I Am NOT Impressed!!

Today I have learned a very sad and shocking fact!  It is something I have been dreading for over eleven years and it has finally come to pass! 

Get ready...

You may as well brace yourselves.

....


My little brother is taller than me by several inches.  I am now the shortest in my family!

Yeah, yeah.  You probably didn't need to brace yourselves. 

But understand that I am a mere inch away from being the lofty height of six feet tall and my little brother is now taller than me by about two inches!  So he is around six foot one.  He's the second tallest with my older brother being six foot eight.

I Went Skating and Tubing

Yes, yes (insert sarcasm here).  I have and extreamly original title for this.


Well, as my un-unique title says, I went skating and tubing. 

It was with my youth group (as all out-of-the-house activities of mine usually are).  We all headed over to the church at a mite before 10:00 in the morning.  We registered ourselves with our youth leader and sat around in the gym-type-area to wait for departure.  After all kids had arrived (it was bothe senior and junior youth) we all piled into a bus.  Which was an experience for me.  I hadn't ridden in a bus for ten years.  I'm homeschooled, that's why.  So we bounced and jounced around in the stale smelling vehicle for about 45 - 50 minutes, finaly ariving at our destination.

We all piled out of the bus in the snow covered parking lot and stood still (for the most part) while our bus driver parked.  While we were standing around, my brother, Michael as I call him online, dicovered a unwelcome fact.  He had forgotten his gloves.  And we were going to be there all day. 

We headed dwn to the lower parking lot (where busses don't fit) and stood in lines to get our passes for skating and tubing.  I attached mine to a zipper on a pocket.

I depositied my lunch inside the lodge (like everyone else did) and headed off to the tube hill with my cousin, An, and a few other people.  We had a few slides down, then most of us got cold and headed back inside (not me as I had gloves, a touque, a zippie, my winter jacket, jeans, a pair of athletic pants, and thermals on).  Besides.  It was lunch time.  I took one more slide down then zipped into the lodge.  My lunch didn't seem very appetizing (granola bars, cheese, and something else) so I got an over-priced item from the small restraunte thing inside.  I ordered chicken strips and fires along with two hot chocolates (one for my half frozen little brother).  Those fries were some of the best fries I have ever had!  They were crispy-ish on the ouside and creamy on the inside.  They didn't have as muh salt as McDonald's fries, but still enough.  Delicious!

Afterwards I decided to rent skates and go skating, even though I hadn't skated for two or three years.

They didn't have my size of women's skates.  I'm size eleven women's.  Yeah, huge feet, right?
So I rented men's hockey skates.  I tried a size nine first, but they were too small.  Then the skate rental lady had me try another air of skates that I think were size nine and a half.  And they fit perfectly for my ankles and my feet.  They were too long so my toes had a ton of room, but that was easily dealt with.  Besides, I like it when my toes aren't crammed into my shoes. 

I was able to get out the rental shack and down the steps to the snow with no trouble.  Then I had to cross about fiftenn feet of snow to the pond.  That was much much harder.  I slipped and wobbled as my skates sand unevenly into the snow, sending me lurchng forwards or reeling back.

Miraculosly, I made it to the ice without mishap.  Mishap being defined as falling over.

The ice at the entry was extreamly roungh and I bumped and wobbled over it to get to the smoother area.  The smooth area was a little better.  I still wobbled, but from normal I-haven't-skated-in-several-years balence issues than the the-ice-needs-a-zambonie! type of balence issues. 

My cousin and brother were also out there, along with a couple other of the people with whom we were tubing.

Naturally, Michael was already whizzing around.  Though in my defense I hadn't skated in several years and he had skated more recently.  I felt like a beginer skater as I carefully skated.  My arms were held stiffly in front of me, elbows crooked slightly.  I stepped more than I really skated, and my torso was really quite stiff. 

Michael was skating circles around our little group.  Being his slightly competitive sister, I tried to chase him, simply speeding up my skating.  But of course, he had already re-discovered those powerful gliding strokes that send you flying accross the ice.

I gave up.  Instead of chasing him I worked on turning.  I turn to the left the best.  There's just someting about it that works for me.

When I bored of turning, I chased my brother again.  This time I noticed the sweeping gliding motions he used and tried to mimich them.  Naturally, I couldn't do it. 

Once again I gave up chasing him.  But this time instead of practicing turning I concentrated on gliding.  During this time I balenced on one foot then tried to gracefully switch feet, pushing myself powerfully along.  I also kept ordering my arms to relax by my sides and I ordered the rest of my body to relax.  Things don't normaly work as good when you're stiff.

By and by I managed to sweep nicely along.  My new technique was much more effective than the previous step-skating I had been doing.  I decided it was time for speed.

It's like my piano teacher says.  Start slow and when you've got it down slow you can speed it up a little.

