Memory list

Being put out into an unfamiliar environment has never really been to much of a challenge for myself, however this summer changed things for me as well as three of my best friends. We had just arrived in Amsterdam to start out our 52 day backpacking excursion when the culture shock really hit us. We literally were running into each other, oblivious to which direction to head in order to find our hostel that we would be staying in. With a bit of help from the airport information counter, we got set in the correct direction, boarded a train and headed to our hostel. Once we hit the actual city, it wasn't too hard to locate our hostel, however I will never forget this memory of myself thinking "we are screwed and there is no way we can manage for 52 days", but like Darwin would say "only the strong survive."

I'm not too sure why I'm sharing this, but it is one of my more stronger childhood memories. I have always been known to be a bit cocky, especially when it came to doing some kind of dangerous stunt. So with all of this said, it was a spring day back in probably fourth grade and my friends and I were all climbing my friend Celik's crabapple tree. Being a fairly athletic person, I decided that instead of using the rope ladder to climb out of the tree, I would instead jump for it like Tarzan. I didn't exactly take momentum into play, and when i grabbed the ladder in mid-air, my body went head over heals and I fell probably seven feet flat on my back in the lawn. I couldn't even stand and felt I would be paralyzed for life, but my friends and I still to this day have an on going joke about how the only thing I kept saying was "just don't tell my mom."

Since Dad's weekend just occurred, it has mad me think a lot about bonding experiences that I've had with my Father. My Dad has always been the handy-man around town, so sometimes he decides to bring me along for some of the jobs that he has. This summer he had me help him with yet another tree removal job. So like always, Dad had the job start of with me climbing the tree in order to tie a rope around it, while he greased up his chainsaw. After setting up and taking precautions we began our work, with me anchoring the rope to cause tension while he made a wedge cut in the tree. Unfortunately the tree began falling before we expected, so I was forced to run as fast as I could away from the tree in order to control the fall. I ended tripping and had the tree fall about five feet from me, but I'll never forget my Dad walking over to me, and saying " after 18 years of raising you, you still don't know how to run on your own two feet."

sorry for no pictures, they won't upload for some reason