Personal Narrative: Starting To Teach Swim

It is hard to think that in one instant an entire years’ worth of dedication, hard work, and countless hours of training can come crashing down without a single ounce of control over the situation. I never thought this would be something that happened to me. I am careful, I do not take many risks, I do not engage in any dangerous behavior, and I try not to make any stupid decisions. Apparently in the summer of 2015 none of that mattered and life just decided to throw its biggest curveball of my short 15 years of existence.

My parents tell me that I took to swimming like... a fish takes to water. It is a safe place where I can float free of worries. Driven by passion and dedication, I decided to begin swimming competitively. Competitive swimming requires an intense level of determination and discipline. Forcing myself to get out of my warm bed at 5:30 in the morning to put on a still-slightly-damp swimsuit and stand in 40-degree weather waiting for practice to start. Putting up with limited lane space and irritating swimmers who think they are faster. Making a conscious effort to work on my stroke form, turns, touches, and techniques. The water becomes a whirlpool of injuries, losses, wins, friendships, enemies, and sickness. The water becomes home.

It was sometime around 6:00 p.m. on a Thursday night in the middle of January 2016. There was a swim meet going on and it was just about to start. The teams were warming up and getting ready for the meet that was due to start in the coming hour. I was warmed up and concentrating on the race listening to music in my newly acquired platinum studio beats. The music was loud and the nerves were setting as I walked into the locker room with my friend and teammate. As we passed I said good luck to our teammate who I was racing against in the 200 free style. Then out of know were he pulled my friend to the side and whispered something in his ear. I didn’t hear what was said as I had continued to walk. My friend came over to me and I asked what he had said and he told me. He told me

Teaching was very natural for me. I felt comfortable and confident working in all my classrooms. I was fortunate to have the support from all supervising teachers and they provided me guidance and knowledge as I continued to grow in the classroom. I couldn’t wait to go to college so I could focus on teaching every day and officially start my journey as a future

Westfield High School swimmers practiced for one last day on January 6 before the Hoosier Crossroads Conference, which would be the following day hosted by Brownsburg and would also mark less than a month before the team’s most important meets, sectionals and state, begin.

My former coach was always kind to me and he did try to prepare me for success, yet, my swimming times had not improved for the past two years. Switching from one of the fastest swimmers on the team to one of the slowest was difficult for me to comprehend; I knew that my swimming needed improvement. The thought of changing teams never crossed my mind until I was forced to make a decision. My old coach was able to find a new job at a new pool. The option sounded amazing; I would be able to stay with my friends, but on the other hand, i was unhappy with my times. For the rest of my summer, my mother and I searched for other local teams. The discovery of TOPS lead to a huge decision.

When I attended my first Empire Senior Dinner five years ago, I always wondered about what it would be like to stand up here. About to finish high school, about to finish Empire, and move on to college. It doesn’t seem too long ago when I thought that seemed eternally far away. I guess time really does fly when you’re having fun.

“If at first you don’t succeed, try, try again.” Hearing the whistle, I immediately dove into the water. It was just a typical afternoon swim practice and the regional swim meet was almost here. We’ve been training and practicing all season for this event. Every afternoon after school we would go to the YMCA pool to practice. I’ve been working on long distance swimming, such as the freestyle 200 and 500. The night before the regional swim meet arrived, and I happened to get sick. I felt weak, stiff, and exhausted. There was no way I could do well in any event that was going to occur the next day. I took some medicine and had some tea to try and feel better. Nothing really helped. All there was to do was hope. The next day arrived… feeling sick

Everyone says your team is your family, I never knew until Junior year when I joined the Elsik Varsity Swim Team. Everyone knew each other since Freshman year, I was the new bee who just entered “The Family”. Coming into that, I thought I was going to be the odd one out, I was wrong. Everyone was welcoming, I recognized some faces but just from walking in the hallways, not actually having a full blown conversation. Practices started at 5:00 A.M that year, it was terrible; when finishing practice everyone of us would go out and play cards or “I have never…”; it was crazy what some of them have done. Once season began our meets were the most exciting; that’s when others can see how we felt about our team. When one of our swimmers had an event

