Stories for ESL speech contest

Learning to Swim Well i never learned to swim properly during our swimming classes in primary school. I think it was because i spent too much time just goofing around in the water and i had this idea about treading water. I imagined my legs and feet should be close together when i ran them in circles so i would float around the water in a very straight and vertical position. I imagined i would look like a genie from a magic lamp. Naturally that didn't work out. I went on from primary school and for many years i believed that i couldn't swim. That was pretty hampering when my friends were swimming around on deep water at rare occasions. I feared not being able to reach be bottom with my feet. Then recently i was on a trip to Australia with some family. I practiced a lot of swimming down there and treading water and to my surprise i actually improved a lot because there was almost always a pool or a beach nearby, but i still stuck to placed where i could reach the bottom with my feet. I thought that story was over but then i went snorkling with a pair of swimming fins over a coral reef. I was worried that i wouldn't be able to keep myself above the water but it went extremely well and the coral reef was beautiful. Then i thought "what the hell, you only live once" so i signed up for a scuba dive course and we went diving on 8 metres depth for 25 minutes, woohoo! I would never have believed that i would dive in my life but i did it and i survived and i got a diploma that i will hang on my wall once i find a hammer and a nail.