Transition

Swimming practice ended at Tuesday, but I stopped on Monday. After a few days of rest, on Friday I went to Eichler Swimming. As soon as I got there, everyone was like, "JONATHAN!" "HE IS BACK!" "OH MY GOD!!!" "YAY!!!" I hop in, meet the new coach and start swimming. All of a sudden, after years of being the last in my lane, I am the second best person there. The kid who is one year younger than me but ten laps ahead I was catching up to. For the second time in my life, I was a captain of a relay team (The other time the coach had a lot of mediocre swimmers as captains). We won and lost a few races, but each one felt great. Actually, I was a little tired throughout it. We got out before I was dead. 45 minute practices never felt better. I was Home.
I've always hated Eichler practice. I never went everyday and always went sulking. I was freezing, tired, and sad there. But then I went to Gunn. All those things bad at Eichler was exponentially worse at Gunn. Now Eichler feels like kindergarden. Don't you ever wish you could go back to kindergarden?
Saturday I went to the after leagues meet at Gunn. It is basically a meet for all who wasn't in the league lineup. I arrived 10 minutes late. I expected many people, from different schools. But as my dad drives up, I hear nothing. I walk up, and hear, "Ready, go!" instead of the buzzer. I look and I see 7 people in the water. I say, "uhhh... is this the um... meet?" The caoch enthusiastically said, "Yeah! Hop in, we are about to start!!!" I jump in, and swim a little. It was really cold. It felt weird for me that this was my grand finale. But it was over quickly, and I got out. The coach says "bye Jonathan!" I walk away and hope never to come back to that pool for a LONG time.

Gunn Swim Team: The Game

I picked this game up because I knew that it will keep me active and maybe get into college. Also my parents made me. I already had Eichler Swim Team: The Game, which was easy and fun, so I thought this would be the same. Well I was wrong. It is incredibly hard and not fun at all.

Concept:
You swim over there. And back. Over and over again. Just so you can go to a meet, where you swim over there. And back. 1/10

Graphics:
The water is amazing and almost looks like real life. Too bad after 500 yards your vision starts to blur. 7/10

Story: Your parents make you swim and you go almost willingly. You find out it is terrible and is all the time so it ruins your social life. 1/10

Gameplay:
The controls are solid, but get sloppier the more you swim. 5/10

Sound:
The buzzer of a race starting. The cheering and booing of a crowd. You gasping for air. Your heart pounding. A voice screaming inside your head. Put all of these in a blender and turn it on. 2/10

Multiplayer: You can race your friends, but who cares? They always win. 3/10

Rent or Buy:
Neither. But you insist, rent it for a few days of Hell.

Overall: Very hard, tiring, cold, and helps you lose your mind, health, and life. 4/10

Sacrifice

Yesterday at swimming we had one of our talks. One thing in the talk stood out for me. The coach said, "We have one and a half weeks left of swimming. Now is the time to sacrifice something for it." Heh. Made me think of all that I had already sacrificed. My video games. My homework. My friends. Hanging out with friends. My sleep. My time. My studying. My soul. My spirit. My humor. My happiness. My relationship with my parents. My comfort. My fun. My sanity. My Life. One of the reasons my girlfriend broke up with me is swimming. But I guess now is the time to sacrifice more.

Coaches

On the swim team there is a lot of coaches. There is Mark Hernandez, whos pretty cool but he has long talks. He barely coaches jv. Next is Melinda whos really nice and is almost always coaching jv. Theres Mrs. Winkler who loves the pain of stretching and doesnt really know how to coach swimming. There is Scott (or something like that) who is varsity only and yells a lot. But the one I hate the most I don't know his name. But he knows mine.
One day, a month into swimming he came. He saw me in my "Lauren" Parka and said "Is that an Anker?!?" He then talked to me on how I should have joined water polo like my sister. During practice, he kept on saying my name and no one elses. "Come on, Anker! Let's go, Anker! Hurry up, Anker!" He was there for about 2-3 days and then disappeared.
He came again today. He gave us a hard set and after each thing in the set he said, "Come on, Anker! Let's go, Anker! Hurry up, Anker!" It annoyed me so much. I felt like he was only watching me. I hate it. Why does he have to torment me? I hardly call him a coach. He only came to practice a few days, and I havent seen him at any meets. Why does swim team need so many coaches?!?!?

Don't You Just Hate That Drowning Feeling?

