By Juan Moreno Everyone was a kid once, and during that time we all did crazy things. I had many such experiences and I want to share some of them with you. Mishaps as a swimmer…
In my childhood I was a member of a swimming team. My coach was a typical fat trainer who shouts all the time and blows an annoying whistle. One of his main hobbies was drinking beer and watching soccer. For my last competition we arrived the night before the event, and my trainer was really excited since two of the most popular teams were playing a match. But in the end his team lost and he was so angry that he drank bottle after bottle of beer until he fell asleep. D-day arrived and my trainer was in hangover mode. I had to go to the swimming competition but I couldn’t go by public transportation. I was just a kid, I had no money, and I was not familiar with the city, so my trainer asked me to drive his drunken butt to the sports center. Imagine a 12-year-old boy carrying a fat drunk old man to his car and having to drive him all the way to the sports center (and the car even had manual transmis- sion). Starting the car was not a challenge, but getting it moving was. Finally we hit the road, and after a lot of stress and car horns we made it to the sports center, just in time for the competition to start. I left my drunk coach in the car and lowered the windows so he would- n’t suffocate. I entered to the sports center and registered, and when I asked when my first event was, the staff answered “you are in the next event, so move it!” I ran to the dressing room to get my gear on (we were all wearing “bikini” type bottoms), and I didn’t realize that I was wearing it backwards. I also didn’t notice that one of my testicles was sticking out and saying “hi!” to the world – not un- til a group of girls started to scream and laugh at me… I ran back to the locker room and put the swimming suit back on, but this time one butt cheek was sticking out and saluting everyone. Finally, I got to the pool and into my lane, the referee signaled the start, and we all began swimming. Filled with adrenaline because we were swimming so fast, I had no idea that my suit had fallen off the second I had touched the water. I only realized it on the way back, when I ran into it! I was in first place, but since I had to waste time putting my suit back on I ended up finishing fourth. My trainer got suspended from his job for a month, and thereafter I was remem- bered by my team as “wrinkled white cheeks.” Me and my imagination… I used to have crazy ideas when I was a little boy. One day I saw a TV advertisement of a man shaving his beard, and it said that “without hair, you would look more beautiful.” I don’t know what passed through my mind but I decided to shave off one of my eyebrows. I ran to the bathroom, picked my sister’s razor, and started to shave. I was around 7. Since I’d never used a razor before I applied too much pressure and started to bleed a lot. I ran towards my mom with my face full of blood, and when she asked me what happened she started to laugh instead of helping me! But then she cleaned my face and healed the wound. I still have a scar on one eyebrow, and every time my mom sees it, she giggles… Still a kid: the injection… I like to think of myself as a strong man, but the only thing that makes me lose my composure are injections. I’m not exactly afraid of them; I just avoid them. Whenever I have a blood test I feel like fainting, and the last time was no exception. For all of us who are lucky enough to get into NTU, we have the obligation of taking a general medical exam. Since I didn’t know anyone here I went to the exam by myself. Everything was fine and the only part left was the blood test. The ex- traction went without incident, and after it was over the nurse gave me a piece of cotton and told me to hold it against my arm for ten minutes. Af- ter ten minutes were up I threw away the cotton and went into the bathroom. On my way out I wondered what time it was and raised my arm to look at my watch. It was only then that I realized that my arm looked very strange, and that the area where they had taken blood had swollen to ten- fold its original size! “HOLY S**T!!!” I rushed toward the nurse and she rapidly applied pressure to the swollen area until the inflammation had disappeared. She told me to wait another ten min- utes, but this time I started to feel cold and sud- denly I realized that everyone was staring at me. I felt like I was going to black out; I was pale and my hands were white with purple nails. “Not again,” I thought to myself, “I’m going to faint…” I told to the nurse I was not feeling well and three other nurses rushed over to help, clearing a bench for me to lie on. They gave me tea so that I didn’t faint. Even though I recovered after a few min- utes, my arm later developed some colorful bruises – purple, green, yellow, and orange – that took a month to disappear. This was my welcome gift from NTU. a
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The Taida Student Journal has been active since 1995 with an ever-changing roster of student journalists at NTU. Click the above link to read about the authors Archives
May 2024
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