Freshman Year

Hey guys! It's been a weird year for me. You all saw my growth from the beginning of the year to the end. If you remember, I started this blog as a school assignment. For my last blog assignment I am supposed to talk about my experience and growth through blogging so here we go.

image courtesy of A Boundless World

Where was I when I started my journey? I was literally no one. No one knew who I was or where I came from except for my ski team. It was weird to have such a small group of friends for me but it is where it is. I also was six months post op of my first ACL reconstruction and I had just started working out with my team again. I had a new coaching staff that I needed to get to know and I moved up a year in skiing. Overall it was a pretty rough start to the beginning of the year.

But that start pretty much resembled the entire year. So the question is, how did blogging help me grow? Well, I guess you can say blogging made me more mature. If you look at my posts from the beginning to the end, my topics have changed so much. I went from blogging about Halloween to blogging about staying positive after injury. Documenting my writing progress has really helped me to see just how much an individual grows in a year. In a way blogging has also helped me cope with tearing my ACL a second time. It may seem like the only thing I talk about here but shoutout to those other four kids on my team that just went through the same thing. It's a hard process that you have to deal with and this blog has helped me to stay motivated and get out of my previous lazy patterns. It's helped me come to where I am now.

Now I have a workout group that I started between five other girls and I all with the same injury. We go to the gym together to stay motivated and work through the difficulties of injury. I've been more responsible for myself and my actions, for example documenting everything active I do in a day so that if I start to have pain anywhere in my body my coaches and I can pin point exactly what caused it. I've taken my first AP exam and maintained good grades throughout the school year. I've been voted the sophomore representative, branching out and making more friends and acquaintances, And finally I've grown as a person throughout my experience. It might even be hard to say goodbye to blogging.

I would encourage anyone reading this to try blogging. Here's an article about how it can help grow your business for any of you older people. This whole journey started as an assignment and now here I am at the end of it. I don't know if I will continue blogging or not but if I do I'll keep you all posted. It's been a great experience and I hope all of you readers enjoyed watching my first year of high school. So I guess this is goodbye for now! Maybe I'll see you soon!

Student Council

Hey Guys! So I recently decided to run for the Student Council elections this week! I am running to become the Sophomore Representative! I thought that I would tell you how I'm running my campaign and ways that may help you win if you are ever interested in running for Student Council! Let's get started.

The first thing you should do is make posters. It is important to show the students who you are and making posters can help you with that. I wrote pretty much the same thing on every poster so that everyone knew that I was the same person which leads to my first tip: do not create posters that look too different and unrecognizable from each other.

the picture I used on my campaign posters

If your posters don't look similar in anyway other than having your first name on them it may be hard for students to realize you are the same person. Also, make sure to hang your posters in the most frequently visited parts of your school to ensure that the majority of your class or your voters see your poster. For my school this means that the candidates for Student Body Vice President have two schools to cover because the ninth grade is at a different school. This leads to my next tip.

MAKE SURE TO GET TO SCHOOL EARLY ON THE DAY YOU ARE ALLOWED TO START CAMPAIGNING. This is especially important in Park City because there are so many different sections of the school to cover in such a little amount of time. I would say to try and hit the main traffic ways of your school first and to have friends help you hang posters in different areas as well. This will ensure that you get prime space in all areas of the school and not just on one wall. However, the most important part of your campaign is your video.

Your video should be your number one priority after your posters. Although some schools don't allow videos most do and many videos are the reason candidates are elected into their positions. Even though it is kind of sad, most high school elections are still popularity contests and having a funny video is an essential part to a winning campaign. And again this leads me to my next tip, don't make your speech too long.

If your speech is long and boring people won't vote for you. Try to throw in some puns and hold your audience's attention. If you make them remember you they will most likely forget about the other candidates and vote for you as they remember you the most. If you want more information on how to write a good speech and presenting it click here.

Be clever and have fun with your campaign! Most schools also have positions you can apply for so don't worry if you don't win! I would still encourage you to make the most out of a Student Council experience because it can be a really good opportunity and a fun time! Hopefully you all enjoyed that post! See you soon!

Update 5/5/16: I won the election! Thanks to all the students at TMJH who voted for me and congratulations to Matthew who was elected as well! Good job to everyone who participated I encourage all of you to apply for positions! I look forward to working with all of you next year!

Stay Positive Part 2

Hey guys! So last time I gave you a couple tips on how to stay positive and motivated through injuries and negative times! For the second part of this series I decided that showing you how I keep track of my progress, making sure I stay on track and how I prevent laziness. Hopefully this helps you guys!

So, how I keep track of my progress is by using sheets that I have created online and print out. I fill these out every day and every Monday I have a separate sheet that summarizes the previous week's progress reports. I find that these have helped me to communicate properly with my coaches, doctor and physical therapist about where my pain is, when the pain occurs and what type of pain it is. I can also take notes and write any questions I think of while filling out my sheet for the day. This takes up about ten or fifteen minutes of my day and it is definitely worth it. I found that last year, before developing this system, I was unprepared when speaking with my coaches. This made it extremely hard to differentiate between what I could and couldn't do and left me weak during the season. Overall I put myself in a bad place and by writing this I hope to prevent any of my readers from doing the same.

