I've been editing for 5 months now...

 Just a few more chapters to go.

This is a reminder that I want to talk about my latest Disney trip, or "6 in 8", as my dad called it.

It's gonna be a doozy, and each day will probably have its own post.

But I can't allow myself to do that until I finish editing this damn book!

Believe it or not, I want to post again...

 But I'm forcing myself to behave until I get further into the book edit.

This is a reminder for future me to stop looking at the blog and keep working on the damn book.

What's this? Two posts so close together?

 You know, the best part about you, my audience, is that you're incredibly forgiving. Nevermind the fact that it's because you don't exist. No, I choose to believe that you're an ambivalent, understanding audience, so I decided to reward you with yet another post. It turns out, I do have a problem with procrastination, and I'm dreading the portion of my book's editing process I'm currently in.

I've debated which story I wanted to tell next, and I've decided the best way to start would be to go in chronological order. This means today's post is going to be about Sithbelle. Don't worry, this is a much happier story. At least it will be.

When we last off, I was in the worst depressive episode of my life. It lasted for over three months, and there was nothing that I could do that would lift the fog out of my mind. I knew that I had to start preparing for a trip that was coming up in mid-April 2017, but my brain couldn't make myself care. My boyfriend (now-husband) was understandably troubled at my predicament, but was a trooper and stayed by my side throughout it all. I don't know where I would have been without him.

To rewind the clock just a wee bit for some context: Teresa, my stepmom, got my dad and I tickets to some Star Wars convention in Orlando as a Christmas present the year before. Based on the vague description Teresa mentioned about it, I figured it was going to be something close to AWA, a local show that specialized in a particular genre. It would be quaint, but nothing like the amazing experience Dragon*Con was. In fact, from the beginning I had been warning my dad that while this was going to be cool, it was unlikely that it was going to be the top-of-the-line experience it could be. By the time the depression struck, I had no interest in looking further into it.

Still, my parents kept poking and prodding at me, asking about my costume plans. By now, my love of cosplay was well-known to anyone who knew me, so they had natural expectations that I would leap at the opportunity to create something. Problem was, I had no interest in doing, well...anything. I kept up a brave face to them, giving them various excuses to buy me some time. But the weeks slipped past, drawing ever closer to the deadline, and I hadn't even pulled out my sewing machine yet.

The weekend before I was supposed to leave on the trip, the looming deadline weighed over me. Boyfriend had left for a trip with some friends, so I had a few days to myself. During the silence, I felt a stirring of life again. In my deepest heart of hearts, I knew that I really didn't want to go to a con dressed like a normal person, and I had to do something to fix it. Then finally, the instincts of a seasoned procrastinator began to reawaken.

With the time I had left, I was in a bit of a predicament: first of all, my only Star Wars-related costume was Huttslayer Leia, and I was not about to wear that in front of my dad. Not only that, I was no closer to figuring out what costume I actually wanted to do. So the task was now to create a good (or at least halfway decent) costume in approximately five days, when it normally took me weeks to put everything together. Suddenly, I was kicking myself for not trying to snap out of my depression sooner. 

I went through the lexicon of characters that were in Star Wars, thinking about their costumes and what it would take to put it together with what I currently had on hand. At the time, I hadn't seen any of the shows, only read the books, and all of the people I could think of would all take too long. I had no time to special order anything, so it had to be something relatively simple. Unfortunately, that ruled out anything Amidala-related, and I didn't have anything close to what Leia wore, apart from her legendary bikini. I dreamed of doing a Twi'lek, but if I didn't have time for Leia, then I certainly didn't have time to mess around with latex and lekku.

That pretty much left a generic Force wielder, and I'll be damned before I'll be a Jedi. That left the Sith. My foray into the heavy metal scene meant that I had a number of black articles of clothing, so it seemed like a good start. I decided to think about what kind of Sith I wanted to portray. Somehow in the brainstorming process, I had the random thought of creating a mashup character, and it didn't take too long before the answer came to me.

