[monster]

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.