So down the snow crashed softly. Suddenly barren hills of green and brown were once again in their proper winter coats of white power, and each tree that clung to the mountainside was laced with delicate white. The whole vista was given a uniformity, a simplicity of color. And for three days, the whole vista was gone, blocked out by the cheerfully tumbling blizzard.

And simultaneously the high season arrived. I went from working a few hours in the morning and skiing in the afternoon to teaching and taking care of kids all day. Two hour lesson with the Shneepferdchen (up to about 15 per group now, as opposed to 6-8 before) in the morning. Then two hours feeding lunch to 50 kids and taking care of them for playtime, then two more hours of lessons. Together it makes for an exceedingly long day. The work starts to feel harder and less fun, and at the same time I wonder whether I will ever want to have kids after witnessing and dealing with all these screaming, crying, complaining, demanding, little demons. I think I will, but this certainly isn't helping with morale.

One day is particularly crazy. A message arrives from the hill that one of the new teachers, Franzi (a really wonderful, upbeat German girl) is overwhelmed because she is teaching 17 kids at once and it's her first time. I am sent to assist her, even though I myself am hardly a pro-skier and my german is still fairly pathetic (I should note here, about the German, that the fire has all but disappeared from my learning fervor upon arrival. Partly from laziness perhaps, partly because I now have enough to survive and can't bear to learn more, and partly because I genuinely feel there is a finite amount you can learn with no teacher and no regular practice. I don't count attempting to answer angry parent's query's as "practice", that is more like torture). But up I go anyway, to help Franzi. And there she is, with 17 little monsters tearing out of control down the hill. With so many, it is almost impossible to get any control, much less teach anything. And there is one especially, an enormously rotund boy named Patrick, who speeds directly down the hill, knocking over his fellow Pony Skiers, and leaving a path of destruction behind him. He refuses help from anyone, will not take advice or learn, and hits and fights with the other kids. He is, quite simply, a nightmare. To make things worse, his mom is a screaming howling demanding witch that even he seems to resent. But despite the trauma and the tears, we slowly and surely get things sorted. I take a group of the less talented (ie talentless) skiers down the hill, and give them some turning exersizes, and it all works out alright.

But all of the panic and anxiety fades as an exciting day approaches. As Friday draws nearer, my emotions all fade away into white noise to be replace by one overwhelming note of utter exuberance. My dad, the legendary Tom Stubbs, who himself worked in Ehrwald at age 18 all those eons ago, is "dropping in" to visit me. Never has a visit (a surprise that I was told about only a few days earlier) been so eagerly anticipated. Although I am not exactly lonely anymore, the idea of a truly familiar and beloved face is almost too much to bear. So I struggle through the week of busy craziness, and come Friday, he arrives.