Waaaay back in 2013, I went to Dragon*Con dressed as Belle from Beauty and the Beast thanks to a whole lot of help from my Grandma (perhaps I'll make its own post someday). It was the first time I'd ever had a sewing project that required a sewing machine, and she taught me so much during the time she was making it (I was far more of an apprentice than doing any real work). I was primarily in charge of gathering the materials together, and I made a pretty severe miscalculation in judging the amount of fabric I needed to make the dress. It turns out, I bought an entire block too much, and I had a ton left over that I'd held onto ever since.

Now, I'd learned a lot about sewing since then, and was pretty confident in my own skills. I decided that I would create a Sith version of Belle, or Sithbelle, as I started calling her out loud (in my head, her name was Darth Vanitus, her fall to the dark side caused by her inability to look anywhere but inward, but normal people don't usually appreciate lore, and Sithbelle is a lot easier to say and conveys the idea much more clearly).

With this new idea cemented into my head, I was suddenly jolted back into reality for the first time in months. With the bits and bobs and scraps I had on hand, I worked at a feverish pace with every spare moment until I had put together something I liked. On the mannequin, most people guessed it was a Mortal Kombat costume, but that was just fine with me. I knew the true strength of the costume was in its details. That's where the character really came alive. 

Finally, the time had come for the trip. Dad and I were excited; not necessarily because of the convention, but because we were also using that time to go to Disney World. He and I are very close, and we've bonded over our love of Star Wars and Disney over the years. Needless to say, we were both were eagerly anticipating the trip, and I was excited because I finally felt something akin to alive again. 

We arrived in Orlando after an uneventful flight, and got ready for the convention. My plan was to not  dress up the first day of the con (Thursday), and instead save my costume for Friday and maybe Saturday. By the time we had arrived at our hotel, I'd been awake from my mental break for long enough that I really regretted not making more costumes for the rest of my time there.

Thursday morning, we arrive at the street where the convention was to be held, and as with every other convention I've been to, trickles of dressed-up nerds were proudly and excitedly marching their way towards the line to enter the building. As we drove on, we realized that said line was several blocks long already, which didn't bode well. We parked, then joined the throng. Through sheer luck, we managed to find a side entrance to the building which had just opened up to allow better flow into the building, but nobody knew about yet. We skipped the hours-long line and immediately walked into the exhibitor's hall.

The first thing I noticed was the near-life-sized T.I.E. fighter that occupied a small portion of floor, surrounded by other vehicles fully kitted out in Star Wars décor. We then turned a corner and saw a gigantic vendor area that was covered in costumed people and Star Wars fans. It was at about this moment that we realized that this was no mere local convention. This was Star Wars Celebration, the largest Star Wars convention of them all, and we owed it our allegiance--no wait, wrong fandom. But in all seriousness, Teresa had accidentally given us the greatest gift ever, and we realized what a treat we were about to be in for. 

The first day, we just were absorbed in the wonder of it all. Dad had never been to a nerd convention before, so he was introduced to the culture and fell in love with it just as much as I had. On the floor, there were giant televisions around playing news clips and streams from the panels around the convention. We pulled up at one point early on to find the beautiful sounds of John Williams' soundtrack for the saga playing overhead. When I finally got a look at the TV, I was shocked to discover it was being played live, and conducted by none other by the legend himself. 

Ya'll. I legitimately cried. Performing in his symphony has been a dream of mine for as long as I've known who he is. The fact that he was conducting somewhere in the same building I was currently in was as close as I'll ever get to that dream coming true. It was a profound experience. 

Eventually, the performance ended and excitement returned. We found a few panels that sounded interesting and decided to check them out. There was one in particular that I was curious about that was supposed to be an analysis on Rogue One's soundtrack. Dad agreed, and so we went to check it out, saying if it was boring, we could always leave.

