Learning How to Ski, Kind of Like Learning How to AP English

            This past Friday, I decided to go skiing for the first time in my life. I discovered that my experience mimicked my experience in AP English in a way. As I held on to the towrope taking me up to the top of the bunny hill, I thought, “how hard can this be.” I felt a similar way over a year and a half ago doing my first ever AP English assignment, which consisted of me describing something I did on the last day of summer. Once I got to the top of the hill, my buddies taught me some of the basics of skiing, like how to stop and turn so I don’t kill any unsuspecting five year olds. As I dug my poles into the ground and pushed myself forward I began to think I was in some trouble. I recall feeling the same sort of dread moments before my first in class writing junior year. I felt all of my aforementioned confidence slip away. I went tearing down the bunny at what seemed like a hundred miles per hour; my attempts to stop failed and I found myself quickly on my rear with my skies unattached to my feet and my poles ten yards above me on the hill. Walking out the classroom after getting a three rubric score on that first in class writing made me feel the exact same. Even with my extreme failure, I kept on trying. I fell fewer and fewer times until I could go down the bunny hill without a hitch. Similarly, my rubric grades slowly but surely went up from a 3+ to a 4- to even a 5- at my best. After dominating the bunny hill, I decided to test my newly honed talents to the blue square hill. After my maiden voyage on the chairlift I went down the blue square after falling only once, or maybe twice. It certainly got my confidence up and I started to really enjoy skiing sort of like how I enjoy AP English now. It may have taken just a bit shorter to get the hang of skiing than AP English but both show that if you keep working at something, you will eventually succeed.