Swim Lessons
The past two weeks the team has been giving individualized swim lessons to various children in the community. It’s cool to see those who return every year gain more experience. Over the past two years we’ve done lessons four times so improvement is really noticeable. We mostly just have a good time and want to get kids comfortable in the water, especially the much younger ones. I was giving lessons to two four-year-olds. It was a blast since they were both pretty outgoing. My first half-hour lesson consisted mostly of Kali kicking all over the pool on her kickboard. She wasn’t shy about letting me know how much she disliked getting water in her eyes. My second half-hour lesson would always end with Dirk going off the three meter board. I doubt he’s much more than a couple feet tall, but he was all for it. I think diving for rings was his favorite thing to do though.
Things have been pretty crazy these last couple weeks with all the events going on and classes winding down. Fortunately, I was able to make out to D.C. last weekend for a leadership conference in spite of this busy time. The weather couldn’t have been better either. There were actually people out on the Washington Monument lawn sunbathing. I think the last time I was in D.C. was when I was about five, so I never remembered much besides the Lincoln Monument, but there it was, just as I had left it fifteen years ago. Besides all these structures the city is actually beautiful, especially at this time of year. One of the pictures is the hotel I was staying. I’m sure you can figure out the other pictures. Enjoy. 
Last Thursday I went to watch the annual bed races out on the mall. They always draw a large crowd. To quickly explain, the pledges of each fraternity race in a team around the whole mall with a mattress. The mattress is typically carried by some sort of cart (shopping carts seemed to be the preferred method). However, each cart/mattress must also have a rider. Two teams race against each other at a time. That’s about it though…except for the ugliness of it all. That’s why there’s always a huge crowd running in circles around the mall to catch a glimpse of the action. You can see in one of the pictures here that the mattress is full of readied eggs to be used as ammunition against opponents. Don’t forget the Tabasco-sauce-filled water balloons. Some designs are safe, and some aren’t so safe. It’s all for the enjoyment though as we get to watch the teams duke it out on the pavement with their carts. I think there are about four to six on a team at a time and while some are helping push the cart, others just seem to “get in the way” of the opponents cart. I’d say it’s easy for most of these freshmen to have flaring tempers considering the conditions at times, but all the spectators do a good job at keeping the competitors in check. It is a fun tradition, but I hope you don’t get any ideas and try filling your water balloons with something other than water this summer.
Last weekend I was with some good friends in Michigan at a theater we rented out where we got to watch, “The Great Debaters.” I think I would really recommend it to anyone. It’s a pretty serious movie but has good message and is something everyone should probably be reminded of. What’s interesting though is my C & T class is going through an African-American experience module right now. We’ve covered a lot of literature from people like Malcom X and Martin Luther King Jr. So in the movie when Denzel (who is the intellectual teacher of an all black boarding school) stands up on a desk and recites a poem in which he immediately demands for the author. No one else in the theater was in C & T, but I was able to beat the students in the movie by shouting, “Langston Hughes!” So I have to admit I had a bit of an ego, but I can never remember facts or names at the drop of a pin.