What followed was one of the most pivotal and important hours of my adult life, and I am not speaking hyperbolically. As a linguist and a musician, I've always had a love of languages and music. David W. Collins, the speaker at this panel, taught me how the two intermixed, and gave me tools to fully understand what I already knew instinctually. He broke down how the composer told the movie's story using a wordless, but powerful language, and how it shapes our perception of the events we're watching. (Years later, I learned he had a podcast that similarly breaks down other soundtracks, and I highly recommend it.) 

This was revelatory to me, and it healed a musical part of my soul that had been festering up until that point. It inspired me to reembrace my first musical loves, classical music and movie soundtracks, and I have been a better person for it ever since. This particular event is crucial for later stories I'll hopefully tell at some point, so I hope you remember it well. But it's not the primary focus of today's story.

The remainder of the day flew by in a whirlwind of overstimulation, and we were suddenly back at our hotel game planning for the next day. After a restless night, we woke up even more excited than yesterday, which had seemed impossible before. It was going to be the first time I'd ever debuted Sithbelle in public, and I was nervous about getting everything right. Luckily, dad is an excellent cosplay buddy (he's helped me with costumes before at the Ren Faire and is a very helpful guy in general), so everything was able to come together perfectly.

We drove back to the convention center, and I put on the finishing touches of the costume. Finally, I was ready. We headed into the convention center, where there were much shorter lines, much to everyone's relief (I knew we weren't going to get so lucky as to find a secret side door again!), and I began trolling around for other Disney mashups and to see if anyone would enjoy or get my costume.

It didn't take too long before I had success on both fronts. People really seemed to like my outfit, though I did get called "Jedi Belle" a bunch. It's ok, I'll Force choke them later. 

Dad really developed an appreciation for cosplay culture while following me around. He told me he enjoyed watching people's eyes light up with recognition when they figured out who I was supposed to be and seeing them gush over the outfit. I told him it was my favorite part, too.

I found so many princesses to take pictures with, and I even found a Jedi Gaston! We joked about how we were both technically on the wrong side. It was so much fun to riff around and have fun with other like-minded nerds. In fact, one of the best parts was I actually got to meet my friend Brandon there! (For those who don't know, Brandon was first featured on a post about Humans vs Zombies waaay back in the earliest days of this blog. We've been friends for a long time, and still chat every once in a while!) He was dressed as a mashup himself of his own heritage mixed with Captain Rex, and was unfortunately recovering from an injury a bit earlier. It was so cool to catch up with him and hang out with his girlfriend (the Sith Ariel).

Finally, day two ended at the convention, but the party was just getting started. Disney, in their infinite wisdom and ability to see dollar signs everywhere, had closed out Hollywood Studios early for an exclusive Star Wars night, and we had been lucky enough to be able to get tickets to go. We were encouraged to go dressed in costume, which meant I actually got to wear my Disney / Star Wars mashup in the land of the Mouse himself. I'm proud to say the cast members were all very complimentary of my costume, which made me very happy. If the Disneyest of the Disney people like it, it must be pretty good!

There were special cocktails, photo ops, and they re-themed a couple of the rides to be Star Wars-themed. The best highlight of the night for me was riding the Rock-n-Roller Coaster to the tune of the trench run in Episode IV. It was so freaking cool! At the end, they had a huge fireworks show to Star Wars music, and everyone raised their lightsabers to the sky. It was culty for sure, but it was my cult. I wish they still did this event, honestly. The new Star Wars land is really incredible, but there was something special about how they did it back then.

The rest of the convention was spent doing much of the same as the previous two days. My second day as Sithbelle was similar to the first, and by Sunday, we were pretty tired and a lot of people had left. We called it a bit early ourselves and decided to start the second part of our vacation on a high note.

I think I'll leave our Disney trips for another blog post in itself. Suffice to say it has become a long-standing tradition whose most recent chapter will be written in a few months, and I would like to include that if I still remember this blog exists by then.

After the vacation, I felt back to my old self. Well, perhaps "old" self wasn't quite right. I felt better ready to take on the realities that I had been faced with, and I was ready to start forward with a brighter outlook. I now had a new and deeper understanding of musical language, and I spent time with one of my favorite people, in some of my favorite places, doing something that I really loved. And not only that, I had a new creative identity, something that was uniquely mine of my own creation without anyone's help or input.