I was able to speed around.  So then I practiced turns again, but this time at my 'high' speeds. 

I can't turn sharply.  Just trust me on that one.  It will take a lot of practice before I am able to turn in a circle less than fifteen feet in diameter from a higher speed without falling.  (ouch ouc ouch!  My knees!)  My knees stung for a few minutes after that.

Later I was able to nearly keep up with Michael at my highest speed.  Which is pretty amazing considering he's this extreamly athletic guy who has been able to beat me in races and nearly all things athletic for about four years now.  Athletics generally aren't my thing.

Of course I had to fall again.  This time I was speeding around and the toe of my skate caught in a crack that needed zambonieing.  Ker-thunk!  I hit the ice again.  And once again my knees hit first.  Owchie.  I knew I'd have a bruise later.

While the smarting stopped, I watched Michael preform controlled fall after controlled fall.  Several people were kinda staring as this skater, who had looked so good before, hit the ground time and time again.  I never tried falling on purpose.  Not my thing.  Falling on purpose would probably ingure me more that falling by accident.

A while later we returned the skated and tubed for a bit.  Then we felt like skating again and wished we had waited the return the skates.  That was when we made a welcome discovery.  If you rented skates, returned them, then wanted to skate again you could do so without paying again!  So I got another pair of skates.  This pair pinched my ankles and the blades were off kilter, forcing my feet to turn out.  So it wasnt as fun as before and I couldn't go nearly as fast.  It was soon getting dark.  We returned our skates for the last time and headed off for a bit more tubing before we left. 

The powdery snow stung sharply on any exposed skin as we nearly flew donw the hill.  Soon enough we were freezing and popped back into the lodge.  Turns out five minute later we were heading back out to the parking lot where we were counted and packed onto the bus.  We stopped at Tim Hortan's on the way home.  An had texted her dad to pick her up there and didn't stay.  Michael and I sat mutely at a table with our snak and waited for the time when we would get bak on the bus. 

Half an hour later we stepped off the bus into the church parking lot.  We thanked our leader for organizing this and saw our mom waiting for us in the truck.  We climbed in and soon were home.


And that was my adventure with skating and tubing.  Oh yes.  I did get bruises.  Horrific bruises the size of 2 - 2 1/2 inch diameter circles below my kneecaps.  It's two weeks later on Sturday and I still have shadowy bruise marks on my knees.  My bruises don't seem to heal quickly.

Anyways, till next time!

I nearly broke a rule (and later my hand)...

... and nearly ran in the laser tag place.

So as you may have guessed from that sentance, I went laser tagging.

To begin my story, we shall start at noon, this past Friday. I was slogging through school, as usual, pushing to be done so I could freely enjoy the fun night my youth group was going to have. After a while, I finished it. I had decided that morning to wear contacts, as I didn't know if we would have to wear goggles or not when lasering. Glasses just get in the way.

My mother drove us to the church and my little brother, Michael, and I joined the others who were going. There were the Far twins (identical twins no less. At least they were different things), Ty, Ash, Bry, a guy I didn't know the name of, Jo, and the drivers. Several others would meet us there.

We walked outside into the chill and divied up into car groups. Naturally, since I don't really have any friends at the church, I ended up going with the extra drivers in their van. So I answered questions when asked, and zoned out the rest of the time.

Upon ariving, we first avoided the slew of little kids jumping out of the building, obviously raving about how cool it had been. Then we parked and walked inside. About three arcade games lined one wall, several vending machines on the other. One of the last sides was the desk, and the last either let you into the bathrooms, up the staris to the observation deck for mothers who needed a break from hyper kids, and the entrance to the 'airlock'. Neon colours on black decorated the airlock. Rods lined the walls, holding the vests off the floor in a neat line.

The others of our group caught up with us. Cam, Tal, Pau, and a couple others I didn't know were there to fight with us. Just so you know, Cam is my next door neighbour. That's an important detail for later.

We all signed our names and code names on a peice of paper specially designed for that purpose. I was Blank Parchment.   All total, there were twenty of us playing.

The explanation dude, whom I shall call Ron for the sake of having a name attatched to him, gathered us 'round the entrance to the airlock. He then proceeded to tell us about the various ways to fire the 'faser'. Or is it spelt 'phaser'?

Anywho, to fire normal single shots, simply pinch the metal sensors at the end of the gun and squeeze the trigger and release it.

To fire machine gun style, have your fingers on the metal, and squeeze and hold the trigger. Release when you wish to stop firing.

To fire a bomb, release the sensors, pull the trigger and hold it, then aim in the direction of as many people as possible. After that, hold the sensers again. KaBoom! You've shot a bomb!

