Personal Challenge

At first, my personal challenge was to go skydiving. It’s always been a dream of mine and joining the club here made me realize that I can fulfill it fairly easily. I was planning on going with my roommate and our other friend but I ended up taking the Carolina Convoy with my boyfriend to go to the Alabama Game that weekend for, one, the Alabama game, and two, one of my best friends goes to Alabama. Missing that weekend, I was then going to go on the next and last one for the semester. However, I missed the meeting where we had to pay our deposit. So, I cannot go skydiving until next semester. The next personal challenge I had lined up was giving blood in the annual Carolina vs. Clemson blood drive. In high school, I was always too young and thin to give blood. Gaining muscle playing lacrosse last spring, I surpassed the minimum weight to give blood. I have always loved the idea behind it. If you give blood once, you can save three lives! But there’s one thing…I’m terrified of needles. I always have hated shots. It’s not that they hurt; I just get really freaked out before they stick me. Also, for my lacrosse physical, I had to get five shots and blood taken in one day. Ouch. And the doctor couldn’t find my vein to take blood. She stuck me EIGHT times. And then proceeded to tell me that I have “rolling veins,” meaning that my veins roll away from the needle. How convenient. So I decided that I’d finally give blood and get over my fear. Once I convinced myself that I could do it, I went over to Russell with my roommate. Upon reading the booklet, it said to see someone if you were under 19 or under 5’6” as a female. I happen to be both. The lady informed me that since I’m 18 and 5’4”, I have to be 124 lbs to give blood instead of 110 lbs at 5’4” when I’m 19. So again, personal challenge fail. My next personal challenge was to ace all five of my last Latin quizzes. Latin is my hardest subject this semester. I performed dismally on the first couple, so I vowed to do well on all of the remaining ones. I succeeded.