Smackie the Frog

So I roller skate, and as embarrassing as that was for me at first, I have finally come to terms with it. And really, I don’t just roller skate. That sounds like I just go every once in a while and skate around in circles while listening to music that I don’t really like. No no.

This is much more serious. I artistic roller skate, which is the figure skating equivalent of roller skating. I don’t do jumps, although I have tried and if pressured could sort of do one. And will possibly learn more in the future. But I do other things, like dances and these things called figures which are basically tracing patterns on the ground. And I’m still very new to all of this, and learning a lot, and not particularly good at anything, but I’m getting better.

I spend between 5-8 hours a week skating, which isn’t enough, really. It is just enough for me to keep up my current skills and learn a little bit more. I’d probably skate about twice as much a week if I could, but I have work, and a house to work on, and I’m trying to learn French, and plan a wedding.

Why am I going over all of this? As a setup for this. I’d be perfectly happy just hanging out and skating on my own, for my own happiness. But apparently one of the things that you can do with some of these skills that I’ve acquired is compete. And I guess you can win things. Hopefully cars or money, but probably not. At first I was very apprehensive about competing, for one reason. Under no circumstances did I want to wear a figure skating outfit. I figured that if I could wear jeans, or my track pants that I usually practice in, then great. But no, you have to wear a little… “outfit”. But I finally broke down and ordered an outfit. And I actually haven’t seen it, but I’ve been told that it looks “athletic”. That could mean anything.

But since that is out of the way, I guess I’m going to compete. And in particular, I’m going to compete at something called “Regionals” and it is happening in July in Minneapolis. And then if I do well enough there, I get to go to something called “Nationals”, where presumably the cars and money are. So if you are going to be in Minneapolis June 18th-20th or so, you should definitely come by and see me look… different than anyone has seen me before.

Anyway, as a last note, I realized the other day how horribly unprepared I am for this competition. Because this is actually pretty important to me, and I want to do well. So I’m going to be preparing pretty hardcore for the next 3 months. At least as hardcore as one prepares for this sort of thing. I might even possibly be going as far as working out outside of skating.

Yeah… What has become of me?