Indeed, Summer is Here

Lifeguards roasting on an open stand
Sunburn nipping at your nose
Summertime songs being sung by a pump
And folks not dressed up like Eskimos

Everybody knows a Popsicle and some slushies
Help to make the season cool
Tiny tots with their eyes all aglow,
Will find it hard to swim today.

They know the pool opens today;
With diving boards and swimming lanes there for their play.
And every single guard is going to stress,
When they learn they need to give another swim test.

And so I'm offering this simple phrase,
To kids from one to ninety-two,
Although its been said many times, many ways,
Happy Summer to you.

Yes, I took the lyrics to "The Christmas Song" and turned them into a lifeguard song. Blame Zach. He gave me the idea when he was singing "All I want for Christmas is my Own CPR Dummy." Oh the things we'll do when we get bored.

Technically speaking, pool season hasn't officially started yet, and I'm already epically sunburnt. A good sign for the season? I think not.

Despite the seemingly ill omens,I'm rather excited for this summer. From what I can tell, we've got a good set of guards, and I'm ready to see what they can do. I won't lie though- I'm also a little nervous. Then again, I think everyone's a bit nervous at the beginning of the summer. I think things will go well, though.

You know you’re a lifeguard when:
-You are on vacation and at the hotel pool you can’t stop yourself from yelling ‘’ WALK PLEASE’’ to all the uncontrollable kids.
-Even if you haven’t been in the pool for a week, as soon as you sweat, get into the shower, get sprayed, go out in the rain (get wet in anyway) you smell of chlorine.
-All the kids in the pool all become "buddy" or "sweetie".
-You roll your eyes when watching BAYWATCH and feel the urge to explain what the lifeguards are doing wrong to the person next to you. Regardless if they want to hear it or not.
-Pushing people in the pool stops getting funny…seriously… it sucks getting wet and someone could get hurt.
-When’s someone’s hurt, you have the urge to run with your arms stretched out yelling "IT’S OKAY I’M A LIFEGUARD"!
-You roll your eyes when someone gets tapped on the back when chocking.
-It’s weird to see your co-workers in clothes or make-up.
-When someone’s doing CPR in the movies and the victim coughs out the water and breaths, you laugh.
-"save a whistle, blow a lifeguard" is the funniest and most creative pick-up line you’ve ever heard. Ever.
-You forget how loud your voice is.
-Putting a towel around your bathing suit makes it okay for you to walk out in public.
-PA carries, spinal turnovers and removals are suitable party conversations/debates.
-Your hair dresser is starting a petition for you to stop ruining your hair.
-You get upset when someone who’s not a lifeguard has a lifeguard sweatshirt, t-shirt or sweatpants.
-Patrons are not recognizable when clothed.
-You can fix/tighten any goggles without interrupting your scan.
-"Between the nipples" isn’t as dirty as it sounds.
-When the clock is your best friend and your worst enemy.
-You have two minutes left before you go on deck, that’s enough for some food, bathroom break and to finish your magazine article.
-You tell children that run past you in a store to "WALK!"
-You see danger everywhere.
-You know 10 different games to play with a whistle.
-You smell like chlorine, even on your day off.
-30 and 2 means something to you.
-You carry goggles in your car.
-You’ve spent more than $20 on a pair of goggles.
-You require new bathing suits every 3 months.
-All of your suits have the word "guard" on them.
-Men in Speedos don't faze you.(Even old men.)
-A 10 foot pool doesn't seem very deep.
-You dream about people drowning then wake up and think "I performed that rescue wrong!"
-Every time you heard a whistle you jump up and are ready to run.
-Not only do you know how to make mustard gas, but you know exactly where to find the supplies
-You feel the urge to yell "walk" to kids who run....on the playground
-You watch people do CPR on Grey's Anatomy and yell "YOURE DOING IT WRONG!" only to find that no one in the room really cares
-No matter where you are or what time of year it is, you get REALLY excited when you hear thunder
-You feel the urge to tell the lifeguards at pools you swim at that YOU'RE a lifeguard, too...just so they know
-You start most of your sentences with "The other day I was guarding and..."
-You either think playing with muriatic acid is fun, or you've inhaled it on accident and are terrified of it
-You get all your summer reading done by mid-June
