Storytelling: Story-slam, The Time I Jumped Off a Bridge

       My story, The Time I Jumped Off a Bridge, came from the summer of going into 8th grade. I was in Portland with my friends on a blistering hot day, and we went down to the Fireman Docs to cool off. We saw a couple people we knew jumping off the Hawthorne Bridge, which seemed very sketchy and dangerous, but one by one, we started to run up to the bridge, and jump off it as well. After three of my friends jumped off the bridge, I decided to. It was thrilling: I was in the air for what seemed like an eternity. I hit the water, screaming at the top of my lungs. Once I swam back to the Docs, I found out that it wasn't exactly legal to do at the time, and the police tried to get kids to stop jumping off. It's a 50-foot jump, so it isn't in the comfort-zone of most people and can be life-threatening.
       I chose to tell this story because it's probably the most exciting thing I've done. It holds a lot of meaning to me because it broke me out of my comfort-zone, and it made the highlight of my summer. Whenever I think of summer now, I imagine doing fun, radical things, and the first thing that comes to mind is jumping off Hawthorne Bridge. It also seemed to have the most hindsight, which we needed in our Story-slam story. That is, something that I did in the past that I regret now. Even though I enjoyed it and want to do it again, every time my mom tells me "Would you jump off a bridge if your friends did too?" I say "No," but I really mean "Yes."
       By telling this to my peers without notes, I think it impacted me in a positive way. It was an experience that taught me how to not only think on the fly, but dig deeper into my brain to memorize parts than rehearse it over paper. In my opinion, I believe you're more connected to your audience when you're speaking from the top of your head and not from a paper. I thought it was extremely fun to tell my story to some of my classmates, other students at Lincoln, and even some staff members. I learned that my class and community is much more than the shell they put forth to the world, and they have so much character to them. I believe Storytelling strengthened my connection to my classmates, and gave me more awareness of other people around Lincoln.