conquering the world and getting mauled by bears in the process

I realized that this summer has become a summer for me to step out of my comfort zone. There are a lot of things I've done this summer that I never would have done in the past. Mostly because in the past, I am pretty positive I'll get hurt in the process of said activity so I'd rather just avoid it altogether. This attitude makes life less fun and so my summer experiences have made for some great times and thus, I encourage you to step out of your comfort box and go conquer the world. Let me give you some ways you can do this:
1. Even if you're afraid of falling to your death when you're up high, go anyways. There are a lot of activities that you're missing out on if you're too afraid of heights. Last Saturday, my roommates and I went to the local water park. The first ride they wanted to ride was the Boomerange which is essentially a giant water half pipe. Kind of like this:

So naturally I'm yelling in my head "No way. Please don't make me go on that. I will die or at the very least break my head open." But I don't say it out loud. I just climb up the stairs and do it. Twice. And it was the bomb.

2. When your friends want you to go shoot the tube, say yes. Even if you can picture yourself breaking your leg in the process. Listen to the nice man who tells you exactly how to not get hurt, climb up the tunnel with your water tube, sit down in your water tube in the tunnel and enjoy the ride back down. You won't die but you will laugh! (P.S. We didn't actually dam up the water like the article says, because there was already a ton of water going through the tunnel. We're suspecting this is because of how long it took for all the snow to melt but it's very likely we're making things up.)

3. When your friends want you to go slid down a natural rock slid/water fall and then afterwards hike to the top of the waterfall, do it! Yesterday, after shooting the tube, we went to the Alpine rock slide with a bunch of people. It's pretty cool and really pretty. The part I wasn't so much a fan of was the hike to the top. The boys we were with told us it was only a 15 minute or so hike and it wasn't really that bad. They lied. It was more of a 30 minute hike through the middle of the woods with no trail. Thus, we were walking through trees, through water, over rocks etc. And 5 minutes in, one of my flip flops (because I wasn't prepared for hiking when we started this adventure) fell off and rushed down the waterfall, never to be seen again. So now I'm hiking barefoot. It really wasn't that bad and I wasn't being a complainer. But you also should understand that sometimes I'm pretty uncoordinated, especially when it comes to climbing things. So the whole climbing through rock filled water wasn't working so well for me. I decided to try stepping it up a little bit and not being such a baby and instead of that plan working out really well for me, I slipped on the rock and slammed/skidded both of my legs down the rock. Needless to say, it hurt pretty bad but I wasn't going to let anyone else know that. The waterfall was really pretty though and despite my injury and the fact that today every single part of my body feels like I got in a fight with a bear, it was worth it.

4. When the entire school tells you that you have to eat at the local hot dog joint that is literally a 2 minute walk from your apartment, do it, even though you think hot dogs are disgusting. Because maybe they're right and it doesn't really taste like a hot dog. Maybe it is actually pretty good (though not good enough to eat every day...) My roommate convinced me last week to go with her for dinner and I was a bit sceptical, but did enjoy it. I've definitely been more open to trying new foods this summer and so far it hasn't worked out to horribly.

So basically, the moral is that you should try new things. And your life will be fabulous.

Also, I have another exciting story to tell that just doesn't exactly fit into the rest of the post. So it's going here. It's Friday night and it's in between apartment contracts so there aren't a whole lot of people to hang out with. My roommates and I are trying to decide what to do when we hear a knock at the door. Some boys from our ward are there and they invite us to go to the dollar theater with them. Naturally we shout hooray and run out the door with them. On the way to the theater, the driver is at a unprotected left hand turn. The light turns yellow but there are still cars going so he can't turn. Then it turns red and we're in the middle of the intersection so he has to turn so we can get out of the way. So he starts to turn when all of us look over and realize that there is a car that is about to run the red light and t-bone us. And it was terrifying. The car tries to slow down, our driver is in shock and it trying to move but has also semi stopped the car, and all of us in the car are bracing for impact. I've got my eyes squeezed tightly shut at this point and I'm bracing myself against the front seats. I sit that way for a minute and realize that we should have been hit by now. Why was there no impact? I look around sort of confused and see that the other car swerved around the back of us and we all lived. But it was freaking crazy. And I really did think we were about to be in a serious accident and possibly die...Also we saw Green Lantern once we made it to the dollar theater and I'm not entirely sure it was worth the near death experience. Except that Ryan Reynolds was in it and he's basically a hottie.