After that he stepped bak into the airlock and read off our code names and the vest we would wear. I was Green18. A lovely rhyme, but that's beside the point. The point is that Cam was also on my team. Yay for me! He plays Halo incase you were wondering, which you probably weren't, and that means he's really good at games like this. And Michael was on my team.

It was then I discovered that I had made the mistake of wearing a nice purple plaid-ish shirt that didn't seem very light coloured. At the time. I also didn't think my jeans were light coloured, but the black light proved me wrong. I glowed. It looked cool, when we played, but I glowed. In the dark. So I was an easy target.

We pulled on the sweat smelling vests and unclipped our fasers so we could hold them further than three inches away from us. The fasers were attatched to the vest via a cable thing that comunicated with the vest and recorded hits, both by you and on you.

After Ron explained the rules in a deadpan-funny-slightly-sarcastic way that I thought was funny (though I hid my giggles), he released us into the arena. First we had to shoot a target on the wall, whereupon our gun would growl 'Go' at us and start ticking. That meant we had about one minute to find a good spot to start.

Then the music began playing and the fog machines began pumping. And it rocked. I speed walked around, crouching behind obsticles and checking out the ramp/balcony things that lined the long sides of the room. I held my gun one handed in front of me and shot at all the reds I saw. But they always got me before I got them. Around ten minutes later, catching my breath in a hidey hole, I puzzled over the fact that everyone held their guns two handed. And then it dawned on me. Of course! Ron had shown us the sensers and told us how to fire! After calling myself stupid and forgetful, I leaped out and began shooting everyone... properly. And they got hit! So did I, but I didn't care! I had remembered how to shoot!

All too soon the game was over. We filed into the airlock, shooting the target thing again at Ron's prompting. Then we hung up our vests and milled out into the front room. We gathered around the TV that served as a scoreboard. I didn't do too badly. I was 16th out of twenty. Cam, of course, was first. No suprise there!

We each were given a small sheet of paper with our statistics on them. I had a 3.98 acuracy. 728 shots Oh boy. I laughed at that.

Ron let us compare for a minute, then asked if we wanted the same teams for the second game or not. We voted for mixing it up. Michael was on my team again, but Cam wasn't. Never mind that, though! This time I knew how to shoot! I was once again Green18. We entered, shot the target, and dash-walked off to a good place to start. The music started. I was in my element, so to speak. I whirled around stealthily, shooting the reds and a few of the greens by accident. Fortunantly, that didn't count against us, as Ron had explained. I got hit a lot. I didn't think I hit much though.

Now for the part that was more than a little awkward.

For a couple weeks now, I've suspected that Cam has a girlfriend. My older brother and I ran into them at the movie store. Cam brought her to laser tag.

So the part that was awkward was when I rounded a corner, having seen glimmers of their vests in the dark. Cam was red, she was green. On the other side of a slatted barrier, I shot at them, then ran off as I saw how close they were. It looked like in the dark of the room they had been about to kiss! Naurally, I didn't stay around to find out.

All too soon, the music ended and the fog cleared. We removed our vests, retreived our new score sheets and veiwed our results. I was now in twelth place, with an 8.30 acuracy, about 658 shots fired. Much improved, no?

Of course, one guy, not Cam, had decided to go for acuracy alone. He got a 24.00 acuracy! *gaw drop*

Out in the parking lot, we decides that we'd go to Timmies for some refreshment. I got a chocolate milk and a sourcream glazed donut.

And then we drove home. Or at least, back to the church. Co, the youth leader, drove Be and me home the rest of the way.

And that, my dear friends, was my night of laser tagging.

And now for my tale of nearly breaking my hand.

Yes, my hand is/has been/did bruise. And it's another result of youth group.

Basically, we were playing a type of tag where there's a zombie (who can't bend his/her knees and must walk/run/shuffle around with a hand on their head at all times) and all the rest are humans. Each hunman has a sock. If a zombie is hit by a sock twice, they must o back to the regeneration room and stay for a couple seconds. Then they can come back and be fierce again. The zombies have to tag everyone. The humans try to eveade.

Now in the first game, It turns out that An was one of the zombies. I suspected as much because I had heard her get tagged when our youth leader was choosing zombies. So when she turned into a zombie after being out of the room for a minute (a rule I didn't really feel like explaining) She told me to just hit her with my sock twice. So I did, and she went back to the room and stayed there, as this really isn't her type of game. Then I went down a few stairs and was about to open a door when Cory, the leader, burst out roaring with a hand upon his head.

Naturally, I screamed as I did that odd jittery jumpy thing girls do when they get seriously suprised. Needless to say, I was too suprised to run and Cory tagged me. So I was a zombie for the rest of the game.

Then we played it again. I once again was tagged soon into the game. Towrads the end of the game, several (as in, about six) guys had baracaded themselves into a room. They were about to close the door so I ran at it, hopeing that I could at least stop it from closeing then push it open and tag someone.

