine. This box should be consumed throughout the week with said colleagues.

You will attend all Apres Ski gatherings on the packed Hütte decks, reveling in the sun, the company, the Pause (whether mid-day or end of your day) and the Skiwasser.

It is also imperative to attend the end of the week Disco with 800 of the 1,500 students participating in the course and your colleagues. You'll see, you'll be singing Kelly Clarkson with the best of them by the end of the night.


You will also learn how to pick up important vocabulary, so that by the end of the week, enormous bruises, blauer Fleck, and all, you can confidently say:

Am Nachmittag bin ich schlampig. (In the afternoon I am sloppy.)
Die Piste ist viel, viel zu steil. (The slope is much, much too steep.)
-this is best relayed to your fifteen year old ski group member, in a choked up voice

and other important words such as:
bremsen - to break, slow down
das Schimpfwort - swear word
verletzen - injure, hurt (Verletzung - casualty)
stürzen - fall, collapse, tumble, plunge, plummet
locker - relaxedly, loosely, freewheeling, fluffily