See, I've never been much of a swimmer. I took classes intermittently from the ages of somewhere around 3 years of age to 9 or 10. I was a terrible swimmer.
Upp until last week, my aquatic talents were composed of dog paddling, floating on my back, and floating on my back and kicking my legs. The one I employed most often was the last one, because it's easiest. Unfortunately, since all I could see while I "swam" along was the sky –or the roof over the pool– and I'm not good at reading clouds, I'd often veer off course. Way off course.
One of the last years I was at summer camp, I took the swimming test at the beginning of the week. It consisted of covering the distance between to stakes driven into the camp's pond, three times. If you passed, the counselors gave you a plastic bracelet to be worn all week, and which granted you access (with a buddy) to the deeper part ofthe pond. Non-bracelet holding losers were relegated to the shallow bit near the shore, which wasn't so bad if you didn't have much will to live anyway.**
So anyway, I took the test (after having verified that you could swim with any stoke you liked) doing a backstroke. Remember how I sid it's really hard to tell where you're going? After my third half-lap, the counsellor whose job it was to hand out bracelets gave me a funny look and said, "Uh, how about you do another lap?". I wasn't sure why he wanted me to swim some more –I'd already done enough, hadn't I?– but I wanted the bracelet, so I did as he asked.
Once I straightened up and looked around, I saw why he wasn't sure about me. I'll illustrate the situation, as seen from above:
Really, the guy shouldn't have given me the bracelet at all. Luckily I've always been a wimp and I barely even entered the deep part that week, except to go canoeing (I love canoeing).
Despite my Mom's insistence, learning to swim properly was never a priority for me until about two weeks ago, when my first field work trip-thing was announced. It's for Algae class, so naturally we're going to a place with water. Lots of water.
Let me tell you, when I started to care about it, DAMN DID I LEARN FAST!
I mean, at first there was much dramatic gasping and spluttering (which I'm sure grossed out the other people in the pool). But now I can swim along just fine. Now I'm all ready to go collect little algae beasties near the sea.
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On other news, I finally finished my third book of the year. I'm going really slow. Agh.
I needed something super, super light, a book that would practically read itself. So naturally I turned to Confessions of a Shopaholic, by Sophie Kinsella. I love that book. It was a re-read –I'm actually not sure how many times I've read it and the sequels– but it's always fun.
Also, oddly, all 3 book I've read so far have been set in England. Heh.
** I jest. Mostly. The shallow part did have the advantage of being inhabited by little fishies in one part, and if you stood still they'd gather round your legs and TRY TO EAT YOU!! ...well, part of that sentence is true, anyway.
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