Well, my plan may have sounded good, but it wasn't. I shoved my hand between the door and doorway without really considering that there were at least four guys putting all their weight into slamming the door shut to keep me out. Cory was the only one I could really see, but a Farmer (not sure which one... they're identical) and Bry and Jo and I think Bev were in there as well. Probably a couple others. And well, none of these guys are exactly small little fellows, except for the Farmer. He's shorter and skinny.

So my fingers on my right hand were crushed in the door. Almost as soon as the door had hit, Cory had yanked it open and was asking if I was all right. I'm pretty proud of my reponse. I didn't cry, though my hand hurt like blue blazes and I couldn't really bend my fingers. And I managed to make a cherant statement concerning my fingers and headed back to the room. I'd gotten hit by well over two socks and decided to use the room to recover my composure a little more.

There I looked upon my dear hand. The joint just below my fingernail on my middle finger had a few lovely scrapes that stung and hurt a lot. The joint below that had what apeared to be a combanation of a blister and a wart that most certainly hadn't been there before. My ring finger was quite red and swelling a little. My pointer finger was also red and swelling. My that middle finger, oh that middle finger! It was swelling nicely. Very nicely.

Well, by now I had recovered enough and bent my fingers, showing they weren't broken. But oh how my hand hurt! Even now, even two minutes after being slammed.

Then the rest of the group came trouping back into the room. Zombies had broken through the last defenses and the game was over.

Cory saw me and again asked how my hand was. I smiled, a rather painful smile, and held up my hand, bending the fingers for him. "Better, sorta," was my reply.

A girl in the group called Adi looked at me and asked what happened to it. Cory answered before I did. I just showed Adi my hand. She made the appropriate suck-in-your-breath and owch and ooo noises. Then a couple others looked.

After that Cory said we'd play one more game of it. He said they'd do better this time. He had a joking smile as he said this time they'd break fingers. I just rolled my eyes.

My hand still stung and ached, but I played anyway. In that game I ran dowstairs and hid behind a pillar disguised as a tree in a dark room. Of course, the zombied knew that this room is a favourite room amoung humans and two soon came. I circled the tree trunk as the zombies went around the other sider, heading for one of the Farmers. I made a break for the open door. Bry saw me and he ran at me, tagging me before I reached the door. Being tagged while running threw off my balence and I stumbled into the wall. Out of reflex I said, "Ow." Bry imeadiatly was sorry and apologized. Then I apologized to him for saying ow wehn I really wasn't hurt. I'm sure he must have thought me slightly ditzy then. Oh well. I ran out the door and helped other zombies break open Cory's hiding spot. The rest of the game passed without incodent and we returned to the room safe and sound.

Now, we almost always go to McDonald's after youth. An and I drove there. Bry, Bev, Jo, and a junior youth, Bri, were already there. (Bri is Bry and Bev's sister) Bev asked me how my hand was. I had a slightly spacey sounding relpy along the lines of, "Oh! It's fine! Much better." He nodded in a way that seemed to say 'Oh that's good.' Then Bri, who is a fun girl and decently mature for her age (which is a year younger than me little brother whom I shall now call Micheal and I'll call my older brother James for the sake of them having names. Not that they're part of this story) asked me what happened to my hand. "Oh, it got slammed in a door during a game," I said as I showed her my hand. She winced at the sight of my red appendage. I looked at it again. The swelling had increased, especially on my middle finger. The second joint was now one and a half times the normal size.

When I got home, I had fun entertaining Micheal and James with my tale. I also had fun soothing the pain with an ice pack from the freezer.

Now, several days later, my pointer finger has an interesting purpley blue look to it. Sort of an underlying glow, you know? The knuckles on most of my other fingers were also briused. The back of my thumb has the blue tinge tio it and is quite tender. I'm actually hoping that the visible bruises will stay 'till next youth group. I want to show Cory the bruises he and the others gave me.  Maybe it'll encourage them to not slam so hard.

*shudders*

There's a spider on the wall above me! *screams*  Get it  away!  Get it away!  I'm not a huge fan of spiders.... or rats and mice... or snakes, especially snakes.  *shudders again*  Snakes creep me out.  I've had night mares where I've been stuck in a hamster cage and the floor of the cage is covered in the writhing masses.  And then I got an email about this poisonous snake that crawled into some lady's computer and died there when she turned the computer on.  I immediately pulled my feet off the floor at that one. lol.  oooo, the spider moved down the wall and is at head level!!  Please excuse me while is flush it....

Okay, so I didn't actually flush it.  As I was going to get some TP, I mentioned it to my mom and she grabbed fly swatter and swatted it for me.  Problem solved, lol.