Another thing I want to prevent all of you from doing is getting off track. I found that coming back from injury took up a lot of my time and some days it didn't feel like it was worth it to bother putting in the work. When I got into this mind frame I went backwards in my progress.

a photo of Lindsey Vonn, an olympic skier who has had
multiple injuries and come back stronger from every one
photo courtesy of Ten Sports Club

As I got weaker, things started to hurt my knee more and more limiting what I could do. There was a time period when my doctor thought I was pushing my leg too hard and creating pain when I actually needed to do more strengthening. It was a bad time that left me weak as I mentioned before. I had to work ten times harder because I was expected to do a lot more and keep up with my team. It is SOOO IMPORTANT to stay motivated and keep yourself together. Injury is a hard mental game to play and beat. Sometimes you think you know better and that you don't need to put in the work, but you do. Remember this little rant when you aren't feeling motivated and think about re-injuring yourself like I did. It's unfortunate that it has taken me two surgeries to figure all this out but you can learn from my mistakes. This also leads into preventing laziness.

There are some days you just don't want to do anything. However, I have actually read an article that stated the the best days to go to the gym are the days when you don't want to. Some people say your body gets the most out of your workout on those days. How do you get yourself there? This is when these two posts come full circle. The answer to preventing laziness is staying positive and motivated. Sound familiar right? Here's some more information on how to prevent laziness. 

Overall it's hard to get over the bad days. If you haven't read part one of this mini series go do that for some more tips and tricks. Stay strong and follow the steps I've listed to take a more mature approach to your injury or bad attitude and you will be fine! Hopefully this has helped any of you that have had problems staying committed and motivated to your sport recently. Stay tough! See you soon!

Stay Positive Part 1

Hey guys! Knee surgery was successful and I now have another cadaver graft holding my knee together. Unfortunately it sucks, like really bad, but now that I've gone through this process twice in less than a year I'm more prepared for future injuries and I know how to take care of myself. So, I decided to give you guys some tips on staying positive, motivated, reaching your goals and mentally dealing with injury to help you guys out! I will be doing this in two parts so stay tuned!

My first tip, and one of the most important ones, is to stay positive and motivated! It's hard when you're in a slump or injured to stay positive but it is essential to getting yourself back on track. One thing you can do to stay positive is think about all the fun times you've had in your activity, this specifically works well for sports, and think of all the fun times to come when you get back! 

a photo of us doing our flexion and extension exercises at Silver Mountain Sports Club
from left to right: Maddison, Heidi, Ella, Natalie (the one behind Tasia), Tasia, and me

Another great thing to do is to work with a group. There were three other girls on my team, as well as two from other ski sports, with the same exact injury as me. I decided that getting all of us together in the gym would be a great idea since I started doing upper body exercises two weeks after surgery. I can not express how much more motivated I was this surgery than my last because I had my friends there. For me I saw being able to use the most weight as a competition and have thrived from the workout group we've formed. If you'd like to read more about staying positive and how it relates to your health and competition click here. This also kind of ties into my next tip.

My next tip is to reach your goals. Try not to make goals too hard because otherwise you will end up discouraged when you don't accomplish them right away. One of my goals at the gym was to try to increase my weight by every two weeks. This is easier to accomplish for me because when you are starting out in the gym after having a strong muscle memory you make gains in your progress quickly. Of course as you continue you will need to update your goals as you are always changing. Also, don't be discouraged when you fail or aren't able to do everything you would like. With ACL reconstruction, ESPECIALLY a revision, it's a slow process. You can't run immediately after surgery. You need to relearn to walk, strength your surrounding muscles and make sure you have given the graft enough time to heal and become part of your body before you can start to pound your body again. This can take three or more months. It's a slow process that you need to get through.

Alright guys, hopefully this has helped you out a little bit. I know it can be hard to come back from an injury or having a bad week but don't let it get you down. Next time I'll show you an effective way to keep track of progress and be sure you don't make some of the mistakes I made when I had surgery last year. See you soon!

Bogus Basin

Hey guys! So last time I left you I was in a pretty bad spot. Let me tell you, it has not improved in the slightest. Like really, not at all. If you haven't read my Sun Valley posts I recommend you read those before reading this one.

Unfortunately my prediction was true and I did retear my ACL. It turns out I need another reconstructive surgery. So that was just AWESOME. AGAIN. I LOVE MY LIFE. But it happens and the best mentality to have is that you'll come back again. Having a hard time with that but, maybe I will come back. The truth is I've been pretty undecided the past couple weeks. I guess we'll see.

Now, I decided it would be best for me to go watch my friends race in Bogus Basin, Idaho because why not. I have surgery scheduled for February 29th so I might as well do something to distract myself from the fact that they'll be cutting my leg open, yet again. 

It felt odd getting ready and packing for this trip for a lot of reasons. I didn't tune my skis for one part, usually the first thing I do. No poles to strap together. No ski clothing packed in my bag at all. Seriously, none whatsoever. It feels weird to be packing for a ski trip without anything related to skiing besides a jacket. It felt like I was leaving a part of me at home. 

When I got to the bus it felt even weirder. I handed my small duffle bag to one of my coaches and she threw it in the cargo van. Then I loaded the bus and was bombarded with questions, mostly from the guys on my team. "Wait, Maxine are you racing?" they asked. "Oh so you're just coming for the trip? Why? Did you tear your ACL again?" they asked. I can not explain how irritating that ten minutes of questions was. It was like I was being interviewed. Why do I need to explain that yes I'm here for the trip, no I can't race and yes I tore my ACL. Seriously aggravating. It only lasted a little while though and after that I was only asked maybe once or twice.

