Day Three - Housing Meeting and Swim Test

Gooooood morning everybody! We're going to skip ahead to day 3 because day 2 was spent around the parks and I may or may not have forgotten to take pictures to remember what I did. Oops?

So Wednesday morning started bright and early with a housing meeting. 5 of the 6 people in our apartment had a housing meeting in the morning, but Liz's wasn't until the afternoon. Our apartment is crazy close to the office, so we walked over there just a few minutes and early and the line was wrapped around the building three times already. That being said, we were in the third row of like 8? So we were certainly not the last people there. It was the longest 1 hour and 15 minutes of my life. I was nearly falling asleep by the end of it. They tried to make it interesting but really, it was stuff we needed to know and something to get through.

I spent the day with my roommates, organizing my room a bit and hanging out! We did a lot of cleaning, since the apartment looked like it hadn't been cleaned at all between the last people and us. The really weird thing we noticed is that instead of cleaning things, housing just paints over any dirt or things left behind, which makes it look perpetually dirty. For example? They painted over a bobby pin on my window sill instead of throwing it away. Why? I don't know, but I have a bobby pin stuck under a layer of paint in my room. Oh joy.

At 6 o'clock, Alexa, Lexie and I had our swim tests! We were meant to be there by 5:45, but most people were already there when we got there at 5:30. We had a big group, but not everyone ended up passing their swim test. We were split up into groups, based on shallow, deep, or either though we didn't know that at the time. No one knew what they were going to swim until they were standing in front of the pool getting ready to get in. We did our vision test first, which was easier than expected. They start you out really far back from the board, which freaked a lot of us out because no one could read anything but the stop line. Turns out they had us standing back there so the person taking the vision test could have a little privacy in case they failed. We just had to read one line, and we were allowed to wear glasses or contacts if needed. The only stipulation is that if you wear them for the test, you need to wear them at work.

The deep water lifeguards went first, since they have a harder test. They had to swim 200yds, tread water with no hands for 2 minutes, and pick up a brick from the deep end. If they didn't pass the deep test but were able to do the shallow water test, they would be transferred to the shallow water group. My group ended up being the group that, should any of the deep water guards fail, would take their spot. We were asked if we would rather stay in shallow water, and 3 other people in my group and I said yes. (I didn't want a waterpark!!!) Our group went second, and most of us passed. We had to swim 50yds, and pick up a brick from 5ft of water without going down head first. It was super simple, and I was super stoked to finally get my work schedule!

I will tell you, there were quite a few people who did not pass. I cannot stress enough: GO PRACTICE! To be a lifeguard you must be in good enough physical shape to preform a rescue, CPR and all. Am I saying you need to be a body builder? No way. I'm certainly not the most fit person in the DCP. But I can swim the 200, I can pull a grown ass man from the pool, I take this very seriously. And that's what it comes down to. If you're serious about this and you practice, you won't be stressed about if you are going to pass or not. If you're not serious about it, even if you pass the swim test, they won't pass you latter. Ellis is very firm on only passing guards who care enough to jump in the pool to save someone.

I hope everyone is doing well and I'll talk to you soon!