-When you go to the pool with your friends, you wanna play sharks-and-minnows, marco polo, and star, because damnit, you watch people do it all day and don't get to join in!
-You get pissed when you see shirts that say "Lifeguard" for sale in Abercrombie
-You get really pissed when the garbage bag falls down in the trash can at home and your dad puts trash in it anyway
-You don't think it's weird to go to work barefoot
-At any point during the summer, you can look in your car and find at least 2 empty water bottles, a semi-wet towel, and suntan lotion
-You wave to the neighborhoods that have pools you've worked at when you drive by.
-you don't put your mouth on the end of the pool noodles that have a hole in them (it's like making out with 500 strangers...)
-being 50% naked at work is normal and not promiscuous
-you naturally smell like chlorine
-you refer to coworkers as "pool people"
-you're disgusted when people who aren't lifeguards wear lifeguard attire (some of them can't even swim!)
-you have to leave a note with your food saying that if someone touches it you will kill them, or it's fair game
-Whoever invented kickboards and noodle floats and gave them to kids had no idea of the repercussions it would have on lifeguards for all of history.
-If you've said it once, you've said it twice: NO F-ING RUNNING!
-Why can't those kids see that there's someone lap swimming in the same lane as their throw-the-ball-at-your-friend's-face game?
-Swim meets. Who raised these kids?
-DON'T MESS WITH ROTATION.
-Whistle spinning is a perfectly acceptable way to whiddle away the hours... unless you work for DA. Then it's a good way to get in trouble.
-Thunderstorms are a gift from above.
-Your sunglasses tan is out of control...as well as the x and o on your back (and don't forget your flipflop tan!).
-Putting up another stand/converting the pool is considered punishment.
-Why can't the 2 kids STILL in the pool see the torrential downpour that is coming down upon your head because they refuse to remove themselves?
-Sometimes, one can't help but judge the lap swimmers' swimming abilities.
-How seriously people take you is equally proportionate to how loud you can blow your whistle.
-You've made mental bets over whether or not that 400 pound lady will break the diving board.
-Watching the teenage boys do tricks off the diving board is your only period of entertainment during the day.
-After a few weeks, it seems like there's no need to put on sunscreen because you know you're too dark to develop a burn.
-Sometimes, there are days when you would pay someone to vomit/have diarrhea in the pool.
-You've tried every kind of shampoo you can find--and still, nothing gets the chlorine out.
-Your boyfriend/girlfriend frequently remarks on how strongly you smell of chlorine.
-F you, Marco Polo...F YOU.
-No, I will not judge your cannonball/diving/biggest splash contest.
-You probably shouldn't expect any swimming technique tips either.
-Rec programs/summer camps are the few hours every day when the devil decides to let his child slaves free.
-Deep end tests.
-Why are the retarded parents always the ones with the wild children?
-The "nose game" is a legitimate means of deciding who will go to the deep end first, who has to clean up vomit in the pool, who has to perform the save, etc...
-We open (and close!) the same time we opened/closed yesterday, and the day before, and ALL F-ING SUMMER, don't ask again!
-The number of times you ask how much longer break is equals how many more minutes we add to break time.
-Apparently, the best time to come to the pool is the last 15 minutes we use to close it down.
-In the pool or out of it? Make up your mind!
-You could have just stayed at home and run through the sprinkler if you wanted to know what it was like to wear clothes in the water.
-You've been lifeguarding so long that you tell kids in walmart to walk.
-You laugh at those "No Lifeguard On Duty" signs at hotel pools, because let’s face it, if you're there, you watch all the kids.
-You perpetuate and embrace standard pool myths.
-I don't swim in your bed, so don't have sex in my pool

Dear Mr. President...

Here's a letter in an email I received recently. Being a Republican on a college campus (that is, unfortunately, overwhelmingly Democratic) it's always nice to see something like this. Mind you, this is not my writing. I am merely posting this as food for thought.

Enjoy.

Mr. Obama:
I have had it with you and your administration, sir. Your conduct on your recent trip overseas has convinced me that you are not an adequate representative of the United States of America collectively or of me personally.