When we got to the hotel another one of my coaches announced that I was in charge of the wax room. I mean, it's not like I had anything else to do and I didn't have to do any heavy lifting because of my knee but you would be surprised how hard it is to get some of the kids on the team to cooperate. 

After that was over we just hung out. My teammates had to tune their skis but other than that we just lounged around the hotel. We also played with face swap on Snapchat which was pretty great.

as you can see we are very talented in the art of Snapchat's face swap filter

I have to say that this was probably one of the more fun ski trips I've been on, you know besides the whole not racing part. Although I couldn't actually see the race it was still pretty fun. The races got cancelled on Saturday so we all went to the movies as a team and that was fun. We played chess in the lobby and played Call of Duty in my room. One of my roommates couldn't find her way around the hotel and that was pretty hilarious. She had to call us almost every time she left the room so we could help her find her way back. A few of us went to the lake near by and swam in it completely disregarding that we probably could've gotten hypothermia or something. I'm not kidding my feet went numb as soon as I stepped in the water.

This was a great trip. It's just hitting me now that tomorrow I'll be having knee surgery and I'll be missing more memories like these. I hope next year we continue to make these memories. I love my team and I wouldn't trade them for anyone else in the world. I'll guess I'll have had knee surgery next post so wish me luck! See you soon!

p.s. sorry this was posted a couple days after I wrote it but for some reason it wouldn't post on the bus and then I forgot haha :)

Sun Valley Part 2

Hey guys! I'm back for the second part of the Sun Valley series. May I say, this race took an unexpected turn. If you haven't read part one go ahead and check that out first! Now, let's get started.

So the bus ride was fun as they always are. We played the game Psych! on our phones together. The object of the game is to come up with an answer to a provided question that you know is not the correct answer. Then you try to trick people with your answer and guess the correct one out of all the answers given by the players as well as the one correct answer provided by the app. It sounds complicated but you guys should try it out sometime because it's really fun. 

When we got to the hotel we all went to the wax room to scrap our skis. I unfortunately didn't get a table so I went to go get groceries for my roommate and I while she was in the wax room. Well guess who couldn't find the market? Yeah, that's right, me. I swear I probably would have been a good two miles off if the same coach that gave me that pep talk I told you about last time didn't find me and ask what I was doing. Talk about embarrassing. The market was literally like two blocks from the hotel. So that was just great. 

Ok anyway, it's the next day: race day. We raced GS first since it's easier and safer to go from bigger turns to smaller ones. It sucked. I skied like a little girl who just started racing. It was really awful. I thought hey, maybe the slalom won't be as bad right? Wrong. The first day of slalom was pretty bad too. I skied slightly better than I did on the first day. I did have a good second run and I felt pretty good about the next day. Well, I was wrong to think that maybe I could have done at all ok at this race. On Sunday, the first half of my first run was pretty fast, but it was sloppy. I was in back seat and before I knew it I was only fifteen or twenty gates from the finish. That's where it happened. Where I fell, and where I'm pretty sure I retore the same ACL as I did last year. I was devastated. Unlike the first time it happened there was no hope that maybe it could be ok. "Maybe it's just the MCL which has a significantly faster healing time," they said. But no, I knew right from that moment that I would be starting over again with same process I went through last year. I was crushed. Here's an interesting article on ACL tears in sports right now incase your interested.

a picture I took on the way back from Sun Valley

The bus ride back was quiet. My roommate also tore her ACL the day before me so it was a little weird on the bus. Although, somehow a guy on the team ended up in those compartments above the bus that hold your carry-on bags and that was pretty fun.

So here I am on Tuesday. It's been over a week since my crash in Sun Valley. I'm waiting for an MRI result that will no doubt prove I tore my ACL again. AWESOME. I JUST LOVE MY LIFE RIGHT NOW. I guess I'll keep you guys updated on how this all plays out. See you soon.

Sun Valley Part 1

Hey guys! It's been a little while hasn't it? Well, I'd be wrong if I said a lot hasn't happened over this small amount of time . . . how about I start with the Sun Valley race that my team is at this weekend. I've decided to write this in a two-part series where you hear the training portion now and the race portion in the second part. Basically, as I'm writing this I'm on the bus and it's been about an hour since we left Park City.

So this trip has started pretty bad for me. After our last race, the Wes Barron Super-G, a speed race, in Jackson Hole, my skiing had been really amazing. 

this is an image of a speed race, the wider and straight set turns are a characteristic of these events
image courtesy of Vail Valley Foundation

Now, speed is kind of my thing and last season I noticed that after we started speed my skiing in all disciplines improved tremendously, especially in slalom. For awhile training was great. Everything just seemed to fall into place. I didn't have any issues with confidence in training, but soon after we started training GS, a tech discipline, on CB's. I tore my ACL on CB's last year and as you can imagine I was not the most confident starting a course at the same exact place as the one from last year. Actually, I was terrified. For me fear = terrible, back seat skiing, and terrible, back seat skiing = bad training. So overall my technique leading into the Sun Valley qualifier was in bad shape.

