Public Speaking

Since I was in early Junior High, I have always enjoyed public speaking. It's not something I am naturally good at or even something I always loved to do. In fact, when I went up in front of a class to give my first speech of my life, I broke out in a nervous sweat. My stomach began to churn, and I nearly lost my mind. However, the adrenaline rush I received from the horrible presentation was addicting.

Since this experience, I have began looking for opportunities to speak in public at any chance I received. Rather that was speaking at conferences or hosting Arkansas Razorback pep rallies this semester, I have been looking for opportunities to speak for quite some time. The photo seen below shows me right before the most recent pep rally two weeks ago, and the video shows me at a state conference during my senior year in high school. What you can't see in this video is the sweat under my shirt, the shaking of my feet, or the fact that I went completely blank on every word right as I stood up to grab the microphone. Although, once I began to speak my first word, it all came back to me as the adrenaline rushed to me head.

Now, don't get me wrong. I'm not an incredible speaker. I don't believe i'm naturally given some gift or that I will pursue a motivational speaking career. However, it is something I enjoy doing and that is the most valuable thing I have learned from this "hobby," so to speak. I find a sense of self gratification in speaking and enjoy finding something that scares me to death, then doing it. While this isn't an article on snowboarding, playing guitar, or riding a bike, public speaking is something I absolutely consider a hobby.

Spring Broke

I never had aspirations of being an NFL football player. In fact, when I was I suffered an injury to my lower back in Junior High Football, I immediately knew it was one of the best things that ever happened to me. I not only graced my coaches by taking up less space on the bench, but I had an excuse to tell girls for why I didn't play sports, too. Now, don't get me wrong. I love sports- I'm just really, really uncoordinated.

With this being said, snowboarding was always a tad different story for me. Again, I'm super uncoordinated, but this is something I had really strived for. I had been skiing with my family over 8 times by the time I was 16 and had really gotten to love it. I was no expert, but I enjoyed it a ton. I even loved to milk this excuse each time girls asked me if I played sports. My go to answer was something like, "Well, I got injured a few years back playing football so now I just snowboard." That's why when I went snowboarding my Sophomore year of High School on spring break with a group of home town friends, I knew I had to show out. All they had ever known was the unathletic me, and when it came time for a large group of us to set off through a terrain park in the mountains of Breckenridge, Colorado, I was the first to try and show off on the largest ramp- key word there is "try."

"You're gonna want to get this on camera" I arrogantly said to the girl I had a crush on in the group. While I had never actually landed any of the tail grabs, 360s, or backflips I claimed I had, that didn't cross my mind when I boldly took off towards the jump. I could see it up ahead with all of my friends anxiously waiting to the side as I came flying down the hill at top speed. I hit the ramp and immediately came to a profound realization: I had no idea what I was doing. In panic, I jumped as high as I could and reached for the back of the board like all the professionals did in the local gift shop posters. In the split second I reached backwards, I knew something was horribly wrong. For one, my board was already headed back down towards the icy ground. Second, in reaching back, I had shifted my momentum and sent the angle of my board at a near 90 degrees, straight toward the unforgiving ground below. I simultaneously screamed for my life and went straight into the mountain as the infamous picture seen below was taken. Needless to say, ski patrol took me down the mountain on a stretcher pulled by a snowmobile that day. I escaped with exactly one concussion, one broken collar bone, and zero dates with that girl.

Spring break? More like Spring Broke.