You are so obsessed with appeasing the Europeans and the Muslim world that you have abdicated the responsibilities of the President of the United States of America. You are responsible to the citizens of the United States. You are not responsible to the peoples of any other country on earth.

I personally resent that you go around the world apologizing for the United States telling Europeans that we are arrogant and do not care about their status in the world. Sir, what do you think the First World War and the Second World War were all about if not the consideration of the peoples of Europe? Are you brain dead? What do you think the Marshall Plan was all about? Do you not understand or know the history of the 20th century?

Where do you get off telling a Muslim country that the United States does not consider itself a Christian country? Have you not read the Declaration of Independence or the Constitution of the United States? This country was founded on Judeo-Christian ethics and the principles governing this country, at least until you came along, come directly from this heritage. Do you not understand this?

Your bowing to the king of Saudi Arabia is an affront to all Americans. Our President does not bow down to anyone, let alone the king of Saudi Arabia. You don’t show Great Britain, our best and one of our oldest allies, the respect they deserve yet you bow down to the king of Saudi Arabia. How dare you, sir! How dare you!

You can’t find the time to visit the graves of our greatest generation because you don’t want to offend the Germans but make time to visit a mosque in Turkey. You offended our dead and every veteran when you give the Germans more respect than the people who saved the German people from themselves. What’s the matter with you?

I am convinced that you and the members of your administration have the historical and intellectual depth of a mud puddle and should be ashamed of yourselves, all of you.

You are so self-righteously offended by the big bankers and the American automobile manufacturers yet do nothing about the real thieves in this situation, Mr. Dodd, Mr. Frank, Franklin Raines, Jamie Gorelic, the Fannie Mae bonuses, and the Freddie Mac bonuses. What do you intend to do about them? Anything? I seriously doubt it.

What about the U.S. House members passing out $9.1 million in bonuses to their staff members on top of the $2.5 million in automatic pay raises that lawmakers gave themselves? I understand the average House aide got a 17% bonus. I took a 5% cut in my pay to save jobs with my employer. You haven’t said anything about that. Who authorized that? I surely didn’t!

Executives at Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac will be receiving $210 million in bonuses over an eighteen-month period, that's $45 million more than the AIG bonuses. In fact, Fannie and Freddie executives have already been awarded $51 million not a bad take. Who authorized that and why haven’t you expressed your outrage at this group who are largely responsible for the economic mess we have right now.

I resent that you take me and my fellow citizens as brain-dead and not caring about what you idiots do. We are watching what you are doing and we are getting increasingly fed up with all of you. I also want you to know that I personally find just about everything you do and say to be offensive to every one of my sensibilities. I promise you that I will work tirelessly to see that you do not get a chance to spend two terms destroying my beautiful country.

Sincerely,
Every real American

Face it, I Never Actually Learned this Stuff

I read an interesting article in The Breeze earlier today. It was talking about finals, and student's reactions to them. There was one part in it that actually made me laugh out loud, a dangerous feat to attempt while sitting in a dorm that is currently under "23 hour Quiet Hours."

Part of the article's argument was that the only reason professors give finals is to torture their students for one last week before they get let loose for the summer. It included something about them being jealous of the student's youth and vigor (after all, who wouldn't be jealous of someone who can party the entire night, and then still show up to class hungover with their paper written... please note the sarcasm there). While I do partially buy into the torturing the students argument, I really do believe that finals have some importance. Mind you, I'm writing this when I technically should be studying for the 8 AM history final I have tomorrow morning, but that's another story.

All too often it seems that students who get to go to college begin to feel entitled to a good grade. They feel that just because they show up for class and are barely attentive they deserve a passing grade for the course. However, I feel that finals are a good way of separating those who care about their grade from those who don't, though I'd believe that task can get a little difficult during the one week every kid wants to just go home. Like several of my professors said, the final can be used to bump you [the student] up that one letter grade that you need. It can be the ultimate deciding factor over whether you get D or a C, an A or a B.

So, while you're sitting there, cursing all your professors under your breath as you cram for that Chemistry final, remember that while they seem stupid at the moment, these mind-raping, soul-killing, hope-withering tests are actually useful. Maybe it'll give you the extra oomph to study more to get that A you know you can earn.