The only way to get over fear is to fight the fear you're facing. I learned this on a sunny Tuesday afternoon when I was climbing up a tall tree with the wind blowing in my face to get to the aqua zipline. I started climbing the creaky ladder which shook every time I moved my foot. About one third up the tree the ladder stopped and I grabbed staples connected to the tree. My shoes and socks were off so I could feel the cold staples on my feet. I reached up to grab the next staple and hooked my fingers on it and pulled myself up. I looked down to see how high I was and it seemed so much higher than it looked from down below. When I lifted my foot up to take the next step my left foot slipped on the staple but I had a good grip on it with my hands and managed to stay on as I reached the top. At the top of the tower I looked down at my friends waiting for me to jump. I took a look at the water which was a mistake because now I knew I was going to have to jump from that high up. I bent my knees and pushed off as hard as I could. It was a very steep drop to the bottom and made a big splash. The water was freezing and I swam back to land. After doing the aquazip I thought I had overcome fear and had courage but that was before I did the high ropes course.

         If you have enough courage to face the things you fear you can enjoy doing the things that intimidate you. This courage brought me to the high ropes course on Wednesday. I stood on a shaky pole in the high ropes course getting ready to jump. Below me the rest of my friends watched as I got to the top of the pole. My body sent goosebumps down my spine as I tried to get the courage to jump. The pole below was shaking like crazy, which made it even worse as I was trying to get the idea of jumping into the nothingness out of my head. I bent my knees, put the rope behind my head, and jumped as far as I could. I missed it. Even though I forgot it was enjoyable jumping and being let down,. I worried too much about the pole, and it made for a disappointing but thrilling result. I thought only bad thoughts before doing it, but I dared to jump, which allowed me to do other things, too, like jumping off swings.

        Most of the time, you don't realize how much fun you're having until it's over. I didn’t know how much fun I could have just swung. Almost everyday, me and Murdy, and Justin would have competitive swing sessions by the dining hall. Every free time we would go to the swings for 5 to 10 minutes and try to go the highest. These swings were unique because they were extra long, which means you could go extra high. We all had swung over the height of the top pole, but it was hard to get any higher because if you go higher than that when you reach the top, the rope gives you slack, and there are one or two seconds where nothing happens, and then you get a hard yank at the ground. We just kept on pumping our legs harder and harder until the rope gave us too much slack and when we would come down it would start going side to side. It was fun just doing the swinging because we turned it competitive. We never got a winner but we each say we got the highest. Even though it was just something small, I learned that you can have so much fun and time goes by with the little things.

 It ain’t fun until it’s over.