NARPs: Taking Winter Carnival to a New Surface

For most Middlebury students, Winter Carnival means having an extra day to procrastinate on homework and to party in fun locations at new times like on a mountaintop at 11 a.m. However, for Maddie and Izzy, it means one thing and one thing only — the College’s annual Ice Show spectacular! It has always been a dream of ours to shake what our mamas gave us on as many different surfaces as possible. Now, we can proudly check ice off of our list.

We knew this would be one of our more difficult challenges, due to our personal histories with the art of ice skating. Maddie had only stepped on the ice once before her Middlebury skating debut. She was six and had to use an old person walker to prevent herself from falling. Just kidding, she was 12. Just kidding AGAIN it was actually last year. Izzy on the other hand always got distracted by the hot chocolate booth next to her local rink.

In preparation for our figure skating debut, we did what any sensible NARPs would do: watched Blades of Glory and Ice Princess, fell asleep listening to the Miracle speech for at least a full week leading up to the big event, and called our moms to yell at them for giving away our leotards.

Kendall Wyckoff ’14.5, Middlebury College’s own celebrity figure skater, had kindly agreed to show us the ropes of the sport. Our dreams of one day joining the ranks of other Olympic skaters on the Cheerios cereal box quickly faded when we realized we could only move at snail pace. We discovered the Harry Potter soundtrack provided a more motivational element to the lesson than T-Pain telling us to move our bodies like a cyclone (please note: difficult to do on ice). Naturally, we were soon pursuing a production of Harry Potter the Musical: On Ice with Maddie playing the role of Voldemort and Izzy playing Harry.

What’s a wizard-themed ice extravaganza without an audience? For those of you who do not know, the hockey rink doubles as a YMCA-esque walking track for the local elderly community. Fully equipped with visors, Skechers shape-ups and yoga pants, our audience was ready for a show. Unfortunately, when Maddie was supposed to yell “Avada Kedavra!” at the climax of Hedwig’s Theme, she ate s**t. Izzy found Maddie in the penalty box five minutes later, punishing herself for ruining the routine.

We really thought that after an hour of skating, we would be able to do at least a triple axel, but Kendall told us the simplest trick a beginner skater can do is skate on one leg. It became really clear that that trick would not be an option for us since neither of us has enough balance to downward dog without tipping over. We never learned how to stop so most of the time we ran into the walls, but we considered that to be character building.

After an hour in the rink, Izzy wondered aloud “When is the gazebo coming to clean the ice?” For Izzy’s sake, we will blame her pitiful mix-up of the words gazebo and Zamboni on “sleep deprivation.”

While Izzy waited for the “gazebo,” Maddie punished herself for running into a wall rather aggressively with more time in the penalty box. When Izzy questioned why she was spending so much time in the penalty box, Maddie responded, “Character is doing the right thing when nobody is watching.” Izzy is still unsure how this applies considering Maddie fouled nobody in the course of our ice skating adventure.

We know that the start of second semester is always brutal — with the shivers that accompany your alcohol withdrawals and the fact that your nostril hairs freeze when you step outside. Remember to take time for yourself and unwind by indulging in your hobby or trying something new. If you don’t, what would be a minor setback becomes a full-blown meltdown when the person in front of you takes the last piece of hearth bread at Atwater.