sharks in pools - the journey continues

As you can already guess I went snorkeling again. A new pair of fins, another borrowed snorkel and I was good to go.

That I am writing this means that I didn’t drown, of course. I didn’t even come close this time. In fact I managed most of the exercises. (Yay!)

This time I learned how to blow the water out of my mask. After all that happened the last time I found this particular exercise to be rather easy.

There was a lot of diving involved as well, which turned out to be a stupid idea. In truth I got a bit carried away. After the normal exercises worked so well I kind of totally forgot that I still have that annoying tympanostomy tube in my left ear. (It’s been there for five months so you might understand how I tend to forget about it once in a while.)

So I turned once around myself while diving and thought for sure my eardrum was torn into a thousand shreds. It wasn’t of course but it hurt like a son of a bitch! For the remaining 15 minutes of the training I cleverly refrained from diving again.

I just cannot wait for that thing to come out. After all this time I will miss it. Not. It will be like a part of me is missing. Not. I swear I am so used to it by now that my head automatically takes this strange angle as soon as I step into the shower just to prevent the water from entering my ear.

Of course that didn’t prevent it from entering in the pool, duh.

Because of that rather inconvenient fact I ended up paying a visit to my otorhinolaryngologist (ear doc for short). I don’t know how they managed it but instead of the usual three hours plus I only had to wait one this time. Thankfully the doc said everything looked fine and assured me she had a really good look into my middle ear (creepy) and that there was no water remaining inside my ear.

If nothing else the feeling of my eardrum being ripped apart has made me realize that I will have to be more careful the next time I go snorkeling. At least it won’t be much longer until the tube is gone for good.

So how did I know there were no sharks in the pool? This time I did not only know because they didn’t snack on me. No! With the help of my totally fogless goggles I actually saw there was not one single shark swimming around my ankles. The simple trick is to put some toothpaste into your goggles, let it dry and then rinse them. For good measure I followed that treatment by rinsing again, using mouthwash this time. Add some spit to the mix before entering the pool and voila: you will have clear sight to watch all the cute little fishes swimming around you (or, as in my case, your fellow snorkelers).

Of course that doesn’t help when your feet keep floating around the surface. Thanks to my new fins, this time was a lot better than before.

In fact the beginners were so good our instructor decided to let us join the advanced snorkelers in training next time.

I am sure his decision was not based on my performance.

Though I did do a lot better than last time I still sucked. This is also why I am not sure how I feel about the prospect of swimming with people who are so much better than I am. I swim like a snail and not many people can compare to that.

Well I guess the others will just have to wait for me. After all it was not my decision.

At last! One thing that’s not my fault, hehe.

the monday sugar low

On the way back home yesterday, the guys from my car pool ate all my cookies! And I worked so hard to bake them. They were cinnamon-waffle cookies and my favorite kind right now. I will admit that this does not amount to much since my taste buds change their mind as often as my brain and stomach do. Still, the result is that I want those cookies and that there is none I can stuff into my greedy mouth and moan about.

All right, they did not eat all the cookies. Manly because my mom kept about ¾ of them at her place. Seriously! I should have taken them all. She even looked at me funny when I filled up a box for myself.

I baked those damned cookies! They were supposed to be mine! Mine! Mine!

Hey, it’s not like I don’t share. She can keep the freaking cookies but I am allowed to take some for myself, right? Especially since I won’t get any more for at least three weeks.

Maybe she made the dough and ought to have her share. But she can make new ones any time! And I was the one who baked them, one at the time for 1 and a half hours!

That’s my need for sugar speaking right now.

Okay, so it is my own fault that the guys ate up all of my (though fairly small) share of those yummy cinnamon cookies. After all I offered.

Yesterday it didn’t seem like such a big deal.

Right now however, I really, really want one! Need one!

All I have left now are those yucky pretzel M&Ms my sister bought for me. To tell the truth they don’t taste sooo bad. Somehow, though I can only eat one or two at a time before they make me feel sick.

Everyone keeps telling me that I should be glad because this way I won’t eat so many sweets. Ask yourself one question however: Is it worth feeling nauseated for hours afterwards?

My answer is: NO. Which is why I stopped eating them. Please know that this was really hard for me. I hate to see good food go to waste. Especially if it was given to me by someone else. Especially if that someone was my sister, who will surely be disappointed that I won’t (can’t)eat those M&Ms.

However, they handed out samplers of Pretzel-Chocolate at the grocery store this weekend. They had various other choices as well but I neither like marzipan nor rum (or whatever other alcohol they stuffed into those chocolates). So the only choice left was the one with Pretzel and it didn’t taste all that bad. All in all it tasted way better than the M&Ms. Still it wasn’t good. Conclusion: salt and chocolate just don’t work for me.

Long story short: I am still left without chocolate or cookies and I have to study organic chemistry. No one who has not been forced to go though the horror will ever truly understand what it is like to do organic chemistry without comfort food! Makes you want to strangle something! Someone. Your chemistry professor.