The first away meet of the season. Time to leave our crappy pool. Riding the bus, we saw what we were swimming. I was swimming three events, including the 500. 500 yards. 500 God Damn yards. 20 Laps. 10 times what I'm comfortable with. I was gonna die. Then right after that my next event is the next event. Then my next one a few after that. We get to Lynbrook, and the pool is amazing. Olympic size. 20 lanes. Touch pads. Extremely deep. CLEAN. It even tasted good. You can barely touch the bottom it is so deep. Well the meet started and before I knew it it was the 500. I tighten my goggles so the don't fall off. I get on the block. I dive. My goggles come off. I needed my goggles on, so I can see my lap counters number. Thinking about it as I swim I realize something. My goggles are in front of my nose. I can barely breathe. I start to choke. It felt like I was drowning. Lap one and I'm drowning. But I can't stop. I continue until the end of my second lap when I realize I couldn't take it anymore. I stopped, gasped for air, adjusted my goggles and went on. The laps went by slowly. My arms got tired and there was a pain in my chest. Finally it was over and I was dead. I finished last out of 8 people, about 2 laps behind everyone else. I get out, only to get ready to get back in. Next was a 200 relay. I was the Anchor (yeah... I know...) which means I am the last person to swim. I tighten my goggles more and the race starts. Soon it's my turn. I dive. My goggles come off. But this time around my neck. While swimming, I feel like I am drowning again. I look down and it feels like my watery grave. The beautiful pool looks like a cemetary. I had to get out. But I can't. I finished my 50 and got out. But the race wasn't over yet. Our coaches told us repeaditly not to get out until everyone is finished. So I jump back in. The guy with the microphone says, "Lane 1 is disqualified for jumping back in the water." I DQed my relay. I groan, and get out slowly. I star to walk away but my teammates hold me back. "No it's all right. Everyone gets DQed!" But I just wanted to be alone. The coach has a talk with me about it. At the end she says, "oh and good job on the 500." I say "sure" and walk away. I hate it when they lie. I know they are lying and it makes me feel worse. I decide to go swim in the warm up section to cool down. 10 minutes later its my third race. A 400 relay. Anchor again, I tighten my goggles like hell, and I dive. My goggles didn't fall off. But again with the drowning feeling. Now with goggles I saw my tomb more clearly. I finished with nothing bad happening, except that we got 7th out of 8. As I get out I hear my other coach say "Nice Jonathan!" which only hurts me more. I sulk for the rest of the meet. I liked it better when I had only one race. Then I had less races to screw up.

Pointless Things on the Gunn Swim Team 2.0 (updated whenever needed)

1 Team warm down
2 Push ups on last race
3 The binder full of thousands of papers you have to print just so you can know "swimming strategies"
4 Saturday morning practice
5 Saturday morning practice at 8:30AM
6 Swimming after practice is over
7 Attending every practice is mandatory
8 Waiting outside the pool in a huge line to dive when you could wait in the water
9 One paper in the binder-"on vacations you should find a pool and do your favorite sets!"
10 A goal sheet with your academic and swimming goals. Includes an inspiring quote and an inspiring song
11 Finishing a set after practice has ended, get a ten minute talk, then do another set, a 100 easy, then another talk
12 During meets, snack can only be eaten after the meet has ended. People were starving through the meet and now its dinner time
13 30 talks on thursdays and fridays about the same exact thing each week (okay whens wake up swim? 6:50. Whens the meet start? 2:05...)
14 Friday morning practice at 6:15
15 Swimathon(!!!) We swim a lot (like always) for a week while collecting money from neighbors and friends. Everyone is expected to have $200.
16 Swimming nothing at meets but still having to warm up and down
17 You have to know the score of the meet at all times
18 the position of locker rooms. girls have a door right next to the pool that is always open. boys has two on the other side of the building that are sometimes closed. If one is closed you have to walk even farther to the other one, freezing and wet. when they are both closed you have to go back and get the keys from the coach (which takes them 10 minutes)
19 During all talks they keep us in the water. We have stopped moving and are now shivering. Why cant they see our pain and talk to us while we are changing and drying off?!?!?
20 our sweatshirt says swimming and diving. I am not a diver.

The Benchwarmer Without a Bench

Thursday's swimming practice was one of the worse. When our hour and a half was up, the coaches talked to us some more. Then we did another set. Then more talking. During talks, I shiver and freeze. 20 minutes later we changed the lanelines. They said they needed the whole team, but half the team was sitting around freezing. Finally we got out 30 minutes late. Today, Friday was the meet against Paly. Slept in again. Finally at 2:05 I got out early. Got changed and went to check my events. On the swim team, the coaches choose your events. Meaning you can do something you suck at, or just the hardest event, the 500 yard freestyle (20 laps). Ready to swim and try my best to beat our rival, I checked my events. 2nd race of the match, 2 laps of backstroke of a 8 lap medley relay, and thats it. I thought I would do so much more than that. Disappointed I did my warm up (15 laps?) Got out and waited for my race to come. It took a long time, because the buzzer broke. So they had a whistle. I got next to the starting block. They whistle. I get in the water and get ready. A few seconds. I start thinking When are we starting? Do they say anything? They whistle. Everyone starts. I realize what happened and start late. I do a lap then my goggles fall off. Swimming as fast as I can while balancing my goggles on my head, I finish. My relay team lost. I get out, wait 3 hours, then I have to get back in for team warm down. I HATE TEAM WARM DOWN. I'm already warm outside the water, then I have to jump into the water, get a talk, swim 20 laps, get ANOTHER talk, put on the pool cover then get out. I guess it can be worse, some people didnt swim any race and the coaches still made then warm up and down. But why do so many things on the Gunn swimming team have to be pointless and annoying?