I will SURVIVE!

Well, time to conquer the fear of ice and embarrassment. Last night Delta Sig had their Annual Holiday Skate event at East Carolina University, so a few of the Alpha Xi's decided to attend and take me along for the experience. Information of my previous experience on ice was relayed to the group, and I found comfort in the fact that one of the girls going, Stewart, had never been ice skating before. None of us were fully confident in our balancing on blades skills, but Maryellen convinced us all that we could do it! Sure she said that, because as it turns out Maryellen CAN ACTUALLY SKATE! Thank goodness for her talent, because we took turns having her hold our hands as we made it so gracefully around the rink. For starters we stuck to the wall as a comfort and backup plan when our legs and feet failed us. To my surprise there were only 3 wipe-outs among the five of us, and Stewart was safe every time! =) (LOVE you Stewart, and that last one was amazing!)

Despite the slow start, we all eventually made it around several times on our own, without

the wall OR Maryellen! I experienced a moment of weakness when the three year old who was using the walker to skate decided it was time to go home. After the family left, I wobbled over to the walker and debated seriously if it was necessary for me to use such an aide to make my way across the frozen playground. As fun as it would be for me to attempt skating with the walker, my pride decided it was better to fall in embarrassment than to skate with a walker in shame. While I am not the most athletic person alive, I feel confident that I should be able to skate around a rink at least once solo! There were 2 mini pro skaters at the rink last night. They basically skated circles around me and I was throughly impressed with their ability to glide across the ice with such finesse and lack of fear. I should tell you that by "mini" pro I mean that they were around 8 years old, and totally dominated me on the ice. I guess that is to be expected, and I hope they feel I was a worthy opponent. This skate challenge I'm alluding to was only present in my mind, so they had no clue I was competing with them in any way. Had they known about said competition, I would surely have to face their tiny gloating and snickers at my attempt to "go fast". Fortunately they were too busy enjoying themselves to even notice that I was fighting to remain upright on my skates, and furiously making my way back to the exit! We all had such a great time, and I was very impressed with my ability to stay on my feet and not look like a total fool (and if I did look like a total fool, oh well. What's new?)

Here's a picture of the fabulous women who went on this scary/exciting adventure!

Bethany, Stewart, Maryellen, and Abby (Love yall!)

Adventure on ICE! =/

The first time I went ice skating was my last. I was in 5th grade and it was a HUGE deal, because shockingly ice skating isn't a real popular past time in Alabama. Once I first stepped onto the ice, I knew immediately this would NOT be a talent of mine. Balance on dry land has never really been a strong suit of mine, then you add slippery ice combined with sharp blades, basically I was just asking for disaster. My coordination (uh hem lack there of) doesn't exactly set me up for success on escapades such as ice skating, so I was that girl clinging to the wall for dear life the entire time (and still managed to fall at least 5 times on the way around). This "fun" outing soon turned to blood and gore (and my fear escalating to an entirely new level) when a guy fell on the ice and had his neck punctured by someone else's skate!!!! Everyone was evacuated from the ice and the gentleman was taken out on a stretcher. In order to clean up from the accident, the Zamboni came out and quickly had the ice back in working order; however, my legs were not in working order due to shock and fear momentarily paralyzing me all over! After a while I was convinced to return to the ice where I made my way around the rink like a baby giraffe learning how to walk. Despite the pain I was in for the days after this icy adventure, I did actually survive (which I was not expecting at all, and I'm an optimist).

This evening I am again faced with the opportunity to test my Nancy Kerrigan-like moves (although I'm sure that Nancy could still skate circles around me even when her knee was all busted up way back in the day...showing my age that I actually remember that). When this option was first mentioned to me on Monday, my first reaction was HELL NO...yall have fun though! After considering my options a little more, I decided it was time to face my fear and get back on the ice after 15 years (said like I've actually ever been "on the ice" before). Later tonight after a Leadership program, the girls at ECU will be taking me ice skating, and I am excited and TERRIFIED at the same time. I'm sure that I will be following up this blog post with many pictures, and if you're all lucky videos of me workin' it triple lutz style! I will not be taking the pictures because my hands will have a FIRM grip on the wall, and chances of me breaking a camera when I fall (not if, but WHEN) are pretty much as close as you can get to 100%. In my mind I want to consider this hazing, but I enter this danger on my own accord, so let the "FUN" begin!

p.s. This means that you all should start praying for my speedy recovery asap. Thanks!