I was ready to live again.

It turns out I am terrible at updating this thing

 Hello again!

I cannot believe it's been nearly a decade since I've posted here. I know it's old and cliché, but the years really do start going faster as you get older. It feels like it's only been a couple of years since I started this blog, not the more than 11 years it's really been. In one of my older posts, I lamented about 11 years being so long to enjoy a particular book, and now double that time has passed.

In truth, adulthood and life have been thrown at me, both good and bad. I found someone incredibly special and married him back in 2019. In fact, he's the drummer of the band I was in that was mentioned in my previous post. We're enjoying life together with our two cats playing games, watching sports, and enjoying each other's company.  Our day-to-day lives are probably boring to most, but we consider it ideal.

The other aspects of my life have been more of a roller coaster, and since this blog is primarily for my own posterity, I'm going to wax poetic on it for a while. 

To start, Nina Vox is dead. She died after realizing that despite my love and connection to music, I do not have the talent, nor the charisma to make it work in the city I currently live in, and my job makes it so I cannot leave to try somewhere else. And at this point, I'm past the point of wanting to try again anyway. This is not said with pity or a "woe is me" attitude, it is simply a fact of my life, and I have made peace with it. That said, I'll be happy to tell you what happened in the meantime.

We last left off with the old band broken up and me looking for a new band. Historically, singers are usually snatched up pretty quick after a band breaks up. I had seen it numerous times with my friends and cohorts in the local scene, so it wasn't a far stretch to expect a similar offering now that I'd been out and about for a while. But I didn't hear from anyone until January the next year, and it was the guitarist and bassist of my old band wanting to start up a new project. The old drummer, my now-husband, was snatched up by two incredibly talented projects immediately after our band broke up, so he couldn't join us. Since I didn't have any alternatives and they were good enough guys, I agreed.

We played a few shows with a new drummer as a four-piece band, but we never drew any crowds apart from our significant others and a few friends who were looking to go out for the night anyway. After a handful of shows with no improvement in crowds, a drummer who didn't seemed to want to be there (he constantly asked to borrow everyone else's kits when we went on stage, and his heads were never tuned, etc.), plus increasingly uncomfortable conversations stemming from the guitarist, I decided to quit the project after only 7 months. Sadly, I did enjoy the music, but it just wasn't worth it anymore.

After that, there was...nothing. I put out and responded to ads, Facebook posts, you name it. Tumbleweeds had more action than I did at that moment. I didn't hear anything from August until December, when I saw a band advertising for open auditions for a new singer. They were a bit softer than I would have preferred, but well within my wheelhouse. Problem was, as always, I would be replacing a male singer. Often times, that meant that either I would have to change the vocal lines of the songs to where I could sing some parts, or they would have to change the key they played in so I could sing it as-written, and it often meant I was automatically out of the running before I even started. It had actually happened at least once before where I'd been told they were going with the guy singer simply because, well, he was...a guy.

Still, I wasn't going to let that deter me. I desperately craved being on stage again, and I knew that they had at least a few songs that I could sing without changing anything. I practiced and memorized them, and showed up to my audition ready as ever. I was one of the first people to audition, it turned out, and they were abuzz with excitement at having someone new in their studio. I reciprocated the excitement, and felt like we got along well. I got through the songs well enough, and they let me know that it would be a couple more weeks until the next round, and they'd let me know how it went.

I actually left there feeling pretty good. Everything pointed in the direction of a good audition, and I was hopeful for a callback. I got nervous, however, as I checked my Facebook and discovered that someone I had accumulated as a friend on my Vox profile was also auditioning for the same role, and he was also confident about his chances. He had yet to try out, but was extremely hyped about it. I found a sample of his music and listened to it to see if I should have been worried. Personally, I felt like I was a better fit for the style they were going for than he was, but I had definitely been wrong before.

