Blog Post #3 Assigment AW4 2009 ver 1.0.1 Final

Never Give Up

Ice-skating is the sport that can’t be played in Vietnam. Although I had heard a lot of information about it, I had never played this interesting sport until I went to the USA. On Martin Luther King Day, I had a chance to make my dream come true. However, I had to deal with some difficulties at the first time going ice-skating, but I would never give up.

On that day, my roommate invited me to go ice-skating with some friends and him. I agreed and we decided to meet each other at Downtown Seattle. Then we went to Ice Arena on bus. An hour later, we got there. It was really boring on the bus. I was surprised to find a heap of white snow outside. I asked my friend where it had come from. He said that it had been the result of replacing the old rink with the new one. When I came in, a wonderful view appeared in my eyes. There were a lot of people with colorful clothes who were gliding on ice as fast as they were flying. Feeling too excited, my friends and I bought tickets and hired skate shoes quickly. Having put on my gloves and worn the stake shoes, I got to the rink rapidly. However, I weren’t used to walking on these shoes, so I had to walk slowly to the rink while my friends run there. Sooner or later, I reached there. I stood on ice and began to move. All of a sudden I collapsed. Fortunately, I got a Judo class in my country and knew how to fall safely. Therefore, I didn’t hurt myself. I realized I had to learn how to stand firm on ice with the skate shoes first. For a moment, I could stand steady on it. I started moving and fell again. My friend advised me to stay close to the wall and let myself just glide slowly. I did so and went around the wall. After two rounds, I began to get fed up. Doing this even made me more exhausted than weightlifting. I took off my gloves and took a break. I fell hot strangely instead of cold. My roommate told me to hang on to him stable and bend my knees while he was dragging me around slowly. Having seen him gliding, I learned how to do it. I had to shift my legs from back right to front left and did the same thing with my other leg. Despite of falling down many times, I never gave up, stood up and kept on practicing. Gradually, I could move on the rink smoothly without collapsing although I still moved slowly. After that, we took some photographs and went home. We planned to go ice-skating again on President Day when we had no class. I thought I would do better at the next time.

That day was really a great day. The more I collapsed the more experience I could get. The most important thing was that I never gave up when dealing with breakdowns. I always kept moving forward and achieved my goal.