Chasing Failure

Public Speaking Background:   I am terrified of public speaking. In middle school, we used to do Spanish orals and I couldn’t even eat two days before because I would be so nervous. It's one of my biggest fears and I honestly have no idea why. Every time I do it my stomach starts to hurt, my voice gets super shaky and I can barely even stand up, it's terrible. Last week at church someone came up to me and basically asked me to share my life story in front of the church which has like 400 people and when she asked I almost had a heart attack. My Prediction: I think leading up to service I’m going to be terrified and try to think of any way possible to get out of it but in the end, I’ll get out there and do it. I’ll definitely be super nervous but I think when I’m actually on stage, I’ll realize it’s not as bad as I thought. The Process: Last week, every time I thought about going on stage, I would get soooo nervous. I couldn’t stop thinking about it! I wrote eve

Paintball Background:    I've never played paintball in my life but it's not something I think I'll be very good at. When I was younger, my family would have Nerf wars around the house and I had terrible aim and was always the first one shot. We also had an archery unit in PE in middle school and I think I might have only hit the target once. I don't really know what skills are needed in order to be successful in paintball but I most likely don't have them. I've actually always wanted to try paintball though so I'm pretty excited. My Prediction: I'll probably be one of the first one's out and MAYBE if I'm super lucky I'll hit one person. The Process:   One of our family friends was having his Bar Mitzvah this weekend and instead of having a party he decided to get a huge group of people together and play paintball. I've never played before and I wasn't sure how much it would hurt so I made sure to put on three different shirt

Knitting Background:    I've only knitted one other time in my life and it was at a Martin Luther King Day service event. Basically, there were a bunch of different activities you could choose from and one was knitting caps for babies in a homeless shelter. I thought this sounded like a great idea so I went in and the instructor tried to teach the class a couple stitches but I was so confused. About ten minutes in, all the ladies around me were halfway done with their caps and I was still on my second stitch so I ended up leaving and going to a new activity. My Prediction: I think if I have a good teacher and I'm able to learn one on one I'll be able to get a couple stitches in. I think they'll look pretty wonky and not really come out to anything but I think overall I'll be able to do a few stitches. The Process:   For this challenge I had Stella teach me the steps. Stella has been knitting since she was 8 years old and she can knit extremely fast. When s

Origami Background: I don’t have any background when it comes to making origami. I don’t think I’ve ever made one in my entire life but considering that I can barely fold a piece of paper in half without the sides being uneven, I don’t think I’ll be very good at it. I’m also terrible and pretty much every form of art so we’ll see how this turns out. My Prediction: I have very low expectations for how my crane is going to turn out. My guess is that my crane will look like a crumpled up paper ball by the end. The Process: Marie Elise's crane (orange) and my crane (blue) My friend Marie-Elise lived in Japan for 3 months in middle school and used to have an origami set which she used to make all types of different animals. Throughout this blog I’m just going to call her the crane master because I definitely could not have made my crane without her. First, we had to get origami paper from Stella (thanks Stella!) and then we were ready to begin. The first co

Nail Background:    The last time I painted someone's nails was in 7th grade, and let me just say, it was not a look. I ended up painting half of her finger and my polka dots came together into giant blobs of color. My friend wiped it off with nail polish remover right away. Since then I haven't painted anyone's nails, not even my own.  My Prediction: I honestly don't think I can do much worse so my prediction is that I'll improve but they'll still look pretty bad. I think my left hand won't look too bad but my right hand is going to look terrible since I'll have to paint it with my left. The Process:        My left hand which I painted with my right hand My right hand which I painted with my left hand I started off by choosing a color. I chose white because it's spring and white is a nice bright color that matches pretty much anything. I started off with my left hand and I figured I couldn't mess it up that bad. I mean, all I

Chopstick Background:    I love pretty much all types of Asian food, sushi, glass noodles, dumplings, you name it but despite multiple attempts, I've never been able to successfully use chopsticks. Every time I try, all of the food falls off of them as soon as I lift my hand from my plate. I always end up just getting disappointed and shamefully asking the waiter for a fork. My stepmom is Filipino and she tried to teach me every time we go out but I've never really gotten it. Who knows, maybe today is the day I finally learn to use chopsticks. My Prediction: Considering that I've tried and failed to use chopsticks many times, I'm skeptical. I think today I may be able to pick up a couple of noodles without them dropping but I doubt I'll be able to get through an entire meal with just chopsticks. The Process:   This Sunday I went to Honeygrow where they sell stir fry with noodles. At first, I tried to eat my noodles without any instruction on how to use my