I felt uneasy for probably the next week, getting little random rushes of adrenaline every time I remembered that it was growing ever closer to the deadline I had been told for callbacks. Then, one day I checked my Facebook again and saw the same guy had posted, this time being extremely hyped about getting a callback audition already. My heart sunk. If he'd already gotten a callback and I hadn't, then it was more than likely I was once again not up to snuff. I waited about a day after I saw the other guy's post, and when no message came for me, something broke inside me. The pain of constantly being rejected was too much, and I just couldn't do it anymore. I sent a message to the band telling them I was dropping out of contention, then posted my retirement message on Facebook. 

What immediately followed after my retirement was one of the darkest mental periods of my life, the aftershocks of which still resonate through me from time to time. True to my word, I haven't done anything with music, apart from going to shows where my husband or one of our friends performs or the extremely rare dabble with composition software, but even that is rare now.

In the end, I am grateful that I stepped away, because if I hadn't, I never would have written my book (but that's a blog post for some other year). 

However, if I can be meta for a moment and use this post as part diary / part time capsule, I'm currently in the final self-editing process of my first full novel after five years of writing. I wonder what life is going to look at the next time I remember that this blog exists. Is my writing any good? Will anyone give a damn? Will it be another instance of me trying my absolute hardest, only to find that no one is listening? Or, could it maybe, just maybe, be the unicorn that I'm desperately searching for?

I think the story is pretty good at least. But then again, I've always thought my stuff was pretty good, and I've definitely been wrong about that before, too.

But this book is the one thing I've put more effort into than anything else in my life. It is a piece of my soul, a plug for the wound that not being a musician caused. If a thousand people...hell, if even one person read it and liked it, that would be enough. My dream goal would be to be popular enough to be asked to speak at a nerd convention, and have someone geek out at me like I did at Timothy Zahn that one time I met him.

Don't worry, this isn't an ad, and I'm not begging anyone who happens to stumble upon these musings to read my book, if anyone ever does. I just wanted to catch you all up on where I'm at, and some of the twists and turns that brought me here.

That's but a small taste of what I've been up to. I have a feeling I might post a bit more often while procrastinating editing (holy crap is it a LOT of work to make sure everything lines up correctly, but it's so worth it.), so I'll try to remember to update you more on the book, Minecraft, and the rise of Sithbelle in future posts.

If you're here, thanks for reading, and see you next time!

Well, I'm back...kinda. An update 3 1/2 years later

Hello guys. It’s been a while.

So much has gone on since my last post, it’s difficult to even know where to begin. I’d like to say it’s all been roses and sunshine and all that rot, but I’d only be telling…well, 95% of the truth.

Life is great.

You all are well introduced to “Nina the College Student” and “Nina the Nerd”. Now, I’d like to introduce you to Nina Vox.

It started all the way back in 2012. I was flying to Germany to see Ashley (yes, that Ashley), and I was nearing the final leg of the journey. As it happens, because I fly standby, I just so happened to get a seat in first class on the way from JFK to Frankfurt. I was wearing one of my favorite shirts (a T-shirt with a robot throwing the metal horns, with the phrase “Heavy Metal” on it. It’s awesome).

I walked down the aisle, and noticed that I was sitting beside this dude who clearly thought he was important. Black jeans, black shirt, long black hair, sunglasses on, yammering on his cell phone. I was both excited and annoyed, because I didn’t believe this dude was actually a celebrity, but he did seem well connected. He paused his conversation, looked at me and my shirt, and said “Eeeeeyyyyyyyy, heavy metal!”, then continued his conversation. I already liked him more after that.

That was how I met Joey DiMaio, of Manowar fame, though I didn’t know it yet.

I’m terrible with faces and names, and of course didn’t know who he was. Once the plane took off, he turned his attention over to me. We bonded over a love of heavy metal, and he asked me about my desire to be a musician. When he heard that I wanted to be in a band, but was afraid I wasn’t marketable, he practically shouted at me: “Of course you should be in a band! Don’t listen to people who tell you otherwise. If you love music, then you should be making music.” This was a life changing moment for me.

