Today is my last day having to jump with two (2) instructors on my Accelerated Free Fall (AFF) lesson. From here on out I will only be jumping with one (1) instructor, plenty in my opinion, I will be sure to bring a larger set of balls to compensate.
Overall this lesson was pretty cool and extremely simple. I was to do exactly as I have always done, jump out, check my altimeter constantly and control my free fall with a good arch. This time there was a bonus: the instructors would actually let me go this time so that I was making my own damn body stable as I was falling. Overall I was not completely 100% stable, but I was good enough to pass an go on to level 4!
I also want to make one interesting observation about today. If you've been following my blog at all, you'd know that I am a walking contradiction and I love finding irony. Check this out:
Most people don't realize this but the majority of the time skydiver's spend at dropzones (DZs) consists of either training on the ground or WAITING to get on your assigned plane. In other words, the actual free falling and piloting your parachute like a badass takes up the minority of your time there.
If you don't have something to keep yourself occupied, you WILL DIE OF BOREDOM. Don't get me wrong, there is always a flurry of activity going on with different skydiving teams, and tandems going in and out ( and up and down). Since I'm not part of any of that I just wait my turn. I have spent many cloudy/rainy/windy days at the DZ only to have my skydive canceled due to weather being too "extreme" for a student.
So what do you do? Bring a laptop? Yeah I did that once, it was actually really productive of me. Despite that, I think the best use of my time is to make new friends. I mean fuck it, this is why it's worthwhile doing anything, the fact that you get to share your epic experiences with one another.
So on this particular day I saw this girl that was in a class for her first AFF jump. Later on, there we are, sitting on a bench waiting for our respective planes to whisk us away. After a few moments of waiting, I speak up by asking her if this was her first jump.
Nope, she's done two tandems already. She's going straight to AFF level 2.
"Cool. So is my friend," I introduce her to my first jump classmate and then promptly introduce myself and proceed to ignore him the rest of the day. (Sorry dude ... fine, I'm not that sorry.)
So we hit it off pretty well, she's this super cool, rock climbing, scuba diving chick that is basically just looking for not only the next big adventure, but also looking to conquer her fear of heights. I'm this random, just moved from Boston, motorcycle riding dude that watched just a little too much Youtube and now wants to "wingsuit it up" as soon as humanly possible.
I think after about a cool half hour of shootin' the breeze with her, I realize that this was a cool ass chick. Man I wish there was some way I would get to talk to her again. I glanced at the clock that counts down your boarding time for your plane, I was up next. Damn, if I just say "peace out, it was nice chatting with you" it's possible I might not see this girl again, ever. So should I ask her for her number? Is that tacky/creepy/a terrible idea? Will she burst out laughing in the middle of this crowded hangar and subsequently begin a chain reaction where everyone starts to point and laugh at me?
So I freeze up and hesitate for literal minutes about whether or not I should ask a girl I like for her phone number right before I (with absolutely no hesitation) jump out of a plane at 14,000 feet in the air hurtling towards the planet at 120 miles per hour.
What kind of paranormal logic is that?! CONTRADICTION AND IRONY ALERT! This is like a pedobear that doesn't like kids. What kind of shit is that!?
Luckily I caught myself, fully recognized the irony and was like, "Listen my plane is coming up and I definitely would want to continue this convo later, here take my number (I hand her a pen) and call/text me sometime. Also it gets kind of boring waiting around for your plane by yourself" etc etc.
Smooth Alex, smooth. Give her YOUR number so as to take the pressure off the whole situation. Most people aren't rude enough to refuse a phone number. The simplest, most non-confrontational way to resolve that unwanted attention is to wait for that person to walk away and throw his desperate-ass 10 digits away. If she is cool with my having her number, she will simply call me later (or text in today's wacky world of iPhone's and emoticons).
She takes the pen and looks at it funny, as if she wasn't sure what to fuck to do with it. In about 2 seconds, I realize why: her cell phone is LITERALLY in the same hand she took the pen with. So she awkwardly gives me a look, I figure it out after a second and take the pen back.
"Yeah sorry, apparently I'm still in the stone ages, people don't write numbers out anymore I guess." **Awkward, and clearly forced chuckle**
So we sit there as she is trying to unlock her phone, which by the way picked a terrific time to go ahead and freeze on her. It's a brand new Galaxy S3 and it's frozen at the lock pattern screen. Never in the history of phone unlocking was the repeated swiping of the passcode more ... can I say it? ... awkward.
Picture this: My awkward ass hasn't given out a phone number to a girl that I just met in ... a very long time. So I'm already internally hyperventilating from the massive and sudden increase of the size of my kahunas. She's a bit awkward too because her brand new phone is malfunctioning for the first time while at the same time this quirky Asian dude is breathing down her neck more or less force-feeding her his phone number.
At some point, I regain consciousness and hand her back the pen and gave her the "I told you so/technology is unreliable/I may have a huge erection" look. YES, they are all the same look; NO, I won't teach it to you.
She writes my number down on her training manual and I could feel everyone at the DZ breathing a sigh of relief. Seriously, my jump master all the way across the hangar was probably about to 100 meter dash all the way across the hangar to me and this girl to write my number down for her.
So there it is, the lamest story ever told about getting a girl's phone number. I wish I could say that I was smoother, but come on at least I got the job done. By the way, she ended up texting me.
