What I said earlier echoes in my mind; what have I got to lose? I put my hand in his and shake it. “It’s a done deal now. What’s first on your list?” I take out my list from my pocket and hand it to him. “Skydiving… hmm… That one may be a little extreme for you to start out with.” I see his eyes scan the rest of the crinkled list. “We could start out with rollercoasters first? That’s not too bad.” I cringe at him saying ‘not too bad’. Maybe it isn’t bad for him, but that has been a childhood fear ever since I went to Canada’s Wonderland. I picture in my mind an eight year old me, brown hair in pigtails, crying her eyes out because I didn’t want to go on the rollercoaster. Multiple factors contributed to me crying and not liking them today; the fear of it breaking apart and the riders falling off, the height and unnatural speed it seems to go, the woozy feeling you get in your stomach; the list goes on. …show more content…
It’s not too late to back out, a little voice inside my head says. No. I need to do this. I want to face my fears. My eyes widen in obvious fear, but I don’t tell him no. “How about we go to the amusement park tonight? I’ve got two yearly admissions, so you can use one.” “I can’t believe I am doing this.” I say, more to myself, than Zander. “I’ll meet you there at say, 7:00 o’clock?” I’d rather meet him there than having him pick me up at my apartment. I still don’t know anything about him besides his name, so I have to be careful. But deep down, I know that I can trust him. “I’ll meet you by the fountain after you get in the gates.” He replies, with a smile on his
It was the summer of 2012 and my family was taking another trip to Six Flags Great America. Earlier that summer we went just for me to be disappointed. At the time I wasn’t 54 inches yet and couldn’t ride any of the rides that I wanted to because they were the most popular at the amusement park. But, I hit a growth spurt between trips and we planned to ride all of the big rollercoasters. The one that I was most terrified of at the time was Raging Bull, one of the tallest, fastest, and longest steel coasters in the US. As we started to wait in line for the ride I was shaking with both anticipation and fear and began to rethink my idea to ride the rollercoaster. I decided to stay in line and see what many people thought was a great coaster.
It was the last day of school, my friends and I all planned to go to Kings Island the next day. There is a big problem, the thing is I don’t ride rollercoasters and I’m terrified to get on one, I tried to act excited when my buddies kept talking about it but it was just hard because I’d be the boring one not getting on any of the rides. I knew that this trip was going either make me conquer my fears or become more scared of them.
It’s clear that roller coasters, while safe, still create fear, and still provoke a ‘fight or flight’ response. This is all in the riders head and is a mixture of both the engineering and psychology of a roller coaster. Roller coasters create thrills through an illusion and the psychology of fear. The sensation of danger and great speed on a modern roller coaster is mainly an illusion. Accidents are rare because of all of the safety devices that have been put in place and continue to be invented. Designers of roller coasters manipulate our deepest fears and play psychological games creating scary rides.
What most people expect to hear is me looking forward to riding the roller coasters. I hope that’s not what you thought because I hate them, maybe not hate, but really I’m just not a big fan of high altitudes in general. Consequently, this is why I was always reluctant to going with my family on this trip. Nevertheless I always went. Now that you know I’m not a fan of heights you could guess what attractions I was accustomed to riding, let’s just say my height requirement was more than enough to be eligible to ride. This specific year I decided to bring a friend to accompany me and in hindsight that was a bad idea because he was a roller coaster
“Well please be careful and please stay with the rest of the group so you don 't get lost! And I hope you have a fun time there.”
“Hey,” they reply together. I try to decode the tone of their voices, but all I’m getting is a hint of tired. “I wasn’t sure you guys were gonna come, I thought maybe it was a joke. I mean not that you guys would ever do that, that’s just how I think, ya know, I’ve never been the most optimistic.” I’m practically tripping over my words.
As the line for the Grizzly roller coaster at California’s Great America expanded,the loud screaming noises from people above us as they ride the roller coaster at tremendous fast speed. The big tv screen that displayed hilarious pictures of people’s faces as they approached the first drop on the roller coaster.Children legs were shaking uncontrollably as if they were on a cold winter day when they deboarded the roller coaster.Instantly I realized that I am going to encounter my fear of riding a roller coaster with one of my best friends,Stacey, and my sister,Jenny.I had butterflies in my stomach as my heartbeats accelerated as I approach near the seating of the roller coaster.I have waited twelve years to experience the rush of adrenaline
“That would be great. How about tomorrow, about three o’clock in the
It was a warm and sunny Saturday morning when my friend, Sivi, and I left our home to travel to the small local airport located outside of town. Just the previous night we had received 4 hours of classroom training in how to perform a successful "Skydive" and now we would receive 4 more hours of practical, hands-on training.
“Oh, great idea! I guess we can afford to go to the movies after all.”
Your friends have to practically convince you to change your mind in matter 30 seconds. At this point you can hear your own heart beating in your ears. Everyone seems to vanish and the only thing that you can see is the seat of the roller coaster that has sweat on it due to the previous rider whose nerves got the best of him. There is no turning back now and you have no choice but to get on the ride. Sitting on the ride, waiting for the ride to begin is the most heart wrenching part. You cannot prepare yourself to be flown 50 miles per hour. When you take off, it feels as though your breath is being pulled from your body. For a slip second, you feel like you can’t catch your breath, and you can see the people in front of you desperately trying to gasp for
I loved her you know. I loved her, before, before she changed. Before everything went wrong. Before she killed herself. I’m pretty sure it was my fault too. If only I had been brave enough, like she was, but I guess that’s why people humiliated her. I guess that’s why she died; because I was a coward. I wish I hadn’t of been, she wouldn’t be in a grave if I had just had the courage. I loved her too. She didn’t know it, but I tried to hint at it. I guess she thought I was leading her on or something. I tried to tell her but every time I did attempt to, she would look up at me with those big brown eyes and I would melt and nothing would come out.
Both can be very traumatizing to people and it may cause them to never ride roller coasters ever again. One incident happened in 1986 at West Edmonton Mall, Canada where three people died and one man was in a serious injury. The roller coaster was called The Mindbender, known for the world’s largest and safest indoor roller coaster (Purdy, 2016). The accident happened when the Mindbender was going a hundred kilometers when it battered a pillar and flinged four passengers to the ground. A man name Rod Chayko was the only survivor and apparently the three people died were his friends.
"Is this 20 questions now?” ha laughed. “I just thought I would call to see what you were doing, but I have to go, see you later."
Skydiving has been around since ancient Chinese times as a form of aerial stunts. Leonardo da Vinci and the Chinese are both credited for creating the parachute, but it was really in the 18th century when France both created it and used it by basically throwing themselves out of planes. Little did anyone know that skydiving would be one of the craziest sports today. Jumping out of a plane two and a half miles up into the sky would not be someone’s idea of a normal day. As bad as two and a half miles up in the sky is, try doing it traveling at a rate of one-hundred and sixty miles per hour with just a parachute to save you. To many people this would be a nightmare; but to some of us, it is the biggest thrill of our lives.