I love the water. I was a competitive swimmer for about seven years. I spent many long summer hours in the backyard pool with my siblings, playing "Silent Marco Polo." (Basically, calling out "Marco!" and answering "Polo!" made things too easy in a small pool, so we just hunted and caught each other listening to the sounds of the water moving.)
Swimming is my athletic saving grace. I have lame-o monocular vision, so trying to catch and hit spherical objects is tough, y'all. Also, running...nope. I get all burning in the throat and lungs and it's not pretty. Yes, I do get that feeling as well while swimming laps, but I dunno. In the water, it just doesn't feel like I'm going to collapse and die afterward. And as soon as they invent something as super fun as swim fins for running, then maybe I'll try it out.
Besides, water reacts in a much more entertaining way while I'm expending energy. The splashing! That fun dum-dum-dum that your feet make while kicking. The plip-plop. The splish-splash. Lovely! I spent a fantastic evening this summer after a walk, lying on the deck of the pool in my apartment complex with my feet dangling in the water and staring up at the sky. I think I entertained myself for at least an hour making splashy noises in the water. Ah.
Swimming makes me feel powerful. Swimming makes me feel graceful (something I did not start to achieve on land until I took fencing). Swimming makes me feel peaceful. It's so nice and quiet down there, where I can just focus on breathing, and stretching and making that flip turn as smooth as possible.
If you need me, I'll be at the bottom of the diving well. At least until I have to come up for air.
Showing posts with label True Confessions. Show all posts
Showing posts with label True Confessions. Show all posts
Friday, December 10, 2010
Thursday, May 14, 2009
In which I contemplate your death
Ah, summer. It reminds me of a song we used to sing in Primary when I was a kid:
(Well, okay. I can't really remember the words, but they went something like this.)
Oh, what do you do in the summertime when all the trees are green? Do you sit by a stream or lazily dream or watch as the clouds float by? Is that what you do? So do I!
I sit by the pool and a) ruin people's fun, b) keep them from killing themselves or someone they love or c) both.
Yes, a lifeguard's lot is not a happy one. Despite the impression that "Baywatch" may have given you, being a lifeguard is actually a pretty dull job most of the time. It involves a level of attention that has to be high enough to notice what's going on in your area, but not so focused that you cease taking in the whole picture.
Consequently, guards come up with various ways of keeping their minds active while on duty. One of the methods that's actually suggested in the literature is to imagine rescue scenarios involving the people currently under your watch.
That 70-ish lap swimmer breathing hard at the end of each lap? Heart attack.
That irritating frat boy who keeps diving headfirst into shallow water no matter how many times you tell him not to? TWEEET!!! Broken neck.
That snot-nosed kid who likes to float motionless at the surface for an excruciating amount of time? Drowning.
Doing this sort of thing not only helps you constantly review your skills, but it keeps your attention at just about the right level.
But things have taken a bit of a morbid turn in my case.
Since I'm also an instructor for various training courses, I have to review skills in my head almost constantly just to keep them all straight. This has lead me to imagine emergency scenarios almost everywhere. At school. At church. On road trips.
So, I guess what I'm asking is: Does this make me paranoid? Or just a little unbalanced?
(Well, okay. I can't really remember the words, but they went something like this.)
Oh, what do you do in the summertime when all the trees are green? Do you sit by a stream or lazily dream or watch as the clouds float by? Is that what you do? So do I!
I sit by the pool and a) ruin people's fun, b) keep them from killing themselves or someone they love or c) both.
Yes, a lifeguard's lot is not a happy one. Despite the impression that "Baywatch" may have given you, being a lifeguard is actually a pretty dull job most of the time. It involves a level of attention that has to be high enough to notice what's going on in your area, but not so focused that you cease taking in the whole picture.
Consequently, guards come up with various ways of keeping their minds active while on duty. One of the methods that's actually suggested in the literature is to imagine rescue scenarios involving the people currently under your watch.
That 70-ish lap swimmer breathing hard at the end of each lap? Heart attack.
That irritating frat boy who keeps diving headfirst into shallow water no matter how many times you tell him not to? TWEEET!!! Broken neck.
That snot-nosed kid who likes to float motionless at the surface for an excruciating amount of time? Drowning.
Doing this sort of thing not only helps you constantly review your skills, but it keeps your attention at just about the right level.
But things have taken a bit of a morbid turn in my case.
Since I'm also an instructor for various training courses, I have to review skills in my head almost constantly just to keep them all straight. This has lead me to imagine emergency scenarios almost everywhere. At school. At church. On road trips.
So, I guess what I'm asking is: Does this make me paranoid? Or just a little unbalanced?
Wednesday, May 13, 2009
In which I actually start using this blog
So. I created this blog several years ago around the time when I started to discover that my friends had blogs. How neat were they! Pithy! Insightful! Witty!
As has become a common pattern in my life, having a blog seemed like so much fun and surely I could come up with interesting things to post about, and MAN, I wanted in on that action. I took the plunge, created the blog, messed around with the settings a bit and then tried to come up with a few nifty posts.
Several days later and my enthusiasm had basically dried up. Real Life had reared its ugly head again. But I figured maybe I'd get around to it eventually.
Now, with the completion of my doctoral coursework and the end of my academic career as a student looming, I've found myself reflecting quite a bit. So now seemed as good of a time as any to dust off the blog thing and give it another shot.
We'll see how long it lasts this time.
As has become a common pattern in my life, having a blog seemed like so much fun and surely I could come up with interesting things to post about, and MAN, I wanted in on that action. I took the plunge, created the blog, messed around with the settings a bit and then tried to come up with a few nifty posts.
Several days later and my enthusiasm had basically dried up. Real Life had reared its ugly head again. But I figured maybe I'd get around to it eventually.
Now, with the completion of my doctoral coursework and the end of my academic career as a student looming, I've found myself reflecting quite a bit. So now seemed as good of a time as any to dust off the blog thing and give it another shot.
We'll see how long it lasts this time.
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