So It Happened Again

In one of my recent posts, titled A Series of Unfortunate Events, I explained the details of how I embarrassed myself at a swim meet.

Well here we are, and it has happened again.

Last night, at our last home meet where we honored the seniors, I yet again did something embarrassing.

When swimming an event, you step up onto the blocks, the starter says "swimmers, take your mark", then a buzzer sounds and you dive off.

On my 100 free, I did everything as I normally do.  Stepped up, got ready, and bent down when instructed.

The only thing I didn't quite get the hang of is the diving off part.

I'm still not really sure what happened — it was all kind of a blur, but all I remember is not hearing the buzzer go off.  The rest of the people in my heat were half way down the pool and I honestly thought the buzzer still hadn't gone off.


I looked up, and realized that the buzzer had in fact gone off.  I don't know what went through my mind at that moment, but I guess I thought the most logical solution was to just fall off the block.
So I did.  I fell off the block and hopped out of the water.  I didn't swim the event.

Here's a picture of the thing I fell off of.
Courtesy of: http://www.neptune.k12.nj.us/Page/835 

At first, I was pretty gosh darn embarrassed.  I was laughing really loudly and aggressively, but that was just to cover up my complete and utter embarrassment at what I had just done.

Everyone was really supportive, and it helped.  The coach said, this is a direct quote, "I'm not that mad", and that made me feel much better.  The aftermath was not as bad as I thought it would have been, and after talking to my mom, I was no longer physically shaking from distress.

But by the time my next event came around, it was like it was happening all over again.

The event was a relay, so the three other girls in my relay told me that they would scream 'go' when the buzzer went off so I wouldn't mess up again.  I was laughing, because it was funny and by that time I was over it, but honestly I was nervous it was actually going to happen again, and I wasn't only going to screw it up for myself, I was going to screw it up for everybody.

I didn't though.  I dove off the block when the buzzer went off and everything was fine.  Well not really fine, but I was relieved I didn't embarrass myself for the second time that night.

Overall it was a good night and I had a lot of fun sending off the seniors (we all made two parallel lines and the seniors walked through the lines with their parents and there were balloons and I was an emotional mess).  I guess it must be something about high school meets, because never before this year have I done so many embarrassing things in such a short period of time.

There's a meet next week, and we can all only hope I won't fall off the block again.

Have a good life, and clean out your ears, because you never know what you'll need to hear.

Elise :)