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Sports… Hmmm…

13 Apr 2010 Leave a Comment

by Rachael in Uncategorized Tags: 42nd, forty-second, Hmmm..., post, Sports...

So all this past year, I’ve wanted to join clubs. I really want my college application to look great, so last year I was preparing myself for what clubs I wanted to try out. There were so many, I was sure I would be able to find a few and stick with them.

But when school rolled around, it turned out that a ton of the clubs’ times were NOT in sync with my mom’s work schedule, meaning I wouldn’t have a ride to OR from any meetings. Thus giving me way too much free time while the rest of my friends were either attending clubs of their own (which I was not interested in), or involved in sports. And hey, I’ve got no problem with most sports, other than the fact that I’m clumsy and can’t do them.

But I’m realizing I’ll have to take SOME sport throughout high school, because if I can’t attend clubs, at least on the sport teams, I could make friends with my teammates and then we could carpool that way.

So today I was talking about this issue with my friend. She listed off each sport, and I responded accordingly:

“Baseball.” “Hahahahaha!”

“Volleyball.” “HAH, NO WAY!”

“Basketball.” “… I am NOT tall.”

“Soccer.” “Never really was interested in that one.”

“Tennis.” “I’ve only played that once, and I wasn’t good at it.”

“Golf.” “Snore.”

My list of choices was quickly dwindling, and as I am too much of a clutz to join a dance team, and have too much pride to become a cheerleader, I was left with one choice: swimming.

Hey, don’t get my wrong, I absolutely LOVE swimming. Plus, I’ll need to know it for my future job, and it’ll be a good way to get involved (finally!) at school!

But then there’s a problem. I haven’t taken any actual CLASSES on swimming, and don’t know any stroke techniques. I also have very little practice with successfully breathing through my nose while I swim. But other than that, I would LOVE to swim for my high school sport!

On my way home, I told my mom the idea, and she shot it down (no surprise there) with: “It’ll probably be too expensive; you don’t know anything about it; we can’t enroll you in classes.”

So all in all, I was feeling pretty down in the dumps until a few minutes ago. I decided to checkout Yahoo! Answers (which, you’re probably thinking, “But no! They don’t give correct information!” Well, in some cases, no, they don’t, but in THIS case, other people are asking questions like mine, and other people are answering with THEIR personal experiences! So it worked perfectly!).

I quickly found a question with an asker a lot like me. She too had only swam for fun, and also didn’t consider herself to be a good swimmer. And she got a lot of reassuring answers!

One said that, as far as equipment, all you really needed was a swimsuit (a one-piece), swim cap, and goggles. This lifted my spirits, as, total, these shouldn’t cost more than $100. Other people said that tryouts weren’t scary, and that even if you had not swum competitively, you could still get on the team.

And the most reassuring thing: almost everyone said that the friendships you make while practicing together are great, and that swim team is a really fun experience, albeit a bit challenging at times.

So I think over the summer I’m definitely going to practice swimming a LOT more, but also see about a low-cost swim camp, because I want to get more acquainted. But all in all, I really think I could do it. I’m a pretty determined person, and if someone says I suck at swimming, I’ll just keep working harder until I can prove them wrong.

- Rachael.