vignette

Here in Quebec there is an intermediary education level between high school and university called CEGEP which is a French Acronym that more or less equates to college. During my two years of CEGEP I had to take a physical education class for each of the four terms I was there and for each one I took an 'outdoors' course.

The one for today's vignette was the Cross-Country Skiing one. For four or five weeks we got some preliminary lessons (though I had cross-country skied before) to get us ready for a weekend trip we would do as a class as the principal component of the phys-ed course. We had to form into groups of four and build a quinzhee snow shelter in which we would sleep for the two nights of the weekend. The group I formed with was with two guys and a girl. I don't remember any of their names, but I recall becoming friends with the girl (in the transitory way that classmates become friends) because the two guys knew each other already and she and I didn't know either of them. So she and I rode the bus to and from the place we spent the weekend.

For the first day we skid together as a group and in the second day the class was divided into two groups - a more advanced group and a less advanced one. The more advanced one was warned that we'd be going faster, further and would be tackling more hills. I joined the advanced group, she did not. On the bus ride home some people were in better shape than others after the weekend of exercise. I had put on a sweater that I hadn't worn during the skiing as it would have made me too warm. It had just recently been washed and so still smelled of fabric softener. She turned towards me and incredulously commented on the clean smell of me based on the sweater, where she (apparently) had felt sore, aching, smelly and tired. I was dumbfounded as my experience of the weekend had been totally different; I had had fun and had enjoyed the whole experience. She, apparently, had not. This experience of her telling me this was a really good lesson in developing my empathy.