In grad school right now, I’m teaching a lab where I’m learning Hindi. It’s now the 8th week, and we are telling each other stories. They are very basic, and consist of sentences like, “The bear is brown. The bear is holding a hat. The bear feels angry.” The problem is, my lab group is morbid.
Right now, we are going through a picture book of the classic story of Goldilocks and the Three Bears. If it’s been a while, let me sum things up for you.
A cute little girl walks into a house. She finds some yummy porridge, breaks a chair, falls asleep in a comfy bed, gets scared by some bears, and runs out of the house.
Here’s our basic story so far: A rabbit got high on some mushrooms and Goldilocks kicked him as she walked into the house. She tried the porridge, but a rat had been cooked into it and it made her vomit. Goldilocks’ sister has been kidnapped and stuffed into an upstairs footlocker, and in the rescue attempt, Goldilocks was startled by a large angry bear, jumped out of the window, broke her arm, was rendered immobile, and was eaten by the three bears. A large group of spiders attacked the three bears, but baby bear threw a lamp on the floor and lit the house on fire.
These people are ruining my childhood, y’all.
Justin: “So if you could pick one TV series…”
Me: “Firefly.”
Justin: “…to continue…”
Me: “Firefly.”
Justin: “…and retain all it’s former charm…”
Me: “Firefly.”
Justin: “…would you pick…”
Me: “Firefly.”
Justin: “…Firefly,…”
Me: “Firefly.”
Justin: “…Lost,…”
Me: “Firefly.”
Justin: “…or Harry Potter?”
Me: “Fire…oh, crap.”
(PS – Turns out? Still Firefly.)
I’ve been wanting to pick up rock climbing for a long time – years, actually – but never had the time or the money or both at once. I finally decided to force the issue and just go! After much research (what? me? research? never), I finally decided on a gym pretty close to my house – Dallas Rocks. Because I didn’t have a partner, I bouldered until I could boulder no more – which turns out to be about an hour. I decided it was time to stop when I was at the top and about to downclimb when I realized my arms were shaking so badly they were about to let go of the holds I was gripping, completely ignoring my brain’s screaming at them to hold on. I’m all for TMF* I’d just rather it occur with both feet safely planted on the ground. Not that falling would have been that big of a deal – 15 feet onto a thick cushioned pad – but I downclimbed as fast as I could, realized I’d been climbing an hour, and decided to go for a run.
All in all, it was a good day and I really hope to be able to get out there more often, it was a LOT of fun. But for those of you who have never rock climbed, here are a few lessons I learned from my almost-first time.
1. You will look like an idiot and make a fool of yourself. This was pretty easy for me to get over, since I’m used to looking like an idiot and making a fool of myself.
2. You will totally get schooled by a bunch of seven year old punks who will boulder around V5s** like they are trying simultaneously make you look like an idiot (see #1) and serve as proof that we really did evolve from monkeys.
3. PAIN.
4. It will take you eighteen times to get to the top of a V0** climb and those around you will watch in astonishment as you manage to fail this easy course yet again. It’s alright, you’ll get it eventually. And then keep doing it a million more times because it’s the only problem in the entire gym you can actually climb.
5. Climbing without a harness = AWESOME! Why have I never bouldered before?!
6. PAIN.
7. Climbing shoes don’t hurt nearly as much as everyone acted like they would.
8. Bring your own water. You’ll waste a lot of time walking back and forth to the fountain to replenish the liquid lost in the gallons of sweat jetting from every pore in your body.
9. Did I mention PAIN?
I’m so excited to go back and hope to visit 3 times a week. Maybe by this time next year it won’t take me 18 times to get up to the top of that dad gummed V0**.
(Anyone need a total n00b climbing partner?! 
)
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*Total Muscle Failure
**V0=noob, V12=certain death