Sunday, February 22, 2009

Have a Nice Trip

     Have you ever had one of those moments where you just can't help feeling completely and utterly stupid and embarrassed? Well, I'm sure you have; I've had some pretty bad ones myself! Well, I thought I would tell you about one, just to get it over with. That way if you ever hear anyone making an "allusion" to past events, then you will understand why I am being made fun of.

     The first embarrassing moment that I'm referring to is my legendary fall in band. You know that quote from Batman?
"Why do we fall, Mr. Wayne? So we can learn to pick ourselves back up!" Well not in my case, my line is more like,
"Why do we fall, Miss Beth? So we can learn how embarrassing it is to fall, and never do it again!" Yeah, my fall wasn't metaphorically, it was literally. Right after our first band competition, Mr. Hendricks made a decision. It was apparent to him that the very last set of the very last movement in our show was very sloppy. So what did he do? He made a completely new set for us! Sure it looked better in the end, but it was a pretty hard set too. Literally, anybody could have pointed me out during that set, even from the stands. It's not hard to spot a very short girl sprinting across the field, carrying an instrument that weighs as much as a baby elephant. Well, sure I might have made it look almost easy for competitions, but the actual learning was the hard part.

     The second to last set was back marching, and most people continued back marching for the last set. For some really stupid reason (and being a complete rookie,) I thought that I had to follow their lead... Even though I was supposed to be going forward, so what did I do? I marched forward, backwards. Do you see where this is going? I trip over everything, even when there is no ice, and even when I'm not carrying a fifty pound instrument. So when I was back marching forwards, something was bound to happen. We had practiced the newly made set probably ten times before my little incident. I was half way running backwards in a forward direction when I completely collapsed. To this day, I can't really explain what happened. One second I was standing tall, the next second I was on my back, flat on the ground. Unfortunately it is impossible to hide a little clumsy mistake when there are practically two hundred kids surrounding you, especially when those directly behind you are obnoxious trombone players that wouldn't miss an opportunity to laugh! Immediately after falling over who-knows-what, I leaped to my feet and ran back to my position (in order not to be trampled.) When at last we finished the set, everyone relaxed; except for me (I was still laughing my head off.) Trying to ignore how embarrassed I felt, I heard people call my name from behind.
"Beth, Beth!" called a chorus of trombone boys,
"Are you okay?!"
Trying not to become any more red that I already was, I turned to face them,
"Uh yeah, my pride is more hurt than myself, thank you very much..."
"Okay, good! Because that was flippin' hilarious!!!" Well as you can imagine, I turned bright crimson, and to avoid further embarrassment, turned face forward to look up at the band director. Needless to say, he was looking down at me from forty feet up in the sky, as if my red face was a lighthouse beacon. He shook his head concernedly at the clumsy girl who was currently failing at turning back to her original color.

About This Girl...


I      was just thinking about it, there are lots of stories and experiences on this blog! But there isn't anything that people could get to know me by, like my favorite color, or my favorite instrument. Here goes!


The Basics
Hair Color: Dirty blonde

Eye Color: Green, grey, and blue!

Height: 5'2-5'3ish

Profession: 10th grade student, and awesome band geek ^_^

Relationship Status: I don't really need a relationship, I love all my friends!

Religious Views: Latter Day Saint


My Favorites
Favorite Color: Red

Favorite Car: Little Green Ford Focuses

Favorite Movie: Movies are like doritoes, you can't pick just one. I like Spiderman, Elf, Prince Caspian, The Counte of Monte Cristo, and Les Miserables. (My favorite cartoon movie is Hercules.)

Favorite Hobby: Soccer

Favorite Song/Singer: Into the dark (DeathCab for Cutie) Sadly I don't like any of their other songs...

Favorite Book/Author: My favorite book that's not in a series is "Once Upon a Marigold." My favorite series is Harry Potter, (especially the seventh.)

Favorite School Subject: English and World Civilzations

Favorite Vacation Destination: Seaside, Oregon. (It is so beautiful!)

Favorite Food: Chicken Enchiladas

Favorite Animal: My favorite zoo animal is a lion, and my favorite animal in general is probably just a dog.

Favorite Store: Barnes and Noble all the way!

Favorite Childhood Memory: Wow, there are so many. Probably playing with Brea in her back yard with her beagles. Or maybe it was when I finished that mini triathalon in fifth grade.

Favorite Baby Names: I can never think of a girl name, but I really like the names Skyler, Rylie, and Christian.

Favorite Person In Your Life: Smiling! Smiling's my favorite! (Notice how I avoided answering that question, pretty smooth huh?)


This or That
Chocolate or Vanilla: Vanilla

Big Mac or Whopper: Neither, gross!

Coke or Pepsi : Same as above.

Beer or Wine: I will never taste either, and I'm not ashamed to admit it.

Coffee or Tea: Never tasted either, tea looks pretty gross.

Apple Juice or O.J.: Apple Juice.

Summer or Winter: Summer, (until I get to snowboard)

Cats or Dogs: Dogs all the way!

Rain or Shine : It depends!

Morning or Night: Morning

Movie or Play: Movie

Walk or Drive: Walk

Forgiveness or Revenge: Forgiveness, even though it's harder. (Take a lesson from La Compte de Monte Cristo!)

Paint or Wallpaper: Paint

Do You?
Have Any Pets: Two pomeranians that love to bark!

Have Any Children: Um... If my friends count, I have to act like their mother sometimes, it's all good though!

Smoke: No!

Drink: No!

Exercise: Yes, at least every other day. And my favorite form of excersize is tackling in soccer.

