The much awaited Swimming Carnival had arrived. The moment I entered Merrylands Swimming Centre my body shook with nervousness! I had no idea whether I was going to get yellow or red, maybe even blue! I waited in line with my best friend Pearl who was also a nervous wreck. As me and my friend dipped our legs in the pool, I could feel the ease flooding through my body. The Swimming Carnival was finally a reality! The water was freezing and the teacher had instructed us to walk 5 meters first and then start swimming. Pearl was a pretty good swimmer so as soon as she walked 5 meters, she lifted her legs and started swimming at a steady pace. I felt a bit better when I put my whole body in the water. As the teacher had told, I walked five meters and then unexpectedly swam well!
The Swimming Test
The teachers make us take the swimming test to see what level of swimming we can do. Red band is for weak swimmers who are not very good at swimming. Yellow band is for average swimmers, people who can swim and stay afloat in waist-deep water. Blue bands are for the experienced swimmers who have done good in their test and can compete in races and novelty swimming events. I got yellow. Even though I am not a very good swimmer, I was pretty happy getting a yellow band. Now our school is split into different houses, Blaxland, Wentworth, Lawson and Evans. I am in house Blaxland along with all my other friends. Different houses go at different times.
Water Polo, Snacking and Murder Wing
For our first activity, we played water polo. However, me and Pearl just swam the whole time instead of actually participating. I can swim very well in shallow water so me and Pearl did a lot of gymnastics under water. After swimming, we went to eat our snacks. For snacks, I ate a donut with vanilla icing and chocolate sprinkles! It was delicious. After that, me and my friends played murder wing, a game where there is a murderer and a detective and the detective has to find out who the murderer is. This was fun until it seemed that the clocks had stopped!
Our Second Chance in Water
After we had played murder wing for almost 90 minutes, things started to get boring because they never called our turns! We were tedious and sweaty in the hot sun and one of my friends even got bitten by an ant! After finally waiting and asking multiple teachers, at the very end we got our second chance in the water. We played two activities, ‘find the object’ and ‘make a tornado’. When we play “find an object”, we have to go under water and find an item and put that object in the basket that our team has. The second activity is ‘making a tornado’, many students form a circle around the swimming pool and then swim at a fast pace. The faster it goes the more exciting it gets. You don’t even have to swim, the current will just take you away!
Back to School
After eating lunch, we thought that it would be our last activity in the Swimming Carnival. However, the teachers had arranged a surprise for us. We got to swim with the principal in the pool! Everyone was yelling with excitement and squealing. So we swam in the deep pool with our school principal! At the end of the day, we boarded the buses and went back to school. It was a very fun-filled and exciting day in my life. I enjoyed it so much that I even asked my father if we could go to Merrylands Swimming Centre on the weekends!
Writer : Nivedha Pillai
Grade : 4 (Year 2020)
Place : Sydney, Australia
