Well, summer is out and school is in. I started garde twelve yesterday. When your in grade 12, you get back into the school routine real quick with assignments and homework and everything. I had homework on the first day. I tell ya, there is definitely no rest for the grade twelve students. I'm excited to be back at school. I like getting back into routine and always having something to do. I was looking forward to starting school, but I was a little bit in denial about going into grade 12. That's just way to old! I want to be a kid forever. I'm almost an adult Legally, I'm a still a child though. Your not an adult until your eighteen. That's the law and I'm stickin' to it! Anyway, school has been great so far. I'm taking some great courses. This term, I'm taking an extra writing course, aside from English. I love to write so I'm excited about the class. I have my regular English class next term, so I get to write all year,whitch is awesome! I'm also in Work Experience this year. We get to go into town, and find diffrent places to work. The point is to see what we might want to do as a job after we graduate. I'm have a couple of jobs lined up. There is a lot of paper work we have to do to get started. I'm excited to be in the working force. I plan to blog all about it. School is looking great. Like I said, it will be an exciting year. I'm ready for it!
I always like to give you a bit of back round information about what I've been up to lately, bore i start my actual blog. I always have so much to say. It takes a while for me to get on the actual topic of the blog. Anyway, today I wanted to talk about my rowing adventure that I went on yesterday and the day before. You might remember me talking about rowing when I wrote my Rick Hansen Blog. My friend Dave from skiing had an adaptive rowboat on display. He has taken an adaptive rowing coarse and wants to get a program going. This adaptive boat is just like a normal rowboat except it has big fenders at the side to help it balance. I like that it can stay still while I get in. I just learned about what the boat did that day.. I learned more about rowing when I went out with Dave yesterday. I also looked up Adaptive rowing on the Internet to give you a bit more information. The technical name for adaptive rowing is called Sculling. Sculling can be enjoyed many diffrent people with many different abilities. Adaptive rowing has been around for twenty years. It' even an olympic sport. People really enjoy this sport It is just one more thing that gives people with diversabilities one more thing that they can say they can do. It includes them in the world of sports and makes them feel like they can do anything. An adaptive rowboat is just like a normal rowboat with a few adaptions. In rowboats, the seats you sit on, move back and forth as you row. This seat stays still to help the person who has the diversability with stability. I like this part. I've been in a canoe before and I am quite nervous about the tipping, so knowing that this boat will stay still is a bit more comforting for me. The row bat is a two seater. The seat in the front is the adapted seat and the seat inthe back is a normal rowing seat. Yesterday, Dave sat in the normal seat and gaveinstructions to me in the adaptive seat . This adaptive rowboat is quite the contraption. It's amazing what people come up with to help people with diversabilities .
Dave and I had been wanting to go rowing together ever slice Dave showed me the rowboat at the Rick Hansen Celebration, and we've finally organized something. On Monday, Vince, another friend from skiing that also helps with the rowing, came to my house and asked if I would be interested in coming out rowing with him and Dave that afternoon. I was excited. I've been thinking about rowing one day, so I was happy to get to try it. Our family is out visiting, so they came out with us. We took my uncle's boat to the local beach in town. That was fun. We haven't been in it for a long time so it was nice to get it out. I love that my family could all be there to see me try something new.
When we got to the beach, Dave and Vince were very excited to get rowing. The two strong men got the boat out themselves. They were all ready to go. They were awesome! Before I got into the boat, Dave gave me some instruction on how to row. There are a lot of steps to it. It's quite the process He told me the basics and then I got in the boat and tried it out. It took quite a bit of practise. I had to have Dave tell me how to do things over and over again. I loved it though. I loved going fast! It's such a great feeling. We rowed for an hour and a half. The first day was good to get the technique down. The second day, I learned some more techniques, like learning how to steer. I also got to use both hands. Lefty cooperated whith was awesome!. I learned some different moves. I was rowing for two hours that day. I had a lot of fun. We really lucked out with the weather. It was a beautiful day and there wasn't a breeze on the water the first day. It was perfect for rowing., The second day there was a little breeze but it was still very nice out. I am going to go out again next Tuesday. I'm excited to be back on the water, rowing away.
Thank you Dave and Vince for the awesome time. You were so great at getting everything ready to go. You were very enthusiastic about me trying rowing for the first time. You were patient with me while I was learning how to row. You were great. You made rowing for me one more thing I can do. Rowing is just I am able to do in my world of possibilities
I had a great time rowing. I can't wait to go again. Dave said that they have got a whole team together and I could go with them. I'm excited to do that. I think I've found my new sport. Watch out Summer Paralympics. Here I come!
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