While this story is a blog post unto itself, it’s not the story I want to tell.

When I got back from Germany, I immediately started putting out ads looking for a band. Eventually, I found one (which broke up a few months later), then there was a long dry spell for a couple of years. It turns out, it is a challenge to be a female singer in a metal band, especially in Texas (Oh yeah, I live in Texas now. Yay!).

After 2 years of looking for a band, I finally found one. Called Tracing Over Evil, it was the first band that was doing the genre I wanted to do, AND they wanted a female singer. We had a classic style metal sound (think Judas Priest or Iron Maiden), and I enjoyed being on stage with the guys. For a year, we forayed into the local metal scene and did our best to leave our mark. And I really got to experience being on stage.

I know now why people will do anything to be on stage. It’s the equivalent of a drug. I loved every second of it, and as soon as I got off stage, the only thing I wanted to do was to get back on stage again. Hell, I even played when I was sick and had no voice (I refuse to cancel a show if I can avoid it).

It’s a great experience, and I’ve made a lot of friends over the years. People like me for my voice, not my cosplay. They see the “real” me as opposed to a fictional character (though I can also make the argument that Nina Vox is a character as well).

As with all things, however, it all came to an end. Last Friday, actually. As with all relationships, we had our difficulties, and they became insurmountable.

So I am once again looking for a band. But now I have a year of good experience under my belt, and a reputation to uphold. And whenever I feel sad, I hear Joey’s voice in my head reminding me that at the end of the day, it’s all about the music.

This is who I am, now. Welcome to the new era!

(Oh yeah, I also lost 40 pounds and learned how to apply makeup. That's why I look different :D)

Have I ever mentioned that I water ski?

My childhood was not perfect. When I was 7, my parents got a divorce (don't worry, that's not the story). My dad quickly remarried, and I suddenly had a stepmom on my hands. Fortunately, she elected not to go down the "evil stepmother that hates the children from the first marriage and schemes to get rid of them" road and instead chose the "freaking awesome stepmother who does lots of cool stuff and lets us go places and do cool things too" route.

When I was almost ten, my dad and stepmom (henceforth known as Teresa) came down from Indiana with a boat in tow. I had never been on a boat at this point in time, and was actually a bit scared (car rides were enough to turn me green, so water would probably just make everything worse), but my excitement for getting to learn how to water ski more than made up for whatever misgivings I had.

We dropped the boat into the water, and made our way towards a place that wasn't very populated (Jackson Lake is rather large, and it's quite popular for people to take their boats out there on the weekend to fish, ski, tube, etc.). All three of us (my older sister, Ashley, my younger sister, Barbie, and I) sat in the very front of the boat so we could see what was going on. I was immediately a little disappointed, because we were going very slow and it was boring. Suddenly, we passed these buoys that were sticking up out of the water in a line. Dad told us to hold on, and suddenly we were thrust to the sky as the boat took off. The wind was slapping my in the face, my hair was going everywhere, and I felt invincible as the rush of adrenaline coursed through me as we raced across the water.

We finally found a cove that no one else was in, and my parents decided that this was as good a place as any to teach us how to ski. My older sister had gone up to visit dad the previous summer, so she already kinda knew what she was doing, so naturally she got to go first (the fact that dad and Teresa decided oldest to youngest had nothing to do with it). My younger sister and I watched in awe as she popped up out of the water with seemingly no effort. She weaved in and out of the wake (the waves caused by the boat propeller), which is honestly the only trick you can really do on two skis. After she got bored with that, dad suggested that she try and drop a ski (this is the best way to learn how to slalom ski). She tried this 3 or 4 times, and once even succeeded staying up once she dropped the ski (the other times she pretty much just plopped over). After she fell for so many tries, dad declared she was tired and her turn was up (What a wimp! I thought. I'll be able to ski forever).

