Oh the first snowfall

Oh the first snowfall, it’s the same every year. Waking up and looking out to a world covered in white, being suddenly reminded of all the great things about the season to come, Christmas, snowball fights, making jumps in our backyard that we only ever thought about hitting. Then you take your first step outside and think about all the worst parts of winter, the infinite cold, the ugly ground brown with mud and topped off with a gloomy sky, the early sunsets, and the lack of short shorts.

             Although the feelings may be the same every year the experiences differ. We do different things and create new memories. Memories that can hit both extremes in the positives and negatives, like the time when I was snowboarding and did my first ever rail; coincidentally this was at the same time that I fell on my first rail. I had gotten half way across and slipped and fell on my tailbone, at this moment feeling both agony towards the pain and ecstasy towards my courage, (along with a little bit of morphine). An experience that can be categorized as both positive and negative, to extreme measures, because although it was hard to sit down it encouraged me to try again, and continue failing until I finally succeeded giving me a sense of accomplishment that will make it all worth it.

            Experiences make us who we are; they create new memories that shape our personalities. In 1885 Wilson A. Bentley discovered that no two snowflakes are alike and that they are all six sided. Our winters follow the same pattern, super-cooled, six months and creating new experience each as unique as the next. So now remember to think of winter as an opening for new opportunity, instead of closing for any activity.

Laughter By Mason

Hello laughter, or should I say perfection. You are the pinnacle of enjoyment; you make the bad times good, and the good times even better. You can put sadness to shame and send sorrow packing. In short, laughter where are you right now?

Although I’m not in current desire for you it's always nice to have you around to save for a rainy day. You only ever seem to come around when I'm watching a cheap comedy, or already enjoying myself. Why do I not have the ability to laugh on command? Why is it that when I am sad can’t I just say a punch line and cheer myself up?

Laughter I always have a desire to laugh so hard I can't breath, so I just sit there looking like and idiot but not caring about what I look like to others because you're making me happy. Laughter remember that time when you came to dinner and I ate my brothers chewed up steak by accident? A normally humiliating situation made enjoyable when you were in our presence. Or the time I fell out of my chair usually painful, but causing me to laugh so hard I couldn’t breath or make any noise at all, yet somehow enjoying myself with your presence; I could only think that the most painful part of the accident was not having a chair to fall out of due to laughter.

In summary Laughter we have grown up together, you have made my life better, and I don’t know what I’d do without you, you’re my best friend, my happiness, and my scapegoat for embarrassing situations. Laughter so I state again, “You are perfection”.

We were all sitting around the dinner table shoveling down our steak after a long day of skiing and snowboarding. The steak was a juicy, tender, well-seasoned meal, and was cooked to perfection. The thought of the meal makes my mouth water excitedly just hoping for more. I was nearing the end of my plate and about to get seconds when my dreams for more food got shattered because I was bluntly told that there was not enough food for seconds. I live in a family full of mooches but we call it, “sharing”, therefore, if you live at our house and are a slow eater, you don’t eat. This being said I glanced at my brothers half full plate, being as optimistic as I could I saw a piece of uneaten meat on just begging for a home in my stomach. I looked away and acted natural whilst thinking of a genius game plan to grab the food without him noticing. Five minutes passed and still the meat was untouched I was contemplating doing my scheme because no one lets a piece of meat that superb sit for that long. I quickly decided, however, that if I were to strike it would have to be soon otherwise that meat would be getting cold, “Look over there what is that?” I exclaimed without thinking twice he looked along with the rest of the table, “yum” I thought, stolen food tastes so much better. He looked back at me and asked, “what?” using my wit I came up with a quick and cunning answer. “Nothing” I replied to him as if nothing ever happened. Confused he looked back at his plate and continued eating when he finally clued in that my stuffed mouth was his food. He quickly looked back up and gave me a death stare but didn’t say anything. Just watched as I finished eating his piece of meat. It was fatty and took a while to chew up and when I finally swallowed he burst out in an intense laughter. My first thought was that he was laughing at the recent events that had just taken place until he told me, “Mason that meat was getting chewed on by me for a while but it was too fatty so I spat it out”. My mouth dropped and I sunk in my seat. It’s not too often that I tell this story, but when I do it makes people laugh and that, in itself, is awesome.