This day I went to a ski hill with myfriend ashley who was trying to teach me how to snowboard. I thought I did pretty good for a while until I went onto the bigger hills. The bigger hills were fine at first until I lost control of my snowboard and ended up doing some things I didn't want to.

I had always wanted to learn how to snowboard so the first time I got to try it I learned how hard and fun it actually is. I heard all my friends talk about how much fun it was and I never had experienced that fun myself. One of my good friends Ashley has been snowboarding for most of her life. Her older brother taught her how to snowboard when she was younger so she knew how to snowboard pretty good by the time we were in 8th grade. She knew I wanted to learn how to snowboard, so she asked me if I wanted to go to Pine Knob Ski Resort with her. I said yes because I really did want to learn how to snowboard. She had me meet her at Pine Knob one day and told me what I should bring. When I walked in the lodge it was intimidating because there were many people around me that have been snowboarding for most of their lives. There probably was a few that haven't, but I most people looked like they had their own gear and knew what they were doing. Ashley helped me get all the equipment I needed and then we went off to the hills.
We started on the bunny hill and she showed me how to go up the carpet and how to balance and how to stop myself. This was when I realized how difficult it can be to snowboard. I always used to think that it would be just like skateboarding, which is something I used to do a lot. I did pretty good at balancing but I had a hard time learning how to stop myself. There was different ways to stop yourself on a snowboard. One was with your heels and the other was with your toes. Ashley and I spent about an hour out on the bunny hill before she decided that she thought I was ready to take on some bigger hills. An hour really isn’t that much time. We went on the chairlift up to the bigger hills. Being up so high was nerve racking. Ashley was confident that I could make it down the hill fine so I had to be confident in myself.
When I stood at the top of the hill I had to convince myself that I was ready to go down. After many thoughts, I finally went down the hill. I did good. I made it down the hill alive. I even stopped by myself. I was so proud of myself and Ashley was too. After that, I kept going up the chair lift, going down the same big hill. The last time I decided to go down the big hill, I went really fast. I was going really fast and I soon realized that I couldn’t really control my speed. My snowboard was shrieking. This made my stomach drop. I was scared. I didn’t know what to do. This as something I have never done before so it made me very nervous. I was trying to stop myself but I just kept turning directions. I did not think I was going to be able to stop myself. I ended up going in the direction of the fence on the side of the hill. All of a sudden I felt myself ripping through the fence. I was on the ground. I sat up and realized what I had just done. Everything was a blur, I just snowboarded through the fence. The fence was torn, and blue pieces were surrounding me on the blinding white snow.
I was embarrassed. Everyone on the hill was looking at me and asking me if I was okay. The fence had a hole in it now like a car had just run right through it. I didn’t know where Ashley had went so I just laid there by myself. This is when I realized I wasn’t as good at snowboarding as I thought I was. When Ashley finally got over to me, she laughed at me.
She asked, “Alex, what happened?”
I thought it was pretty funny too, so I said, “I don’t know, I lost control.”
I could not believe I just broke the fence. The fence looked like a trampoline someone just fell through. That was when we decided that it was time to go in the lodge for a break. Walking back in the lodge I realized that it really isn’t that easy to just be naturally good at something new. After snowboarding through the fence, I wasn’t as c***y. This experience made me think differently, I knew now to never think that you can be good at something new in the span of one day. Walking into something new thinking you are already good at it does not mean you are. It is okay to be confident in yourself, but it’s not okay to be c***y. Everybody tries new things and it is okay to not be good at it right away.