I sat at my desk. I couldn’t concentrate. The room was silent, except for the gentle hum of the air conditioning unit and pencils scribbling away on unfinished tasks. I looked around the room for something to distract me from what I should be working on. I’d finish it eventually, maybe. My eyes continued to survey the room. Nothing grabbed my attention. The only thing I could think of was the cold. I was seated near the air conditioning unit that blew frigid air my way even though it was winter.

I turned to look at the snow through the large windows to the left of the room. I watched the small white flakes tumble and fall towards the ground. The snow was almost hypnotizing. I began to get lost in my head. I began drowning in an avalanche of thoughts and daydreams yet again. I thought of the snow, and naturally thought of skiing. Skiing on fresh powder, or groomed corduroy, or anything. I thought about the edges of my skis carving into the edge of the mountain, about getting some air on little jumps along the way, and about the feeling you get when you know you just finished a great run.

That feeling was almost the same as when you take a great line on a mountain bike. I began to think about hitting the trails and taking nice flowy lines down berms and features, and about the feeling of being one with the bike as your momentum is carried along the flowy downhill track. The downhill trails are so much better than the rough technical trails. Don’t get me wrong, I love doing technical stuff too, but the flow of the downhill trail makes having to do all the technical work worth it. The uphill on rocky and rough dirt going up or down with tricky switchbacks and technical features made the ride a lot harder, but it was a fun challenge sometimes.
Thinking of the dirt trails in the woods and the mountains made me think of life back in Madagascar. The dirt trails I ride on reminded me of the dirt roads we used to drive on. The trees and hills around the trails were also around the roads. I thought about driving home from the COT. The COT was the stables my sister used to ride at in Madagascar and the drive to and from it was probably the bumpiest drive I’ve ever been on. We’d go to the COT every Saturday. My sister would ride horses, and I’d play soccer. I never wanted to go to the COT because Saturdays were the days that my friends played soccer at the school. Playing soccer with people was better than kicking a ball around by yourself for hours.

I began to think of my school in Madagascar. I remembered my classmates and my teachers. The school wasn’t big. There were only 13 in my entire grade. Sometimes it felt like there were more teachers than students. The teachers liked me, for the most part, but they said I got distracted too easily. They used to always tell me to stop daydreaming in class. I could pretty much hear my third grade teacher, Ms. June, telling me to pay attention. Suddenly I snapped out of it and was back in the cold seat in the cold room.

I looked back at my empty paper. I glanced around the room to see how behind I was. Everyone was done. I checked my watch to see the time. There were 3 minutes left in class. I had just wasted around fifteen minutes daydreaming. At least it was kind of funny to know that no matter where in the world I am, and no matter how old I get, I’ll still end up daydreaming way too much.