Now, two days before our departure for the race we trained GS on Shamus, another run at Park City. At the start of training my runs were pretty awful, but as the session went on my skiing improved significantly. I started to look and feel like myself again. I felt like maybe I could do somewhat decent at this race, you know? Knowing I was pretty freaked out about how bad my prep for the race had been that week, one of my coaches gave me a pretty great pep talk. He told me how NCAA studs would go to NorAms, a series of races in North America, and be completely unprepared mentally to face these other skiers. They all have talent and the skill set to do well, but they get destroyed by the other competitors. My coach said that it takes some of them a few days to get over their "slump" and it takes others a few months. He told me to try and get a good day of training in tomorrow and see where it leads me. He said not worry if these results aren't what I want them to be because speed is where I perform. It felt pretty good to know my coaches were behind while I was in my own slump.

Finally, it was time to leave Park City for Sun Valley. We loaded up the bus and said goodbye to our families. My parents decided to come up to Sun Valley on their own for Friday's race so I knew I would see them soon. 

Alright guys, stay tuned as the race continues and I'll give you an update after the race is over! See you soon!

Dear . . .

Dear Bode Miller,

I can not explain how much I aspire to be as good at alpine skiing as you. You literally have no fear hurling down a course like Birds of Prey. It is honestly incredible.

Watching you ski is probably one of the most motivating things you can do. It helps me to get aggressive during training and the night before a race. I especially like to watch the run from 2003 when you finish a downhill race on one ski. It reminds me to never give up in a course no matter how big the mistake I've made is.

image courtesy of www.skinet.com

This run also reminds me that no one is perfect. One of the main reasons you're my favorite world cup racer is because you make mistakes and still make it on the podium. If I were to watch Mikaela Shiffrin ski slalom as my motivation it wouldn't work because I know I can't ski slalom that cleanly yet. It just puts me down. However, when I watch you ski I feel like we have a similar style of skiing and the mistakes I make somewhat resemble yours (your mistakes of course being on much more difficult course and hill).

I also admire how you stood up to the US Ski Team. Haha I have to be careful here because I eventually want to be part of that team but I thought it was pretty cool. As I get older I realize just how political ski racing is and I think it was a bold move for you to train on your own.

You also have some pretty gnarly crashes and surprisingly got out of most of them alright. For example, that race when you cut a gash into your calf. I mean, that's pretty f****** awesome. Like I don't know how you managed to cut yourself with your ski and recover so quickly but it was pretty bad a**. Like, I've been injured once before and it's so hard to motivate yourself after that. I think it's pretty awesome how you kept going through all your years of ski racing.

I'm sad to see you retiring from the sport though. I mean, I can understand why. It's hard to constantly be getting beat up by ruts and steep pitches. Falling only gets harder on your body. But, although not possible I wish you would never retire. That way I'll have endless motivational video for me to watch :)

I hope my blog reminds you of a younger you. Although I'm a girl I hope that this blog takes you back to your U16 (J4/J3 back then) years. I hope you'll come back to read my blog and see as I progress through the world of ski racing as you did.

Thanks for reading my blog,
Max

Snowbasin

Hey guys! The Park City U16 Alpine Ski Team went to Snowbasin for our first qualifier of the 2015-16 season. It was pretty exciting.

the Snowbasin trail map
image courtesy of liftopia

I'm super excited to tell you that I it was my first race since acl reconstructive surgery. I tore my acl last season in February and it was the worst experience of my short life. If you don't know what goes down in acl reconstructive surgery they basically take a "new ligament" and replace the old one with screws and plates and stuff. It never feels normal again and that's why is was so great getting back to races.

So anyway, we usually travel as a team to races but this time we traveled with our parents since Snowbasin is only about an hour away. We got to the mountain and went into the lodge with the sign marked "event parking only" and it already felt like it was going to be a good day. It's also pretty great remembering that you're out doing what you love and other kids are in school haha. I was a little late on the first day because we had to stop for windshield wiper fluid along the way. I quickly got ready in the lodge, grabbed my bib and my pass and head out for course inspection.

The first race was giant slalom and the run looked really nice. As my first race I was pretty excited, yeah I know it seems like I get excited easily, when the course was set nice and straight. For those of you that are not ski racers a straight course basically means that the turns are not as across the hill. Makes sense right?

The next thing that helped me feel pretty confident was the fact that the race hill wasn't all that steep. Being from Pennsylvania I find it hard to get used to the pitches of the Intermountain Division.

The one thing that definitely didn't boost my confidence was my start number. I ran eighty second on my first run and that was awful. Because my start number was so far back the ruts, chunks and lines in the course, were really bad. I suffered a pretty bad mistake at the top of the course and it cost me. I came in thirty seventh. Honestly, it wasn't too bad for my first run back but I wanted to do better.

On my second run I ran thirty seventh since that was where I finished. To my pleasant surprise I came in twenty sixth that run and finished in the same position. Overall Friday was a pretty good day.

Unfortunately Saturday and Sunday weren't as great but there's still a long season ahead of us. I hope you enjoyed my little post on my first race back. I'm confident this'll be a good season. See you soon!