The thought of people handing out samplers at the supermarket though is nearly enough to make me stop reading about Lewis-structures and run over to get whatever samples they are handing out and while I am already there, buy some yummy chocolate. Nut and raisin for example. I am really in the mood for nut and raisin!

But for now I will try to restrain this demonic graving for sweets, even if it means to stop studying (sometimes you just have to sacrifice) and instead use the little free time I gained to plan my next holiday!

sharks in pools

My newest project/ hobby/ general time consumer (I should rather spend my time studying but whatever): snorkeling. This course I am taking is supposed to be a beginners’ course and later graduates to diving. Now, I had never snorkeled before. Please note that when I say never, I mean never ever.

So here I was, not knowing what kind of equipment to buy that would effectively prevent me from drowning during my first hands on experience in the nicely shallow pool of the local gym.

What do you do when you don’t know what to buy? You get yourself professional advice!

First I tried one of the really big sporting goods stores. As it turned out they did have neither my seize fins nor many options to chose from. In addition to that I did not get the feeling that the saleswoman even knew what it was she was trying to sell me. Come on, I didn’t need her for that! I managed not understanding anything fine on my own, thank you very much! What I needed her to do was hand me the right set of fins! Preferably the ones! Perfect fit, perfect rigidity, perfect length. I would not even have asked her to wrap them in a pretty package. I would have carried them home just like that (the better to show them off).Of course I wouldn’t have minded if she had thrown in a breeze of talent as well. I didn’t bother asking, however. After all she couldn’t even sell me fins.

So the search went on. Next up on my list was a ‘professional’ diving store. Now you would believe that the people working there, especially the shop owner (which I guess the guy was since the shop is a very, very small) would know what I was looking for. Sadly the real world has a very crude way of disappointing me sometimes, because in truth it went something like this:

Me: Hi, I’m searching for fins.

Owner: Hmmm.

Me: ?...... For snorkeling and later for diving.

He continued looking at me, not saying a word and I was like: O-kay….

Let’s face it, I should probably have left right then. But hey! Cut me some slack. At that point I was desperate. I needed those fins in one day flat and the choice of diving stores in this area is seriously limited. Waikiki beach this is not!

Fighting desperately for his attention (Hello-ho! Customer anyone!?) I tried to get him to sell me those fins I was so urgently in need of. I explained to him that I am doing a snorkeling course which later offers us to get our diving license and that I was totally clueless as to what to pay attention to when chosing fins.

So he: Are you doing a diving course? (Why, thank you for listening to me so far.)

Me: Well (no)…. First we do snorkeling and later, if we want to we are offered the possibility to get a diving license.

Owner: Will you dive outdoors?

Me: We will start diving in the swimming pool fist and only switch to the lake sometime in May or June next year. BUT we do snorkeling first. So what kind of fins would I buy in this case?

Owner: You want strapped ones then. And you need sock liners, too.

Thinking: at least we are getting somewhere now, I went on: Why not the full foot ones?

Owner: The strapped ones will be better secured when you dive in cold water.

Me: We will be in the pool for at least another 9 months…

Owner: Oh you can use them there too.

Me: Hm, okay. If you say that those are better…If they don’t work out for me can I return them?

Better safe than sorry right?

Owner: If you really don’t get along with them.

He didn’t sound too happy that I had pinned him on that. Anyways, I bought both fins and sock liners in good faith, unimaginably glad that I was finally set up for my first snorkeling lesson. Ecstatic really, that I had a ‘real’ pair of fins.

Man, I thought I had the coolest, most awesome fins in the whole freaking pool! Or at least close.

I WAS SO VERY PROUD.

Yeah. Right. Pride comes before fall…..or in my case: drowning.

Anyways, there I was at the swimming pool for the first time with my new fins (goggles and glasses I had borrowed from my future brother-in-law) all excited.

Let’s cut to the chase and see what went wrong:

1: my goggles fogged over within two minutes…. swimming nearly blind is no fun

2. I never managed to get rid of all the water in my snorkel causing me to swallow half the water in the pool by the time we were finished (It was the snorkels fault! Believe me! I tried with my friends and it was just fine! Future-brother-in-law, please don’t be mad now but your snorkel is crap!)

3. those fins I bought…let’s just say the three of us did not get along. At all. When I didn’t lose them their ascending force was so strong I hardly managed to push them beneath the water! lower body floating, upper body sinking? … not a very good combination.

So much for my first experience in snorkeling. Talk about embarrassing!

At least that guy at the store said I could return the damn fins!

I think this goes a long way to show that just because you know a lot about diving, which I am sure the guy did, does not automatically mean that you will make a good salesperson. Sorry Mr. Shop Owner! I’m sure you are a good diver but your ability as a salesman sucks!

I’d hate to think of my experience as a total disaster however.

The bright side: at least there were no sharks in the pool!