Had to write a "Day in the Life" essay for English class

[NickEMT702 0]

Had to write an essay for English. Seeing as my first jump was on Friday, I had plenty to write about.





Blue Skies, Black Death - A Day in the Life of a First Time Skydiver

Some people like to live life as it comes at them, trying not to expect what’s next. I try to take life down and make it say uncle. As Mel Gibson says while playing William Wallace in Braveheart; “Every man dies, not every man truly lives”.

Several weeks ago I was thinking about my existence. I decided that something was missing in my life. I had recently broken up with my fiancé, so it wasn’t a woman. I yearned to feel alive, to feel like I was more than just a twenty-two year old nursing student. I decided to go skydiving. Nothing like hurtling towards the earth with another human strapped to your back with nothing to save you but some pieces of nylon to make you feel alive. Without very much forethought, I called Las Vegas Extreme Skydiving, then went online and booked my jump. I talked to my friend Paul, who has over two hundred military jumps and told him I was jumping, and that if he knew what was best for him, he would jump too.

I informed my mother who commented on my sanity and then I visited the nearest purveyor of books to purchase a tutorial on the sport. I found a book entitled The Skydivers Handbook and purchased it immediately. I read it from cover to cover and contemplated if I was really going to do this. I decided that if my parachute failed and I careened towards earth at one hundred twenty miles per hour no one could ever say I lived and died a boring life.

I started to count down the days. I watched videos online. I even watched a video of a German man B.A.S.E. jumping off the Stratosphere tower (he smuggled his parachute in by concealing in a hollowed out giant stuffed bear). I got excited. I got scared. I drank and got excited again. I wondered what the experience would be like from beginning to end. Would I be taught emergency procedures and body positioning? Would I get to steer the parachute? Would I get to pull the ripcord?

Paul and I arrived at Jean Airport after many u-turns while trying to navigate our way to the drop zone. We walked in and informed the quite pompous individual who we were and what we were there to do and waited. He put in a DVD with all the risks of skydiving contained in it. I ignored the risks of course and filled out the three page liability packet. Finally we emerged from the viewing room filled with what the army would call “Hooah” and waited some more. A man came up and told me that he was Joe and that I would be jumping with him. I recognized him as one of the staff pilots from the drop zone’s website. Since I used to be a student pilot, we talked about airplanes and flying. He got me into a harness and jumpsuit, and took two minutes to explain body position while jumping. There was no mentioning of emergency procedures. He told me to sit tight and that I would be in the next load of jumpers.

I bitched a little bit of the color of my suit, a kind of puke green I thought of it as. I made fun of Paul and informed him that he looked like a “big ass bumblebee”. Finally, the load of jumpers before us came in. They all looked happy, and more importantly, they all looked alive.

Paul and I marched out to the plane. Joe filmed the event from a small camcorder mounted to his wrist. He joked for the camera and talked about how I had no parachute on my back (he was wearing our chute) and he assured me that I could curse on the tape, which I immediately took advantage of. We crouched into the Cessna Caravan and sat on the benches on either side of the aircraft and faced backwards.

We took off and Joe filmed most of the events. He jokingly asked if I had any last words. I said “Splat” and we kept flying. Everybody on the plane was excited, with Paul making a noise similar to a howler monkey in heat. Suddenly the green light mounted on the wall of the aircraft turned green and Joe had me help open the door that we would be jumping through into possible oblivion.

I saw Paul and his instructor jump out, I saw the next person and his instructor jump out. Finally Joe and I duck walked to the door, I closed my eyes, tucked my thumbs into the harness, and we jumped. I felt the wind and the force of gravity pushing us down and I fell Joe tap me on my shoulder, signaling to arch my body and get into the “arch” position. Suddenly, I opened my eyes and felt alive. I felt my cheeks blow like a bloodhound sticking his head out the window of a car on the interstate. I felt the cold on my face and knew that we were going fast. Joe spun us around so I could get a good look of the valley. I looked up and saw two other jumpers pull their chute. As soon as they opened theirs, Joe, unbeknownst to me, pulled ours. I felt a tremendous force that felt like the good Lord himself plucking us upwards.

Joe asked me what I thought of the experience so far. After I let loose a string of profanity that I won’t dare to repeat Joe understood that I enjoyed the freefall. He tested the brakes on the parachute and made sure it responded to control inputs. This he did by making us fly in three hundred sixty degree circles going one way and then the other.

A little bit later, Joe instructed me to cross my arms and raise my legs because we were entering into the traffic pattern. I did so and got ready. I could tell he was concentrating as he made gentle control inputs to get us into prime position for a landing. The ground seemed to get closer and closer until we touched down on our butts and were safe.

I let out a hearty laughter of relief and looked around. I was a changed man. Joe collected the chute; we all got in the van, and reminisced about the event that happened less than two minutes ago. We got back to the building, took our equipment off, and waited for our DVD’s to be finalized. I was still shaking from the massive adrenaline release I had just gone through. As we waited, I looked over to Paul to gauge his reaction. I asked him what his thoughts were and his only remark was, “Want to do it again?”

Let me know whatcha think guys!

Once guns are outlawed, only outlaws will have guns.

[OlympiaStoica 0]

I hope you get an "A"
O

[DavidB 0]

Technically nothing jumped out at me. I read the whole thing and not once thought, "Basic spelling and grammar! Learn it!"

When the only tool you have is a hammer, every problem looks like a nail.

[wolfriverjoe 1,523]

Nicely written. I don't see any grammatical, spelling, punctuation or other technical errors (I'm not a teacher though).

Good flow, not a lot of fluff or too many adverbs.

The ending is a little ambiguous. Are you going again?

Last thing: Change the Title. BSBD is way too cliched, especially for a routine tandem.

suggestions:

I did What?

An experience like no other

A whole new look at life

Focus more on the positive. Yes there is risk, but it should be mostly about the rewards not the "facing death" part.

"There are NO situations which do not call for a French Maid outfit." Lucky McSwervy

"~ya don't GET old by being weak & stupid!" - Airtwardo

[NickEMT702 0]

hey, thanx a lot bro. I'll probably end up doin that.

Once guns are outlawed, only outlaws will have guns.

[DavidB 0]

Ran across this: http://www.ryanbrutt.com/ Read it! Now you see how it SHOULDN'T be done! Painful, eh? What makes this an even funnier? The "writer" claims to be a journalism major! Notice the myriad of grammatical & structural errors; very BASIC errors.

Rest assured, you did much MUCH better than our journalism major above!

When the only tool you have is a hammer, every problem looks like a nail.

[owls23588 0]

Sounds good man!

Those who've done it can't explain it! Those who haven't can't understand it!