Sports and I don’t go together. It’s like mixing custard and soda. I’m custard; indolent, lethargic and I curdle when put in the sun too long. Sports is soda; fizzy, annoying, and it gives you gas. A human automatically hates something they are not good at no matter how much they try, and when it comes to physical exertion I have tried and failed.
There are several reasons for my vehement hatred of all things physical. The first reason is that I am not good at it. I am the kind of girl whom you find in the library reading a good book or sitting down quietly listening to music, rather than sweating it out in the playground with my peers. My hand-eye coordination is zero. The second reason is that my P.E teacher has a severe vendetta against me, and for some bizarre reason, finds pleasure in doling out physical tasks to me alone, specially designed to bring me to near death with exhaustion and stop my heart beating. 
The third reason is that apart from being healthy, I find exercise pointless. My biology teacher would scream in horror, as would, I’m sure, other healthy lifestyle specialists, but that is a fact. I do not see the need in being forced to run two kilometres in under six minutes because unless I become a convict or engage in a profession that requires a lot of running, which are usually careers that are not entirely legal, I do not under any circumstances need to spend eighty minutes each week being timed while I am forced to run two thousand meters.
I am inevitably mercilessly teased by my peers because of my lack of fitness, and when it is time for the heats, the short kid with asthma and sinus problem sniggers as he knows even he can beat me at the hundred meter sprint. I don’t sprint; I amble. I run a little bit faster than a 1959 Chevy truck with a puncture; and I know an old Chevy isn’t a particularly speedy vehicle, let alone a punctured one. I had lessons on how to run when I was in year 4. I know for a fact that that isn’t normal. Normal human beings know how to run without any extra help because it comes naturally, right after walking, but I guess that particular strand of DNA forgot about me. And the fact that I run like “I’m walking fast” as my P.E teacher puts it, doesn’t help at all. But the verity of my year 4 P.E teacher’s valiant attempts to get me to run properly that all the delightful people in my class remember, and remind me without fail at every possible opportunity they get, might also have something to do with why I hate doing sport so much.
I am an extremely lazy person, but laziness is nothing more than resting before you get tired. 
I’m also always the last to get picked for teams. After a decade, I don’t necessarily mind as I’m pretty much used to it, but it does gnaw at the old ‘self confidence’ a tad. To make things worse, the megalomaniac, torturous, love-deprived heads of the athletic department of the school have found a way to compile a list of my least favourite activities all in one calendar year. The fact that the activities that top my “Sports never ever to do even if my life depends on it” list, such as swimming, football, and the dreaded athletics, does not, obviously, help me lessen my loathing of exercise in any way either.
But I am open-minded about it. I appreciate that those who love sports love it because it makes them happy and keeps them fit. I am not oblivious to the fact it sends endorphins raging through your body, but I prefer to send endorphins raging through my body through chocolate.
BY: Nandita Nair
Year 10
