yes, i am alive

and i have survived mid-terms, finals, winter break, a job fair in Washington, DC and the start of a new semester. of course, i haven't blogged about any of this, but i survived it all.

next on my list of things to survive is beginning swimming. that's right, i signed up for a swimming class. because hey, you're never too young to learn to tread water, right? the class is called beginning swimming, but i am the only true beginning swimmer in attendance. so far, the other students have learned the sidestroke, the elementary backstroke, the front crawl, the back crawl, and the breast stroke. i have learned to blow bubbles, and to do the back crawl. it took me three weeks, flippers, and the life guard standing by at the end of class before i was willing to venture into the deep end, and at that, all i did was walk down the ladder and hang, to see how far i would sink.

i've gotten a lot better, tho. one of my classmates is a saint and goes to the pool on saturdays with me to help me deal with my fear of the water. it's a lot harder to get to the bottom of the pool than i realized at first. thanks to her, i can now tread water (but i much prefer to do so while wearing flippers), jump into the deep end, and swim until i get tired, tread water to take a break, and go back to swimming. which came in handy in class the week before last. we have a test coming up, during which we will have to swim as many laps of the front crawl as we can in 12 minutes. presently, i can swim 1/4 of one lap doing the front crawl. on february 10th, i couldn't even swim that much, but i tried. i was trying to swim the length of the pool when i started to choke, so i tread water until i felt better, then i started swimming again. and choked again. and tread water again. just when i decided that i would finish the lap using the back crawl, the instructor walked down to where i was and told me to head back to the shallow end. and after class the lifeguard told me that she was about to jump in and save me. but thanks to c, i knew what to do: don't panic, tread water, and float on my back if i needed to. it was quite the liberating moment, to realize that i wasn't going to die. plus, i could have grabbed the lane divider. being sent back to the shallow end was kind of amusing, tho, because i was about three feet away from the deep end of the pool, and cover twice that distance (i think, i'm not so good with distances) to get back to the shallow end.

but i survived. and hopefully i shall continue to do so. one of my cohort members, however, is taking bets that i won't survive until the end of the semester. it's good to have friends, ain't it?

hmm, what else am i forgetting that's happened since the last time i posted? oh yeah, i got a learner's permit! and had two driving lessons! on ice! i have so very very far to go. as a driver, i make a good swimmer.

oh well, such is life. until next time!