Play On A Sports Team: Yes, go Envy! And I count marching band as a sport, thank you very much!

Belong To Any Organizations: "Who's got the best band anywhere?!" "DHS!!!" "Band dismissed..." "Davis!!!!"

Like To Cook: Mmm hmm! ("Mmm" especially when I have time to cook.)

Play An Instrument: Flute, Piano, Baritone, ocarina, a bit of harmonica, improving on drums, and I can play very little guitar (thank you Jordan!)

Sing: If you want to hear a good impersenation of William Hung, sure!

Dance: At dances, (well duh!) But only with a partner, it's weird dancing by myself.

Speak Multiple Languages: Wo shi Zhong guo ren, wo bu shi Mei guo ren! Haha, totally kidding, but I am trying to learn Chinese. I know a little bit of Spanish too.

Ice Skate: I'm terrible at it!

Swim: Yep! I was on a swim team for three years, and loved almost every minute of it! (Like the sarcasm? It was a love hate relationship.)

Paint: I like to use paint on the computer, but I can't really paint.

Write: Yes, all the time!

Ski: Snowboard

Juggle: I can't!


Have You Ever
Stolen Anything: Never!

Been Drunk Before Noon: Never been drunk ever, not only that, I've never had a sip of alcohol.

Been Arrested: No!

Littered: Not that I can remember, and never purposefully if I did.

Cheated In A Relationship: Never had one, but I wouldn't do that.

Failed A Class: Nope!

Stuck Gum Under A Desk: No, gross!

Wished You Were Someone Else: Yes, someone invisible (at very embarrassing times, I can turn so red!)

Cried During A Movie: Yes, four I believe. Bridge to Terabithia, Charlie, the Joseph Smith movie, and Tuck Everlasting (that was so dumb of me to cry during that one!!)


Other
Describe Yourself In One Word: Me!(haha, really creative huh?)

Biggest Fear: Hurting anyone and vise versa.

Biggest Mistake: Trusting people too easily. I am really gullible, and I believe that everybody tells me the truth all the time.

Your Proudest Accomplishment: Student of the month (Thanks Mr. T!)

#1 Priority In Your Life: I have 3 number one priorities! Family, friends, and church.

Dream Job: Graphic design artist

Special Talents: Instruments, soccer (when I'm awake enough to play,) and designing things.

Where Would You Rather Be: School

Famous Person You Want To Meet: I would rather meet somebody that's died than somebody alive right now.

Place To Visit Before You Die: England

Song Played At Your Funeral: Don't worry, be happy!

Saturday, February 7, 2009

A "Not Your Everyday" Hero Story


     Heroes come in all shapes and forms... Superman, Spiderman, Batman; you know the rest. My favorite out of those three was always spiderman, he was different! He was the underdog, everybody hated him, yet he was so good to them! Not to mention the fact that I can't really relate to a playboy millionaire! Some people might argue that I'm closer to an alien then a nerd, but that's another story...

     I'm not going to talk to you about a Marvel Comic character that's nonexistent. Instead, I'm going to talk to you about a not so average father of two young girls who ended up saving the life of four young boys. Who is this man? Well, my dad of course! My dad did an amazing deed that stumps me to this day, it was so incredible and almost almost inhuman! The boys he saved couldn't believe that they had survived to see the light of another day, and in gratitude to my dad, gave him the nickname of "Superman," which was a very fitting title.

     When I was about two, my family was living in Hawaii, (me, my mom, Josie, and dad; Mike wasn't born yet.) My dad was the assitant leader of eleven year old scouts in our church, along with another man who was the leader; together they took care of the boys. One day they went on an outing along the "Sacred Falls Trail," and that's where everything went wrong.

     There are many small creeks coming from the pool surrounding the Sacred Falls waterfall. Many of these little "creeks" crossed the Sacred Falls trail, the creeks were small; no cause for alarm, and hikers crossed them daily. But not on this day, this was the day when a small creek became a roaring river that almost took many lives in one fell swoop. It had begun to rain as they hiked as a scouting group, the rain falling harder and harder as they walked. When they finally made their first water crossing and one of the boys slipped into the water that was quickly rising. My dad dove in and saved the boy, but they had to keep going. When the group reached the second creek, the leaders assessed that it didn't look too bad. Teaching the boys teamwork and trying to keep them as safe as possible, my dad and the scout leader decided to form a human chain for having a sturdy grip while crossing the river.

     Together the leaders went first, to guide the boys safely to the other side of the crossing... The seven scouts proceeded carefully, but in these weather conditions, carefully was not enough to keep them safe. In the middle of the small river, a boy fell over and broke out of the chain, once again my dad dove into the water and grabbed the boy before he drifted off to far, the little river was beginning to become more rapid. As my dad pulled out the wet boy, events turned to the worst. A huge surge of debri filled water broke the chain of boys and in the blink of an eye, the small creek became a full on flash-flood river. The two leaders suddenly were swimming for their lives in a river going what seemed like ninety miles an hour, trying to grab every boy and flinging them to the side so that they could go on and try to save all of them. My dad swam for not his life, but for the lives of all the boys that might have just had their final scout outing. Just like Superman, he and the other leader managed to pull every single last boy out of the roaring river. Although one of the boys acquired a small injury, that didn't really matter; my dad had just saved the life of every boy there.

     And still, to this day, my dad is too humble to admit his heroism, he protests, "That's what anybody would've done!" Despite his disagreement, I don't really belive that. In my eyes, my dad is truly a hero, whether he admits it or not.

~"Real heroes are rarely in the spotlight; they're often leading strong but silent lives. Real heroes at first look may not seem so; overcoming daily struggles, are the real heroes."