Beest is still out of town and Banana Lady arrives at4pm. House is more trashed than ever. But I'm way beyond apprehensive about that.

I'd say that was more than "a tad" apprehensive then ;)
Sending good luck vibes to be applied as necessary!

It just got pushed back from 9am start to 1pm at earliest. Way to drag it out......

I shouldn't really be apprehensive, it should be a piece of cake, but........

wibble.

What, already!

OK I did it by the skin of my teeth. I passed the prerequisites for lifeguard certification, most notably the brick rescue. But when we got to the pool today (at 1pm), the pump had only been working for a few minutes and we still didn't have full power, so we did book work and saved the prerequisites until the end. So I had even longer to work myself up into a state over it. And I was a state. I did nothing but fret about it from the moment I got up today. I don't test well unless it's academic.

Bizarre thing was, it wasn't the bit I was worrying about that I almost didn't manage. The first thing was swim 300 yards at your own pace. no problem, do it all the time -several times that distance in fact. But I didn't do it at my own pace because i was surrounded by high school varsity swimmers and I let them push me into doing it way too fast. Also, they made the water really choppy -I'm used to having a lane to myself, so I swallowed water a couple of times and my goggles fogged but you aren't allowed to stop for any reason. I was terrified after 200 that I wasn't even going to pass that. But I did. Shattered and out of breath.

There was one other adult there who used to be on the swim team. She was even slower than me and forgot to wear a racing suit so had a wardrobe malfunction to boot. So I kinda felt better (at her expense), but then I was way too knackered to haul myself out of the pool. Normally, I have no problems doing that -although this is a high pool and I have never swum in it before so I wasn't prepared for that. So I used the ladder because I didn't want to be floundering in front of all those kids (who I knew).

Then the brick test was immediate without any time for recovery. And no goggles so I had to take my contacts out. Swam to the brick, dove down, grabbed it, swam back with both hands on brick face above water no problem -first back from my group even. Way easier than I had anticipated...... but could not get out of the damn pool. And that's part of the test. You have 140 seconds total. with time running out I decided stuff it, I was next to the bulkhead and nothing said anything about not using all available leverage except a ladder, so I used that and passed. Then we had to tread water for two minutes legs only. Well I could do that for hours, so I'm home free.

Then we did more pool work, but I kept up and the book work will be a piece of cake, so my "tad" of apprehension is gone.

Bricks are clearly traumatic and should be banned from standardised lifeguarding tests.

Well done Monstah!

PEANUT BUTTER! PEANUT BUTTER!

Congratulations!

Good job, monster!

Thanks all. peanut butter? I hope you're not suggesting I eat some? bleuch! It was actually a 10lb handweight so even easier to grab, but those things really should stop jumping into the pool when they haven't passed the deep-end test......

So there are 13 in the class. I was also apprehensive that it would be all the high school boys because they are now done with both polo and swimming seasons (girls are still in polo season), but there were only 3 boys -one from Skyline where swimmer-girl swims and two from Huron -where all her summer pool friends swim. i didn't know them, but I knew of them and they seem nice. I'm glad there are only three, though -they do want to make it all into a physical competition. 6 from swimmer-girl's team -know all of them, obviously, two girls from Huron -know one, know of the other, and a teacher from 30 miles away who's school might be ready to start a swim team but are too mean to employ a lifeguard. Or something.

I rescued the brick and survived the teenagers! I feel so old, though.

When I practiced lifesaving drills with actual people "victims", it was standard practice for the "victims" to holler "PEANUT BUTTER! PEANUT BUTTER!" instead of "Help! Help!". I thought your training might have included the same detail. I'm familiar with the bricks too. We used them in many different drills, the worst being eggbeater drills for water polo practice. Get those bricks up you weaklings! Gah.

Well done!! The world is now a safer place!

oh they may do that. It's a 5 day course. Eggbeater with bricks -easy peasy. it's just diving to the bottom I hate, I'm too damn buoyant.

It's quite irritating that it takes 40 hours to get certified, because a lot of it is about being professional etc -aimed at youngsters in their first job. But there's no real alternative.

now: a little apprehensive about the water skills part of the test tomorrow -notably the "scanning" (patrol) because I can't wear my lenses unless I want to lose them each time I jump in ($30/time) and I can't see as well as I would like to without them. Hev done OK with practices so far, but have also gotten lucky with easily spottable victims