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What is the difference? Lately I have been asking myself this question: am I obsessed with snowboarding or just very passionate about it? Obsession sounds like something unhealthy to me, being passionate about something sounds good. Does it matter if you're obsessed with something? I live and work on a cargo/passenger ship that was in west africa a while ago and now in the south of Spain, I have my snowboard and boots hanging up on my cabin wall along with a whole bunch of photos of me and friends on the mountain. I even tried one of my boots on today to see if it would still fit after nearly 2 years, still does. I have only boarded 1 season 2 years ago while working on a small New Hampshire hill as a lift attendant but when I bought my own board and had a lesson it just clicked, I fell in love with the sport, it's been the single most thought that has occupied my head everyday since then and it's all I want to do now, I'm busy looking for any work in the Alps that will give me a free pass to the lifts at the end of this year (2003) What I'm saying is snowboarding is the main focus of all my thoughts: How can I get to the next mountain and how long can I stay? Of course snowboarding is not the only thing I want to do with the rest of my life, I want to do it for the rest of my life along with something else. For example, I am a qualified bus driver, I could drive snowboard teams or groups to the mountains and then go riding with them, I love roadtripping a whole lot too, bus, car or van. I also enjoy photography, I could work that in somehow and I would also like to teach snowboarding. Whatever I do from now on for the rest of my life has to involve snowboarding, thats what I think to myself all the time now. It is only since I left the mountain after my first season that I have realised just how much I really love snowboarding. I am spending countless hours thinking of and researching ways to return to the mountains, most of those hours on this site. Of course, there is also summer to think about and there are things I also like doing during the summer, ie: drink beer on the beach, but if I could only find some kind of a winter snowboard related job that goes on season after season, I think I'll be set. Now just how good I get at snowboarding is still to be seen, I might go pro, I might not, I might just ride simply for the sheer pleasure of it, for the rest of my life.