2015: My colleagues and I had been talking about doing this for a long time, but never found the time or the courage to do it. After all, you do need some guts to go onto the rink and risk falling on your butt in front of at least 50-60 people.
It was after they found out that it was on my bucket list that perhaps they felt more encouraged to help me cross it off. So off we went to the new skating rink in IOI Mall Putrajaya, wearing long-sleeved shirts and long pants to prepare ourselves for the inevitable trips and falls.
As I put on the skating shoes and tried to stand in them, they felt extremely wobbly and unstable even on dry surface, but it was not until I stepped onto the ice that this whole skating thing started to seem like a very bad idea.
One of my friends had already tried rollerblading before, so she had had some basics on how to balance herself and move in those shoes. She became our trainer for the day. And she made it sound so easy. Just slide your foot forward, she said, one after the other. But whenever I pushed one foot forward, the other slid back. I could do that the whole day and still stay in the same spot. It was like walking on a frigging treadmill. I became convinced that there was something wrong with the shoes, if not the ice.
After a while, we managed to inch our way around the rink, never letting go of the railing. I didn't care if we were blocking people, all I cared was trying not to fall. But we did anyway. I will spare you the details; suffice to say that it was not a graceful fall, and we needed help getting back up. With whatever was left of our self-esteem, we continued on our way and did 4 more rounds, with not so much improvement. Then it was already time for them to do ice resurfacing, so we left and went to eat. All that strenuous effort left our tummies rumbling.