New Year's Resolutions

Hey guys! This time I've decide to rant on some New Year's resolutions. I hate them. I don't know what it is about them but I can not stand them. I feel like you should try new things and make good choices all throughout the year, not just after the new year starts. I'm going to go through a couple of common resolutions that I think are just plain dumb. So lets get started.

image courtesy of The Odyssey

1. Lose Weight/Exercise/Diet/Be Healthier

This is the big one that I don't understand. You shouldn't need to wait until the new year to be healthy. You should try to eat healthy as much as you can. I feel like this is a big way that people start their new year off wrong. Chances are you're going to go all out and try the paleo diet when you're not ready for it. Then people get upset when they don't stick to their new and healthy lifestyle and some even gain more weight from binge eating. If you really want to lose weight, exercise and diet you should gradually ease into it and the sooner you do it the sooner the results will come. If you think about your resolution to be healthier at the beginning of December you should start then. That way when January 1 of the new year comes around you'll already be seeing results.

2. Learn Something New

Do I really need to explain this one? There are chances to learn something new everyday. You can literally go on this thing called the internet now and find ANY information you want. Just go to a news publisher, for example The Wall Street Journal, and choose an article to read. THAT'S LEARNING PEOPLE. You obtain new information when you read. I think that wanting to learn is great but it shouldn't be a resolution.

3. Help Others

UGH. Why do people need the new year to start helping others. Even if you volunteer once a month you're still helping someone. You don't even have to volunteer to help others. Hold a door open for someone and that's helping them. Yeah, it may not be a great act to humanity but you're still helping somebody. Also, just smiling at people may help them. I've heard a story about a boy who didn't think he should live because no one was kind to him. He decided to walk to a bridge near by and made a plan. If just one person smiled at him on his walk to the bridge he wouldn't jump. If no one did, he would. He committed suicide. Being kind helps others and it shouldn't be a New Year's resolution.

Sorry to end that on a sad note but that's one of the reasons I don't believe in New Year's resolutions. They basically give your lazy butt an excuse from doing something. If you want to accomplish something just do it. It's unfortunate that we live in a world were we need motivation to do things that should be human nature. I hope you guys take these words to heart. Thanks for listening to my long rant on New Year's resolutions. See you soon!

p.s. I know that started as a light hearted rant on New Year's resolution but really think about what I said.

The Struggles of Blowing Bubbles

Hey guys! I've decided not continue onto my second part of the Jackson Hole Trip series because it happened a little while ago and I felt that post wasn't really going anywhere. So that leaves me at this one. It's a little short story about a drive with my dad. I hope you enjoy it!

So, as some of you know I live in Park City, UT which is about a forty-five minute drive to Salt Lake City. My mom works is Salt Lake and because we only have one car right now, a silver Mini Cooper with a black convertible top, we drive to there to pick up my mom just about everyday. These car rides hold various conversations like the one in my Dad Jokes post.

Now as my dad and I were rambling through a unrelated conversation I blew a bubble with my gum. For some of you not very exciting, but for that small percentage of people who through their whole childhood could not blow bubbles, you people are not alone. I am with you.

Since I was about five I have been trying

image courtesy of confertionarynews.com

soooooo hard to blow bubbles. Like, it got a little ridiculous. I tried to get my nannies through the years to teach me and they've all failed. Literally all of them. All of them had different ways of trying to go about it. For example, one way they tried to teach me was to make the gum into a flat oval type shape. Then you get it on the tip of your tongue and hold the edges of the oval with your teeth. Finally you just blow air out. You're probably thinking one of four things: I have no idea what that means, that sounds so easy, yeah that's how I do it or YEAH I'VE HAD PEOPLE TRY TO TEACH ME IT THAT WAY AND IT DOESN'T WORK. Well, I agreed with later until this card ride. There are a couple others tips that you can check them out here.

I could never get that sequence quite correct and was the most frustrating experience for a kindergartner ever. If you can't blow bubbles with your gum you understand. Keep trying, it eventually does work.

So anyway, my dad and I are in the care when BOOM I blow a bubble. I freaked out. I was just like, "OH MY GOD DAD NO WAY I JUST BLEW A BUBBLE." He just about looked at me like I had six heads. A little puzzled he asked me to explain and when I did he responded with a chuckle. I know it's not that great of an accomplishment but I did it. 

I finally blew a bubble. I must have Snapchatted like ten people telling them how stoked I was and the majority of them responded as my dad did. Now this is when the bubble, haha get it like the bubble I blew with my gum, bursts. I was so excited and decided to explain to my dad how its so much harder to blow a bubble with more gum. He looked at me, again, as if I had six heads.

"Max, you know it's easier to blow a bubble the more gum you have," said my dad.

My heart sank. I mean his explanation was logical and I did have about five pieces of gum in my mouth. Such a let down. At least I did it though, after fourteen years of life I was finally able to blow a bubble with gum.

Just because I think you guys will this funny, I was on FaceTime with a friend while writing this post and just hit myself in the face with my phone. So just to wrap up that sentence, I am a pathetic nerd who can't blow bubbles with gum and hits myself in the face with my phone. So, yeah you know that's my life right there. I hope you guys enjoyed my anecdote (ooooooo vital vocab points right there). See you soon!

Jackson Hole Trip Part 1

Hey Guys! As some of you may or may not know I am on the Park City Ski Team and we had a training camp this past week (ish) at Snow King in Jackson, WY. Let me tell you, it was a pretty fun camp.

a picture of Snow King during ski season
image courtesy of jacksonholetraveler.com

In February of this year I tore my anterior cruciate ligament (acl) and if you don't know it takes about seven months, after surgery, before you can go back to playing sports. It's been just about seven and a half months since I tore my acl and this ski camp was my first opportunity to train since my surgery. 

