Wallowing in the sniffles again, oh well

   I'm not entirely sure what's going on with my immune system, but it seems to dislike me a lot this winter. I find that a bit strange since I'm no longer living in a trailer in the back yard like last year; perhaps having a warm cozy house is a good incubator for germy things.  Who knows? It would be nice to finally have clear sinuses again someday.  In the mean time I have plenty of spare minutes for blog blabbering :)
   Pondering on my race schedule again: I'm thinking Sea Otter is definitely a go for this year, even though it seems like my first race every season is a little wishy-washy, maybe this will be the year to break that pattern.  It'll be fun to finally race with the pro girls, and hopefully improve on my dismal performance from 2010, when I botched a jump right in front of Kit and got caught by the winner before the bottom of the course.  The dual slalom actually looks like more fun than the pedally downhill that my V-10 is going to be a tank on, but I might as well race both just for experience.  I would really rather go to the Pro GRT in Port Angeles the following weekend, but money-wise that's not going to work out since traveling will cost a lot more than Sea Otter. Hooray for being a ski bum.  With 3 of the GRT races this year within reasonable road tripping distance it was a little tough to make this decision, but I might just take this season to do all of the different fun races I've always wanted to try like Ashland and Downieville, and save the gravity series chasing for next season (when I hopefully will have more sponsorships and a good job situation figured out).
   In the skiing realm, I passed the teaching portion of my Level 1 Telemark exam yesterday in the rain at Alpine.  Now I just have to complete some basic questions and get checked off on skiing skills and I'll be certified to teach intro to telemark lessons, hooray! If only I had more time this season to ski tele--it's so much fun, but between working in alpine gear and Level 2 Alpine training there hasn't been much free time to free the heel.  With my Level 2 ski exam coming up next Monday and Tuesday I'm going to cram in some practice time in the mornings before work, hopefully with some friends who can tell me if I'm on the right track.  I'm not too worried about it though, from everything I hear the ski portion is a breeze as long as you're decent, but the teach is where things get hellish. Thankfully I'm not taking that part of the exam until next season! Upon passing that, I will be able to guide guests into the sidecountry areas at Alpine thanks to my Avy 1 course, and see if I enjoy it enough to move more into backcountry guiding.
  Time to get off my butt and bake some goodies for the work week ahead, and make some more tea. Hoping I wake up tomorrow morning with a much clearer head!