so i've taken up swimming. i was so darn unfit last year, and felt horrible about myself. same old same old. i started my daily midnight walks towards the end of the year and felt much better about the world, but since my return from australia at the start of the year, i've made a great effort to change the walks to early morning wake-up missions which has completely metamorphosed my mood around. and where possible i try very hard to get to the pool on a daily basis. this is near impossible, because the pool closes at 8:30pm which is the time most of my classes end. but i try nonetheless and have thoroughly enjoyed the adventures of my new hobby. and whilst the primary motivation in taking swimming up was originally as a form of relaxation and stress relief, i have also muchly enjoyed the secondary benefits of being left relatively svelte, trim and toned. who knew that swimming could give me nice biceps and decent thighs and the ability to fit into all 5 pairs of my jeans again. hooray for keeping fit and toned without even meaning to!every day at the pool brings a new happening. here are some of the things that run through my mind as i splash my way up and down those 25 meters for my 30 minute challenge that leaves me satisfyingly exhausted...
- i hate pool rules. it utterly bewilders me that i'm not allowed to wear my necklace, but the cheerleader next to me with her false eyelashes and manicured claws is allowed to wear her big dangly earrings. i hate that i have to wear a swimming cap that makes me look like a shiny blue egg and doesn't even keep my hair dry, but i'm allowed to run around the pool like a madman risking slipping, falling and all-round messiness.
- those men who make me want to slap them silly when they hawk up big fat globs of phlegm and spit it out on the street in front of me, are welcome too at the pool. built into the inside walls of the pool are little holes every meter or so that the men utterly enjoy spitting their big fat globs into when they feel the need. sounds nice too.
- the butterfly should never ever have been invented. who thought up that crazy little fit of mismatched movements anyway? has anyone really sat down and watched and thought about how ridiculous this stroke is? and utterly disruptive it is for the other poor people left floating aimlessly in their tsunami ruins??
- i have somehow developed a great fear of putting my head under the water for any extended amount of time - usually past the 4 second mark. which deems me unable to swim the butterfly (i still refute that this should even be a swimming stroke...), the breaststroke and the crawl. which leaves me with the backstroke - a very convenient stroke as you're left with just your face out of the water and the ability to swim in a perfectly straight line as you follow the ceiling above you. i have also developed my own form of a sideways breaststroke. i look like a half paralyzed frog chugging down the lanes, but a very graceful frog if i do say so myself.
- that special little man who comes for his weekly swimming excursion on sunday afternoons, is my absolute favourite. i've never ever seen anyone make such an entire mess of such a big and vast spanse of water. it's quite uncanny what just one little runty, skinny man can do to volumes of water and people. he also has this peculiar and truly admirable ability to swim the backstroke in an entirely vertical position. i couldn't tell you how that is possible, even though i bare witness to having seen it with my own eyes, but he somehow makes it down to the other side of the pool amidst a torrent of waves and manages to stop at the other end in an elegant puff to praise himself wholeheartedly aloud at his sheer brilliance. i love it. i love him. he is brilliant indeed.
- i am continuously left perplexed at the following conundrum; the japanese appear to be so open with their nakedness at the hot springs and public baths. i've seen all sorts of very private things happen in these kinds of places, and have admired and respected them for their ability to be so free and open. i'm always left terribly mystified that the changing rooms of the pool is full of very humble and shy women desperately covering up any shade of skin, and running for the curtained cubicles to strip down to their bathers or back into their clothes. oh why is it so?
- i am always left in an explosion of stupified giggles when i become so absorbed in my lap that i fail to notice that the wall is approaching and invariably manage to bang my head into aforementioned wall at great speed and impact. it doesn't hurt so much, rather than the noise under water when i hit the wall with my blue shiny egg-head leaves me with an impressive echoing 'boiiiinnnngg' both inside and outside my head.
- i am forever apologetic at the inordinate amount of hair i continue to lose at my feet as i dry off for the evening. i really am sorry at the huge mess i leave and the difficulty i add to the staff in cleaning up my wet and hairy remains. perhaps the chlorine is slowly killing me... but alas, i will continue to swim. viva la aqua. viva la egg head.
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