School Sports DayAt some point in the distant past, someone at my school had built a large concrete tank behind the sheds and called it a swimming pool. Proud of this, they had a "Swimming Sports Day" in which everyone had to participate, even those who couldn't swim (they got to walk across the shallow end of the tank).
This would probably have been OK if the pool hadn't turned a deep opaque green the night before due to lack of maintainance. Even the school sports stars didn't want to go near the gloopy mess in the pool. We were practically pushed in. I'm sure some of the younger kids never surfaced again and the non-swimmers looked petrified.
Tell us your sports day horrors.
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chthonic, Thu 30 Mar 2006, 11:13)
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High School SpazzIn high school, we were required to take four years of physical education. I took maybe two due to endless athletic injuries. In addition to torn muscles, strained ligaments, and general buising, I broke three fingers playing basketball and volleyball, broke a thumb swimming (seriously), cracked my tailbone during intro to self-defense, passed out while running, and, while playing soccer (football to you non-Americans), broke an ankle (my foot stuck in a gopher hole) and had my nose broken. The broken nose is the only interesting injury. During winter term, when football (American) season was over, players were distributed among the phys.ed. classes without taking the size, gender and abilities of other students into consideration. Second year I found myself - a thin, five foot tall, spazzy girl - playing soccer against boys who were a foot taller than me and more than double my weight. One day, a hulking boy and I ran at the ball at the same time, and he kicked it. I woke up sitting on a bench with blood pouring out of my nose, the teacher screaming hysterically, with no idea how I got there. I was promptly carried off to the nurse's office, mom was summoned, I was taken to the doctor, I was excused from phys.ed. again for several weeks (so some benefit did come out it). Needless to say, I was always the last kid selected when chosing teams, and going to each phys.ed. class was an ordeal of embarrassment and pain. Things got better third and fourth year when we got to do fun stuff that I turned out to be extremely good at, like fencing and archery, which lead to my emancipation from years of bullying by a 6 foot tall, brawny girl (she tried to steal my arrows, I somehow mustered the nerve to say "go fuck yourself", she handed them over and left me alone from then on). I felt like I could be the sole female member of the Fellowship of the Rings!
Fortunately, things got better after leaving school, and I somehow ended up an athletic adult with decent coordination (nothing broken in 20+ years!). I'll always prefer exercising my brain to my body, but, yes, there IS hope for nerds and 90-pound weaklings after high school!
(, Fri 31 Mar 2006, 19:04, Reply)
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