During the swim season of my sophomore year I was at the peak of my swimming career. I was swimming great times and had a very successful season. Prior to the regional swim meet I was qualified and all I had to do was swim my qualifying times to advance to the 1A/2A state swim meet. Exactly one week before the regional meet I broke my foot in two places. I was heartbroken because for a swimmer this is what you train for all year long. I felt like all my hard work and hours in the pool were for nothing. I immediately began physical therapy and told my parents I wanted to try and swim the following Saturday at regionals. My foot was not in a cast, but in a boot. My physical therapist even told me there was no way I would be able to swim at regionals.

While I was talking and teaching, all the student seemed to be engaged in what I was saying and doing. All students would participate when I asked questions and they all listened when I would talk. While giving them information, I tried to be as creative as possible. I didn’t want to bore them, so I tried to use different tones when talking to them, to keep them engaged in what I was saying. While I was there, the students were never really bad, but the few times they did act up I calmly corrected them. The first few times I was there the students listened right away, but as they got used to me, it became a little harder correcting them. On the last day the teacher had to step in and ask them to quiet down because they were not listening to me. Once the teacher stepped in, they began listening to me again. I believe my strengths were being able to connect with the kids. I think the most of the kids formed a relationship with me. They knew my name, and when I walked in they all got excited to see me. Before each lesson, I would talk to them about their day and tell them a little about my day. After this experience, I am positive I still want to be a teacher. It kind of showed me how a lesson would work in a classroom. I really like having all the kids’ attention. I also like getting to teach the kids some new things. I t was fun being able to see them learn new words. I think this actually made

I had been put in an Intro to Teaching class last year, and was asked to help pioneer a new class that allowed students to get real teaching experience by going to a real classroom and working with real students for half a school day. I jumped on this opportunity, and had an amazing time working with my Cooperating Teacher and her amazing first grade class.

Next time you take your cousin with you to a competition you end up with sadness and then joy(if you work hard enough). It was a Saturday morning. Michael woke up from his bed at 6:00am, my cousin was staying over since the swimmeet was closer. Alex who was really enthusiastic about the swimmeet(his first one by the way) he was jumping all over the place, looking for his goggles. We ate breakfast, Ella, my mom cooked corn beef hash some eggs and pancakes. Robert, my dad who was also really excited about Alex’s first swimmeet. (He used to swim in college and his abs are still in shape by the way). Michael who was the youngest in this mile swim team was extremely nervous. We had to board an airplane that took about 5hrs to land. From Hawaii to California. We stayed in this hotel provided by DACA.

In late October of 2016 I was contacted by the Aquatics Director about upcoming lifeguard classes. I was very nervous and excited at the same time. Nervous because being a lifeguard meant that I had a huge responsibility and I couldn’t take the job lightly. I was also excited because I’d have a job and I could be making money. After some speculation with my parents, we decided that getting a job would be a great way of gaining responsibility.

By this time I had started to go through puberty and became taller which enabled me to swim faster. The morning group was full of dedicated swimmers who were crazy enough to get up every morning to go jump into a pool and practice. Of course I was no different, but during April of that season I had started to lose my motivation. I began to skip practices and gave my parents excuses, which then they told me to take it easy. After two months of periodic practices, I realized that swimming was an activity that I wanted to do and that I loved, and I decided that I would not allow myself to quit, no matter how hard it became. When the new season started, I started to push myself, trying to keep up to the faster swimmers. I became close with my team mates as people who go through pain together get closer. We started to have more fun together from going out, to having funny conversations in the locker rooms. I also began to do travel meets where we would spend a few days together, eating, sleeping, and swimming. I spent more time out of the pool with my friends and even became romantically involved with one. Now, swimming has become one of the most important things to me, it has been the activity that has the most influence on my life. From my work ethic, sleeping habits, to my choice of friends, all of them are tied to