Loading up the van in Park City was one of the scariest things I've ever done. I had a couple issues with my knee recently and had been worried about skiing on it, but my doctor cleared me for Jackson and I decided to go. We packed all of our stuff into our U-Haul: two pairs of skis, two pairs of poles, my boot bag, my tuning box and my duffle bag. As if that wasn't enough, I also had a bag in the van with me which consisted of all my school stuff. 

My in-car bag broke and while I ran to Cole Sport to get a new one everyone took their seats leaving me in the very back corner next to all the guys. There were only THREE girls in our red van. Already this trip sounds interesting huh?

Well I dealt with my seat and it wasn't all that bad. We had fun playing gangster rap and playfully making fun of each other for the whole five hour trip. Although, there were a few arguments about what music we should be listening to.

ANYWAY, we finally made it to Jackson where I found out River was my roommate! This was pretty exciting because River and I get along pretty well.

Then it was time to go to bed on the first and I was really nervous. Like, REALLY nervous. It was pretty scary to think I was going to be skiing again because that's how I injured my knee.

I woke up the following morning, got ready and made my way out to the big red van to leave for Snow King. And then . . . 

Stay tuned for Part 2! I'll tell you guys about believing in my knee again and of course all the fun stuff that happened in our free time! See you soon!

Dad Jokes

Hey guys! So the other day I was in the car with my dad when I realized just how stupid some dad jokes in the world are and I thought hey I should blog about this.

Somehow dads seem to think that it's funny to embarrass and make fun of you. In a nice way of course. I remember this one time in like kindergarten when my dad kept using that snot joke. You know, the one where they pretend to hear "snot" instead of "it's not". That was when all these dad jokes really started for me.

Now, I know they're not all THAT bad, but it's really annoying when your dad is laughing at you for having a monstrous pimple like I did in the car the other day. But it gets pretty annoying when that is all you hear about the entire car ride to Salt Lake City (about twenty-five to thirty minutes from where I live). 

Then there are those dumb dad jokes like the one in the photo over

image courtesy of 98five.com

there. Those are the jokes that really get me annoyed. Something about them just bothers me. I mean, I guess they are a little funny. It's almost like the thing that bothers me the most is that the answer is always SO obvious that it leaves you feeling stupid afterwards.
For example: "Why can't you hear a pterodactyl use the bathroom? Because the pee is silent!" Like why couldn't I think of that?

I always feel so awkward when I'm with my friends and their dad makes a joke that isn't good but you have to laugh. You know, trying to be polite to your friend's dad. We all know secretly that every dad does that. And when they know it's corny but they say it anyway.Yeah, we all know that most dads do that too.

Overall dad jokes leave me pretty annoyed which is why I was almost in tears when my dad started using them again. We were in the car and he said, "Do you like seafood?" and opened his mouth showing me the sushi we were eating in the car. I pretty much face palmed. My dad has never really been THAT corny but rather decides to act that way and embarrass me in front of my friends. I guess it's just typical dad stuff that happens right? 

I hope you enjoyed my rant about dad jokes. I guess they're a little addicting because when I was writing this I couldn't stop looking at this page. Let me know in the comments if your dad makes terrible, corny dad jokes and we can cringe over it together haha. See you soon!

Cracked Porcelain Doll Halloween Costume Part 2

Hey guys! I'm back with part two of my Halloween make up! Enjoy!

Next you're going to want to draw the cracks on your face using black body paint or a liquid eye liner. If you decide to use black body paint, make sure not to add too much water.

A pretty creepy version of me with the doll make up on

When you have the correct consistency, take a very fine paint brush and paint on the cracks until you're satisfied. This takes a lot of work so be sure to practice as much as you can. For the picture to the right I didn't paint my neck, but like I said in part one it is a good idea to. Otherwise you look very odd. It is A LOT easier to do this look if you reference something because then you won't over do it. I referenced Madeyewlook in her video and I believe she referenced dolls from a video game. You could also try looking up cracked porcelain dolls on Google to make them as realistic as possible.

After you've finished painting the cracks you can start to make even more realistic by shading around them. You can accentuate the deep holes that the cracks are supposed to be making by leaving a thin line between the actual crack and the shading. Also, make the shading closer to the crack darker and fade it out to make it look like a nice shadow.

A final finishing touch that leaves your make up looking really creepy-porcelain-doll-ish is putting some gray eyeshadow in your laugh lines, dimples, and forehead lines (if you have these). It adds the affect that you're always smiling and is creepy to the max.

I also decided to tell you guys about my Halloween dress on this post because why not right? As you may or may not know I got my dress at a store called Dressed in White. A lot of the dresses there look kind of like old night gowns, and literally EVERYTHING was white. Now, I picked a dress that was all the way down to my feet and I thought it would be cute to pin it up underneath and have a certain puffiness to it. It actually turned out pretty cute and I recommend this method. I wore sheer white stockings and Mary Jane looking flats. I decided to curl my hair as a finishing touch, but that's totally up to you. 

Well I hope you enjoyed my two part tutorial! Let me know in the comments if you would like to see another tutorial like this one and if you decide to do this look for Halloween! See you soon!

Cracked Porcelain Doll Halloween Costume Part 1

Hey guys! Like I said in my last post I'm going to give you guys a tutorial on how to put together a cracked porcelain doll costume. I'll also include my tips and tricks on how to make sure you costume is the best it can be. I'll be doing this post in two parts: the base layer of make up and the details. So let's get started!

