Firas Durri: Enthusiast

The unfortunate corollary to a saying about New England weather—’if you don’t like it, just wait a few minutes’—is that if you happen to like the weather at a particular moment, well, soon you won’t. For example, although the Sun makes a heroic annual effort to usher in Spring, the skirmishes of ice persevere well past March’s D-Day landing. So one ends up with experiences like walking out on a bright warm morning only to start getting powdered with snowflakes upon crossing the street.

Speaking of snow, although we were strangers until a few years ago, three Boston winters have established that snow and I are so through. I hate the gosh-darned stuff. Nothing drags down your spirits like waiting for a ridiculously delayed subway train on a gray morning while infernal cold seeps through your toes (while a page-width ad on a newspaper blares, “Global Warming Doesn’t Feel Very Global Today, Does It? Get Cheap Tickets to Florida and Hawaii!”). Nothing gets your attention like walking out in a blizzard without gloves and ending up near-frostbitten. You know that Frost poem—’I hold with those who favor fire … but for destruction ice is also great, and will suffice?’ Sheesh, it’s no contest. Hell is Cold.

But I’m not one to hold a grudge, and when Yaser Khan (a friend from my high school, AIS-R, now at MIT) emailed in late February to ask whether I was up for a ski trip, I was all for détente:

Aw, hells yeah! I’m beginning to hate snow more and more every week so maybe skiing will help improve the frigid (sorry, couldn’t resist) relationship between me and falling ice.

So on the 11th we drove to Pat’s Peak in New Hampshire with the Boston MSA. Since then, snow and I have gotten to much more than a détente—I’d forgotten how much fun specialized sports can be. Yay for skiing!

I also ran into another person I knew from AIS-R—Jawad Hussein—who’s now at BU. That was pretty unexpected. I wonder how many ex-AISRites (AISRians?) there are in the Boston area. Like every programmer given to fads, I’ve been considering social networking apps—I might make one with an alumni networking focus. As soon as I find a way to accomodate that in my, uh, ‘copious free time’.