Mind-Over-Matter             I wanted to give in, let my fear win.  “Life's too short! You gotta do it.” Annette, my best friend's mom, told me.  I thought about it.  I'm most likely not going to be coming back in the near future. I wasn't going to lose this mind-over-matter game.                It happened at Six Flags.  Earlier that day, I had gotten motion sick from other rides and from riding in a car for too many hours.  The one ride I was the most afraid to ride, but the one I wanted to ride the most, was the Giant Drop.  After getting in line and turning around once, I just decided to watch the ride run a few more times while my best friend, Tana, and Annette rode the Raging Bull.                As I watched person after person ride this thing, I thought to myself, “It doesn't look that bad...”  When Tana and Annette got done with the Raging Bull, I got knots in my stomach.  I knew I had to face my fear of heights and my fear of falling and ride the Giant Drop.  I walked up to Tana and said, “Let's ride this now while I have the adrenaline to do it.”  And so with that, Tana, Annette, and I got in line for the Giant Drop.                While waiting in the line for the Giant Drop, I started to panic.  I wanted to leave the line.  I didn't care at the time that I would look like a complete fool.  Tana repeated to me, “Life's too short! You gotta do it.”  I said to myself, “Life's too short! I gotta do it.”  I was encouraged by this saying to keep on going; if I turned back, when was the next time I would get the opportunity to do this?  I continued to wait in line for what I assumed to be my death.                It was finally our turn as we crossed through the gates.  I sat in the seat and pulled the latch down over my body.  I clipped in, but freaked out as the latch wasn't tight.  Tana told me to relax and that it would tighten.                Finally, it was time.  As we were being hoisted into the air, I turned to Tana and said, “I don't want to do this anymore...I'm going to die.”  She turned to me, laughed, and said, “You're going to be fine. Just relax.”                I took a deep breath as we reached the top.  I looked around and wanted it to just be done.  It felt like I was sitting 200 feet in the air for almost two years.  So many thoughts were running through my mind, like “I can't do this,” and “I hate this.”  In mid-panic, I heard Tana quote her mother, “Remember Kirstin, life's too short! You gotta do it.”                And on that note, we were on our way down.  I needed to take two breaths on the way down because I didn't have enough air to be able to scream the whole ride.  I screamed some more, and by then the ride was over.  I survived.  When I got off, I felt like I had climbed a mountain and was just standing there, looking back to see what I just accomplished.  I'm glad I did it.  I am still afraid of heights and falling, but I am more willing to try something new.     Reflection   I believe I put a lot of imagery into this piece and someone else reading this could almost live the experience with me.  I have to work on a few minor convention errors to improve the grammar of the piece.  I felt I wrote a great memoir that could be used for an example.