Xtreme Frisbee

Today we had our field trip to Canobie Lake amusement park in New Hampshire.

The kids were great. The weather was a dream. The colleague who went with me is a lot of fun. The day was perfect. It had been threatening to lightening and downpour, but none of that nightmare weather ever materialized.

As soon as we entered the park, the kids scrammed and ran to all four corners of the park in pursuit of their favorite rides.

My colleague and I walked around and enjoyed being outdoors. We occasionally ran into some of our students, chatted about what rides they'd been on, and then pleasantly parted ways.

After lunch (we waited 45 minutes in line for disgusting fatty chicken fingers and fries), we ran into Anna-Julia, Melissa, Brandon and Sergio. Actually, Melissa and Brandon were sitting there, having an iced tea, and waiting for Anna-Julia and Sergio, who had retired momentarily to their respective restrooms. I expressed my disappointment at the fact that my colleague refused to ride the "XTreme Frisbee ride with me." At this, Melissa and Brandon perked up and informed me that Anna-Julia was desperate for somebody to ride the thing with. Neither of them felt like braving the ride.

So, when Anna-Julia came back, we immediately reparied to the corner of the park where the XTreme Frisbee ride is housed.

Thinking it hilarious that their teacher was perparing to go on this most horrifying ride, Brandon and Melissa took thier phones out and summoned all their classmates to the ride to witness what they thought might be my extreme diziness and disorientation.

When we arrived at the ride, a good 3/4 of the kids were there, waiting to join us in our venture onto the XTreme Frisbee ride.

We waited in line together, me and all of my 8th graders, much to the amusement of all the other hundreds of kids in line. "Hey, look at those kids going on the ride with the teacher!"

At last, our turn to ride arrived.

This ride consists of a huge disc with seats all around the perameters. The disc begins to hoist itself back and forth, all the while spinning around like crazy.

With each passage to and fro, the disc gains more momentum, gains more height, and spins more violently out of control.

Just when I had convinced myself that the ride had reached its climax, I realized that the speed had intensified and that we were going so high that we were practically spinning completely over. It was outrageous. I am a fan of horrifying amusements, but this thing was over the top even for me. I was willing the thing to be over!

After what seemed like hours of spinning and hurtling through space at breakneck speeds, the thing finally started to slow and descend.

After that, I had gained some official streed cred and was dragged to every spinning ride in the park by my students.

But I can't complain. I had a great time.

This is what being an 8th grade teacher is about.