Suddenly, as the middle child, it was my turn to shine. Teresa adjusted the skis to my feet, then I jumped in the water and she sent the skis after me. Putting on skis in the water feels like putting on the biggest, most awkward clown shoes that have gained sentience and want to fight you to the death. Eventually, as with most inanimate objects, I won the battle and suddenly had two pieces of fiberglass attached to my feet.

They tossed me the rope, and told me to hold on like I had my arms wrapped around a beach ball, and to make sure that the rope was between my two skis. They then pulled the boat so that the rope became taut, and continued with a gentle tug. My skis quickly decided that they wanted to go in opposite directions. After wrestling with them (and the boat) for what felt like forever, I was finally ready to say the words that they taught me to say when I wanted to defy physics: "Hit it".

I'd like to say that I made it up on the first try, and that I quickly surpassed my sisters, and that I'm the best skier that ever lived. Unfortunately, this is not one of my fictional posts, so I'm afraid I'll have to tell you that my skis drifted apart from each other and I ended up landing on my face after doing a split. Then I learned the next neat trick about water skiing: how to get the rope back in your hands after you fall. A good driver will drive around in a circle and bring the rope to the skier so they can grab it and thread it till they get to the handle. Well, dad is a good driver, but I'm not a good skier. I didn't see the rope until it was far too late to grab onto. So dad had to circle around again. And again. Finally, I figured it out and grabbed the handle. This time I managed to stay up for two seconds until I fell. My most successful attempt was the third. I was up for a good 30 seconds until a rogue wave came and I fell over. After that, I just kept falling and falling. Dad declared that I was tired and I got in the boat. I heartily disagreed with him until I tried to get in the boat, only to discover that my arms had turned into noodles and I couldn't lift myself at all. It took every bit of effort I had to finally roll myself back into the boat. I guess I was tired after all.

Barbie had her turn, but was no more successful than I was. Then Teresa had her turn.

Back when I was younger, I had this nasty habit that if I wasn't good at something right away, I'd get bored with it and quit. My failure as a water skier had gotten me pretty down (although I was better than my little sister, so there was something to feel good about. I was not a good older sister), and I was growing bored of it. Teresa's turn consisted of a type of skiing known as "swivel skiing". A swivel ski consists of just one ski that is wider than a traditional combo ski (what most people learn how to ski on), and the binding, instead of being attached to the board itself, is instead on, well, a swivel. This allows the skier to turn around backwards while still moving forward. It's often used in ski shows as a kind of water ballet. Needless to say, it looked pretty freaking cool. Teresa was still a newb herself at this particular kind of skiing, but she was still years ahead of where I was. I vowed that I would learn how to ski like that, no matter how long it took.

The rest of the weekend went by pretty much the same way. Barbie and I finally mastered how to get up (and stay up) on skis, and were even beginning to venture in and out of the wake. Ashley pretty much got dropping a ski down (though returning to pick up the ski was quickly becoming a pain in the butt). It ended up being pretty much the best weekend ever.

Later that summer, we went up to visit dad, and continued our water skiing education (he lived on a lake, so we could pretty much ski whenever). We then continued to visit him every summer (I even live nearby now that I'm out of college, but that's a story for a different day), and skiing became just an every day thing, something we could do when we wanted to relax.

I have a ton of water skiing stories, but I won't tell them all here (I'd run out of room). Instead, I'll spread some out here and there so you don't get overloaded with water skiing stories. But I do promise to talk about skiing in ski shows, competing in ski tournaments, skiing on vacation, etc.

See you next time!

A Post a Long Time Coming

Hi everyone (all 7 of you)!

I know, I know, it's been almost a year since I last updated. I'm really sorry about that. There has been a lot going on in the past year (and there shall be a post dedicated to all of them, I promise), and with the discovery that my computer can play video games, I've been pretty much neglecting my duties as a blog writer. My goal is to set up either a once or twice a week schedule and get back to blogging properly again.

I'm thinking Saturdays and Wednesdays.

I'll put up another blog after this one, and then we'll be back on a schedule.