Have a pet peeve I need to share:

People who come to swim laps in the pool who do 1/2 lap, float by the side of the pool taling with their friend for 5 minutes, then swimming back to the opposite side, talking 5 minutes, and starting the whole process over again.

I guess when I hit the pool, I am there to WORK. It pisses me off when there are people there more to socialize. If they want to exercise and talk, they can hit the damned track and walk, not clog up two lanes of the pool. If they'd even be considerate enough to only take one lane for the two of them, I'd probably not be so pissed. This has happened a couple times in the last few weeks. Usually it wouldn't bother me, but a lot of the other "regulars" have started to show up again, which means the pool at 5:30 is pretty full.

I decided last Friday to see how long a mile (33 laps) would take me. Got it done in 38 minutes. Since then, I've been trying to get in as many laps as I can in 30 minutes. Today I made it to 28. I looked at one website about calories burned in exercise and figured that every 30 minutes I swim is about 500 calories gone.

Accalia has her last swimming lesson today. I'm so proud of her because she has done a great job. No fear of the water at all. She even is able to do a crawl and backstroke. We'll see if she advances.

Okay, time to shift to something related to the swimming that some may find controversial. I think there must be a gene in males that causes us to be essentially retarded from about 6-8 years of age. There are a couple boys in Accalia's class that have me gritting my teeth every lesson. They don't listen to the instructor, have no idea what they are supposed to be doing. As a mental health professional, I don't see anything major going on other than 1 boy decides to do something and two or three others follow. I'm sure that those boys in school will be put on Ritalin, end up on methamphetamines (which is a cousin of Ritalin), and end up in prison. And all that could be avoided if the parents would actually parent their kids. After each lesson, I talk with Accalia about her lesson. I have explained to her the importance of doing what the instructor says (she has had her moments of following the others, but it isn't a constant like it is with the other boys). I don't think the parents of the other boys really care. They are just happy someone else is caring for their kid. There are some moments when I think it might not be a bad thing if those boys didn't learn to swim... natural selection at work.

Oh, I did nearly end up talking to the parents of one kid. On Tueday, Accalia was practicing her back float away from her instructor (she was supposed to be on the wall with the other kids). Anyway, another kid was off the wall, saw Accalia floating there, put his hands on her and pushed her under the water. Had Accalia come up upset, I was going to read the parents the riot act as this particular kid has been rude to just about everyone (does look a little like he has some fetal alcohol effects). Thankfully, Accalia came up, wiped the water from her eyes, and headed back to the wall, none the worse for the wear.