Porcelain Doll Make Up

Now for the make up look you don't have to go out and buy all of the items listed below. I'll make two lists for what you definitely need and another for what isn't necessary but will make your look a hundred times better. DO NOT feel obligated to go buy everything on this list because that could be very costly. FYI this look is supposed to look creepy so don't judge the pictures.

What You'll Need:

• white face paint (for the brand I used click here)
• foundation brush
• black liquid eyeliner

100x Better:

• black face paint
• translucent setting powder
• matt pink blush
• grey eyeshadow 
• white eyeliner pencil
• black eyeliner pencil
• baby pink lip stick/stain
• small detail brush
• eye shadow brush
• powder brush
• fake eye lashes

Now like I said before DO NOT feel obligated to get all of this. The first list is the most basic you can get with this look. You can also pick and choose what you want out of the second list. There's no make up nazi that's going to yell at you if you decide to do it differently than I did so do whatever you feel comfortable with.

I will be writing the tutorial based on having all of the items listed above but if you choose to do less simply skip the parts where I use the other materials.

Tutorial:

                           

this is what the base should look like

First you're going to want to paint your face with the white face paint using your foundation brush. After you have a base of white that you like go over it with your translucent setting powder using your powder brush. This will give you a similar appearance to that of porcelain and will help your make up stay put. Make sure to cover your neck and ears because other wise it looks plain weird. Don't worry about covering your eyes because if you do it will crease. Also, I know this picture is really weird looking but you'll see how much better it looks with the cracks later on. I was also trying really hard not to laugh and that's why my face looks so dreary. And just so you know I am NOT cross eyed ughhh. 

where to put the blush on your checks

After you have your base you'll want to apply a thick layer of blush on the apples of your cheeks. This will give you a creepy look. I also chose to spread the blush out and up from the apples of my cheeks but that's a style choice and completely up to you. By the way, I know that picture is even weirder than the first on but you couldn't see the blush other wise.

The next step is do your eyes. Using a light grey shadow and my eye shadow brush I applied a light coat of the color on my lid. I then went in with a darker grey and put it in my crease for some definition. Because I had the shadow out I went ahead and put the lighter grey under my eye so that they appear to be bulging out more.

Then once you're done with the shadow you can apply some pencil liner in your tight line (the thin line of skin under your top lashes that rests really close to your eyes) on both of eyes. Apply liquid liner to the eyes with a slight wing. Last, coat your eyes with mascara an the eyes are done for now!

To be continued . . . see you soon!

The Process of Buying a Halloween Costume

Hey guys! So, it's just about that time of year when all the little kids in your neighborhood come to your door asking for candy.

image courtesy of wholelifechallenge.com

Yeah, Halloween. Now I happen to love Halloween. It's that one time of year when you can make yourself look absolutely ridiculous and no one looks twice. Now this year I was pretty sad when I didn't automatically have a costume idea. I guess that's when you know you're a little too old to be dressing up and going out trick or treating with your friends. But who cares right? So I had to come up with a costume.

Now this was the hard part. I came up with two ideas that I thought were pretty cool. The first was to be a sugar skull. I was pretty much set on this one until I found out that someone who's friends with a lot of my friends was a sugar skull last year. Now just because I didn't live in Park City last year doesn't mean people would let it slide. So I came up with my second idea to be a cracked porcelain doll. I found this really good tutorial on youtube of how to do the make up and if you want to watch it click here. Now if you watch that video you'll see that the make up she did is amazing. Like I don't even know what I was thinking trying to copy it but a girl can dream right?

So I decided that a cracked porcelain doll was my best option for a costume. I dragged my dad along with me to Zurchers, a party supply store if you didn't know, in Salt Lake so that I could pick up my make up. Now looking back on that experience I probably should've thought about the quality of white face paint I was getting when the paint didn't have a cover and was under a dollar. But you know I wasn't really thinking. After our stop at Zurchers, where my dad decided to buy a fake gold tooth and mustache just to embarrass me *says while cringing*, we went to Ulta, a shrine to all make up on earth, to buy the other things I needed.

Now for the actual costume part. Like the clothing. Oh, you know what I mean. I struggled with this for a while. How can I look like a porcelain doll without looking like I'm about to go to church? I was stumped on this for a few days. Luckily for me there's this store Dressed In White right by the Zurchers and Ulta that my dad just happened to see. So, later on that week we went back to that strip mall to look through that store. For those of you that are like, "You drove that far for a costume? Twice?" um no it was not just for the costume my mom works in Salt Lake and we pick her up everyday so hah!

Anyway, we walked into the store and literally everything in the store was white. I'm not even joking when I say the only thing that wasn't white was the color of the walls. So this cute little old lady comes up to my dad and me and asks what occasion we were buying the dress for. Yeah, didn't think about an answer for that question before walking into the store. I didn't want to offend her but . . . before I answered anything my dad gave me a hesitant look and then explained that it was for a Halloween costume. The lady went ballistic on my dad for assuming that we could just walk into her store that was for proper occasions, like communion, and buy a dress for a costume.

I'm totally kidding. She was so nice and helped me pick out the perfect dress for the costume. I got you there didn't I *terrible winky face* but we didn't tell her that I planned to get dirt all over the dress and rip it up a little so haha yeah. Ok back to the story. So I went home and tried on the dress with the make up and it was incredible.

