Tempting New Digi Dare

The challenge…


Celebrate your failures. We learn more from them than we do from succeeding. I honestly believe in that sentiment because I see this everyday in my classroom. With each failure, a student learns to get better at just one more thing. In fact, what they take from that failure is what helps them to succeed the next time around. Sometimes you have to strategically help them to analyze and break down this process, but they do get it. Don’t get me wrong. I know…failing stinks. It’s not fun and sometimes, it really hurts. It’s okay. It’s all part of the process. Think back to a time when you failed. How did you feel? What happened afterward? Did you try again? Tell me about your failures so that I can celebrate them with you.

Dare flair:
*The color orange is often used to symbolize success. Use orange anywhere on your layout
*Journaling is a significant part of this assignment. I want you to highlight at least 4 words within your journaling that describe how you felt or how you are feeling now about the experience. You can do this by underlining, changing the color of the font, “painting” over the word to highlight it, etc.)

Credits: Different Strokes Papers by Karah Fredricks; The Junk Yard by SherrieJD; My Wish for You by Aja Abney; Phineas Comes to Tea by Studio Tangie; I Am Artistic by Crissy Armstrong; Kabloom transparency strips and Let There Be Light by Emily Powers (all retired); Date Stamps by Amber Clegg; Font Century Gothic and Tekton Pro

Journaling:

It’s not if you fall or not, it’s if you get back up when you fall that makes you great.
Anonymous

It’s pretty fair to say that I’m one of those persons who enjoys pursuits that I can master well. If I’m not that great at it, I might not stay with it, unless I really really really love it. If I’m just average, then usually I end up discovering something else that I can do instead that I can be really great at. For instance, when I started tenth grade we were the incoming class to the high school. I was also in a new-to-me school district, and I knew getting involved would help me make friends. I decided, perhaps because I’d tried all other sports and had been just average, to try out for the swim team. I had never been on a swim team, never raced before. I didn’t even know how to do one of those flippy-spinny things they do at the end of the lane, a somersault pushing off the wall – the basic freestyle flip turn.

At the same time, I started taking dance lessons after school at one of the many local dance studios. I had never had any training before unless you count the few weeks of tumbling and tap I attempted when I was about 5 years old. It was 1975 way back then, and little pre-school me thought I was going to be taught by John Travolta, so I wasn’t into tap, tap, tap, shuffle, shuffle, shuffle. I had been a cheerleader for 2 years so some of the skills easily transferred to dance. I seemed to be a natural.

Competition time: At our swim meets, in my individual events, I rarely placed above 3rd place, and I never expected too – I was always just grateful to make it to the finish line. I did participate in my team’s relay race, summoning up my courage. Our team tied for 1st place at the end of the season at our tournament.
Competition time: At our dance competitions, I had more expectations than I did for our swim meets because my teacher and other thought I was talented, or told that to me. I was moved out of my group into an advanced competition group, a smaller group. I ended up discovering for the first time in my life what it was like to be a big fish in small pond at home, and a small fish in a big pond when we went to Nationals. After the first few competitions, and judge’s remarks that took away my over-confident cockiness, I continued dancing for the love of it, to teach it to children, and for the opportunity to choreograph for my studio’s recital.
I had left the swim team after that first season. However, at the end of that year, the Coach gave me an award for Most Improved Team Player.

I never won a dance competition, however, I did get to take dance classes in L.A., I was in a production of the holiday favorite The Nutcracker, and a dancer/chorus person in our high school production of the musical Grease, all before I graduated high school.


To participate, create a layout based on the challenge, meeting all of the flairs. Upload to a gallery and post a link on our blog http://www.digidares.com/ by Thursday, October 22.