Penguins Don’t Fly, HaughtyPenguin Don’t Swim: overcoming your fears

There are defintetly a couple of things that I fear. One is Bees, and the other is drowning. O, I guess another would be wrestling practice [for another time]. I just dont like bees because they can/will sting you just for the hell of it and it will hurt like a mofo. I dont think I actually have been stung before, but to the point, it’s annoyig how they follow you around and wont leave if you shoo them. It may actually piss them off and they will sting you. It’s like, who the hell are you to get up on me and invade my personal space. I really hate it when they hover around because you have food (mainly seems when I have a hotdog with ketchup). It’s sort of like when a person comes off the street and asks you for a dollar, and gets up in your face at night. You are not sure what to do at first, and may even fear they will whack you.

This post is not about my fear(hatred) of bees, alas. This is about the dreaded abyss. The home of neptune. The aqueous hell that stand in the way of graduating from highschool (I’ll get more into this later). If you havent figured it out yet, I’m talking about swimming.

I wouldn’t say I am afraid of water, probably more likely afraid of the prospect of drowning. Ever since I was a child, I’ve been afraid of water that was higher than my head. This would be problematic at water parks, lakes, oceans etc. I spent a lot of my time at the kiddy pool. Maybe if they had a 3-4ft depth section, I would be able to venture into the waters (when I was at least 1 ft length above the water with feet on ground. So one would ask “cant you swim?”
Well no I cant. Actually that is not accurate either, I am just not good at swimming. Well if it was prior to highschool, I guess I’d have to say yah, I did not know how to swim you a-hole. From what I can recall, my mom first enrolled me in swim lessons when I was around 5 or 6 at the Josephinum Pontifical College in Worthington (Ohio). I refused to go into the pool (wasting my mom’s money for the class). My brother initially afraid as well. She tried to bribe us with these pens that were personalized with out names on it. My brother was easily coerced and was soon jumping off the diving bored. The ingrate that I was, I took the pen and stayed on dryland with mommy.

Second try was in Taiwan, where my mom enrolled us yet again in swim classes. The thing I didnt like about pools in Taiwan was that we had to wear these swim caps. I felt they made me look stupid (not like the wake up and go bedhead/asian kid look wasnt stupid). I did go in the pool, but I never did learn how to swim well. I just remember practicing kicking while holding onto the wall. Most of the time I was too afraid of ingesting the chlorinated water.
I then remember all the times we went to Wyndotte Lake, a water park in Columbus now known as Zoombezie Bay (sp). I hated the wave pool, and spent all of my time at the shallow end.

One summer in Cali, my aunt took my brother and I to a water park. There was this thing where you would climb across the water holding on to a rope and step on the floating foam platforms. Well my upper body strength was never great and of course I fell in. Unfortunately the water was probably 6 ft, and I was likely 4’6″ at the time. I remember almost drowning and splashing around. The life gaurd was a little pissed off at me. Asshole didnt jump in but luckily some pushed me to the edge and I climbed out. I was told not to go in anymore if I can not swim. Makes sense, but that was embarrassing.

Another time in Hawaii (my dad used to go to a lot of conferences and took us with him) we were at this awesome resort. I went on this waterslide, but I did not know how deep the water at the other end was. Well again it was over my head and I remember frantically splashing around to stay afloat. I dont really remember how I got out of that one.
Now both these times I was trying to get over my fear of water (and I didnt realize how deep the water was).
Now these near drowning experiences always left a bad chlorine taste in my mouth so to speak.

I figured if I stayed land locked, I would never really have to worry about the water issue, but for whatever freak’n reason my high school had a mandatory swim test. You had to pass in order to graduate. For those who know me, I do get anxious about many things, neurotic to a point. With this looming over my head freshman year was not fun. When it came time, we all had to jump in, swim a length of the pool down, swim a length back and then tread water for 5 minutes. Well I was one of the first ones in. I tried my hardest to swim down the length. Slowly my classmates passed me by, then passed me again on their way back. My buddy Dennis had knee surgery not long ago, and was one of the last ones in. He also passed me and again on his way back. I actually splashed and flailed my way to one end and back to the other. The problem was the treading water. I was definitely panicking (I was doing this the whole time mind you), and I started to go under a couple of times. You’ve probably seen it on TV where the poor sap starts to dip under the water, head will bob out, hands flail, water splashes, then head goes under again. I started to drag some people down, but Eddie Haas was nice enough to push me to the edge of the pool. Suffice it to say I failed the swim test that day. I had to then take a remedial swimming course during gym time. That was probably a good thing since I was able to learn how to properly tread water and not freak out while in the pool. If anything I learned to drown calmly.

Now this brings me to the original inspiration for this post. I wonder if Vivienne is going to have an issue with water, and how should I go about making sure she learns to swim. I heard that with babies, you should be able to throw them in a pool, and they naturally know to hold their breath underwater. Something to do with the fact that they were swimming for about 9 months (less I supposed if you don’t count the embryo stages) prior to being pushed out into this dry/eczematous world.

They offer classes at my highschool, as well as the local gym. Maybe I should just ask a friend who swims. I guess MommyMD knows how to swim anyway – by the way, she is a horrible swim teacher. When she goes swimming with me she just comments “I don’t understand why you cant swim”. Not very productive if you ask me- She will likely have a different approach with the ViviBear.

Now I found this picture on the right via a google search. It seems they strap these babies (and I only saw asian babies with this) head only in, and let them float. It actually seems like some form of torture, but they don’t appear to be unhappy.
-edit- after reading stell’s comment, I decided to actually read the page that I jacked this photo from. no mention of CP for those asian heads, just “development”. –

Overall ViviBear seems fine with bath time:

I figure maybe I will take lessons with ViviBear. I think my problem with swimming really is the fact that I dont like the feeling of not breathing. I hate ingesting chlorine water, because it’s dirty. So far my records is doing 10 laps total. (not continuous).

If any of you have any suggestions, I am all ears. Feel free to post a comment or something as well. I just keep getting these spam comments selling viagra and some other diet pills.

O yah, after the remedial swim course I did pass the swim test (hence graduating). Still not a fan of swimming. or bees. or wrastl’n.