Work hard, play harder.

The other American [whom I will call Sloan] and I were the only two junior staff members on duty today, so we had three meals to prepare. (Meeting new guests with her is always entertaining because they ask if we knew each other before coming to Switzerland. We have to explain that we live a good 4500 kilometers away from each other in the States.) We also made three beds in preparation for tomorrow's guests, and I worked in the shop for an hour. It snowed again all last night, thank goodness, but that meant a bit more shoveling to do. My arms weren't sore at all after all that ice chopping, just my hand muscles, but I could feel the sluggishness in my forearms when I lifted the shovel. We got a reprieve later in the day so that we could join a candidate on a snowshoe hike. We stopped at a hollow tree on the hike and climbed up the inside. I could hear the crack and rumble of what sounded like an avalanche down the valley as we crossed a snowy field.

We're understaffed at the moment, and the senior staff and HR people from the world headquarters are here to choose new senior staff members. Our center manager, the Dane, left a couple of days ago. They've got four candidates here, one Swiss, one British, one Irish-Austrian, and one American. The Swiss one came to have tea in the staff house last night. She's got the best experience, but she's not serious about the job. The American is at least sixty, out of shape, and could never hike or ski as much as is required, much less come running uphill in case of emergency. I like both of the others, but I'm especially partial to the Irish-Austrian. She seems like she'd make a strong leader. She can also speak both English and German, though so can the Swiss, of course. The Brit is quiet, so I don't know much about her. Perhaps she is like me and prefers to size things up before jumping in.

We're also out a cook ("kitchen coordinator") at the moment, which is why I've been helping in the kitchen so much lately. Sloan and the American candidate were also in there today. They can't use the metric system to save their lives, and the candidate is very hesitant. It's just food, for goodness sake, and the people coming to eat it have been out skiing/boarding/hiking/snowshoeing all day. They'll eat anything, I promise. But I had to show her how to do everything, including how to make instant mashed potatoes, and I had to convert a recipe from 30 to 20 people for her. Sheesh. Sloan accidentally put two liters of water in the beef stew she was cooking instead of one, then tried to fix it by adding extra gravy spice powder instead of flour. Cripes. I, on the other hand, fixed the dinner and made a fabulous date cake. Nobody's signed up to be the cook yet. Seriously, if anyone reading this is interested, it's a year-long position with paid airfare, room, and board, so you can basically save your whole salary. They'll take anyone of any age and you get two days off per week for partaking of all the wonderful outdoor activities Switzerland has to offer. Not bad. I would definitely think about being senior staff here if I weren't so set on going to school next year.

I'd actually try to get the program coordinator position. It's also open, or will be in May, when SAussie leaves. An ex-junior staff member and a North Carolinian are vying for the position. I don't yet know which one I hope will get it. SAussie has set the bar high.

Brazil made some kind of crispy chocolate cookie from her hometown, so I'm going to quit typing and sit down for night tea with most of the staff.