I hope you enjoyed my rambling on about buying a costume but it was a pretty fun experience. Sometime soon I'm going to post a tutorial on how to do the make up, what you'll need for it and how to dirty up your dress. In that post I'll actually put a picture of me in the costume. I would show you now but I have to make sure you'll come back to my blog some how right? Let me know what you guys are doing for Halloween. See you soon!

DIY Fruit Infused Water

Hey guys! So let me start this post off by asking, how many of you like to drink soda? Probably a lot of you. Now I won't judge because I like to drink soda too. However, it's not the healthiest drink in the world as most of us know choose to ignore. I decided to try and find a healthier alternative to soda which brings me to the title of this post. I've always seen those pretty pictures of water in mason jars with fruit and mint like the one below.

image courtesy of greenblender.com

Now if you're smart you would probably would've followed a recipe from pages like this one. But why would I do that when I could come up with my own recipe right? So now I'll leave you to the recipe I wrote up. I'll be writing my tips at the end.

What You'll Need:

• 1 package of raspberries
• 1 package of blackberries
• water
• 2 small bowls
• 1 fork
• 1 glass/pitcher

Directions:

Rinse your raspberries to make sure that you get all of the dirt and leaves off. Then put your raspberries in a small bowl. Take your fork and mash up the raspberries to the texture of your liking. 

Do the same with the blackberries in your other small bowl.

Once you have your two bowls of mashed berries you have to options. The first is to pour a pitcher of water and mix the berries into that. The second is to pour a glass and mix spoonfuls of berries until it is to your liking.

Ta da! You have some berry infused water! You can totally do this with any other type of fruit. So one tip would be to leave some water in the bowls while mashing up the berries. The only other tip I have is to not think about how gross the mashed berries look. If you've ever seen the new version of Willy Wonka and The Chocolate Factory the berries look a little like the mashed up caterpillars the oompa loompas eat. Yeah I know pretty gross.

Now let me just tell you some idiotic mistakes I made so you find some sort of joy in this post. As most of you probably don't know the tap water in Park City, UT is pretty contaminated with metals that you shouldn't really drink. Well I completely forgot about this and realized after I mashed the berries that I needed cold water. My parents don't put our bottled water in the fridge so I had to go get the water and wait for it to get cold. When I came back to the fridge I found that somebody had taken the bottle I put smack in the center of the fridge *cough cough* thanks a lot mom *cough*. Now yeah I probably could have used the tap water and yeah I probably could've mixed the berries into the room temperature water but eh.

So I guess I should probably compare the water to soda. Honestly the  mashed berry water wasn't all that bad. If you don't stock the soda in your house and replace it with the water it wouldn't be THAT bad. Try it out and see how you like it. I know I'll try replacing my soda with the infused water.

One last thing. I thought it would be a really good idea to put a few mason jars full of fruit pulp and juice that I could scoop into my glasses of water. I might also try putting protein powder in the mixture. Let me know what you guys think and if you want to see any more mixtures.

Well I hope you enjoyed reading about my adventures into the DIY infused water world. See you soon!

Why and What Am I Blogging? (Introductory Post)

Hello and welcome to Fresh Advice! As the caption says this will be a blog about anything and everything. Basically what that means is I will be writing about whatever I feel like for at least the rest of the school year. Why the rest of the school year? Because at my school the Ninth Grade Honors English classes have to write a blog during the year. That's the whole reason I'm writing this. I know that a lot of my classmates don't want to write a blog and to be honest I'm not jumping with joy either. But I will say that I'm going to try my best to write a nice blog for the people who actually bother reading it. So, I'll talk about some topics that will be covered on this blog.

Although the name of the blog says "Advice" this blog will not be strictly advice. Something I will frequently blog about is some funny things that happen during the day. For example, say someone says something funny at lunch, it will probably end up being on the blog. There might also be a separate page for funny quotes on the blog after I get it all set up, but I'm still unsure. 

image courtesy of memegenrator.net

Another frequent type of post on my blog will be routines and DIY. In no way am I an expert in these two topics but they're things that I enjoy doing. I hope that you enjoy reading about these because some of the DIYs out there are pretty cool. *realizes that I sound like a complete nerd* But seriously they can be really interesting to try out with friends. 

Maybe I'll try these halloween costumes.

One thing I really enjoy looking for are interesting baking and drink recipes. They're pretty cool but who actually tries them right? Well, something I want to take away from this blogging experience is to try new things. That means that if I post a recipe it will also be a review on it. As the school year goes on I might end up just posting the recipes and not writing a review on them.

Lastly I will try to post about vacations I take during the school year. Because I competitively ski race we travel to different states a lot and I'll try to get a picture of them to post. Although, sometimes ski races get really time consuming and there's not time for a blog post. I can guarantee that I will try.

So right now I'm not sure how frequently I'll be posting but towards the end of the school year it will definitely be at least once a week. This is because the posts are graded more and more frequently towards the end of the school year. I'm thinking about doing a blog post every week, even when it's not required, but this whole blogging thing is still pretty new to me so we'll see where it goes.

I think that pretty much wraps up this post. I'm looking forward to sharing my thoughts and ideas with the internet. If you'd like to know more about me and my experiences go check out the about me page in the pages bar. Also, let me know if there is anything specific you want me to blog about. Thanks for reading my first post! See you soon!