I am a second-semester fourth-year. I have exactly 40 days of classes left before college ends and the real world begins. I am an endangered species, and I am freaking out. That's why I spend my Tuesday nights at the bottom of a 12-foot pool, blowing bubbles.
Maybe I'm just reenacting my own version of "The Graduate" (that would explain my strange desire to go into plastics next year). Or maybe I've come to the realization after seven semesters that classes on dry land are completely overrated.
Either way, I've been taking Scuba I (or Navy SEAL kindergarten, as I like to call it) through the University physical education department for the past five weeks. In that time, I've learned three different ways to awkwardly flop into the water, found out why the 'thumbs up' and 'OK' signs are not the same at all when you're diving, and gotten every drop of water in Crow Pool up my nose.
On Tuesday nights, about 20 brave souls and I meet in a building outside Memorial Gym for the classroom part of scuba, which is basically a series of lectures about the many, many different ways scuba diving can kill you. Apparently when diving, one must keep an eye out for hurricanes, riptides, deadly fish, carbon monoxide poisoning, air embolism, nitrogen narcosis, shallow water blackout, oxygen toxicity, decompression sickness, barotraumas and pneumothorax. Oh, and be careful not to run out of air.
U.Va.'s resident dive master is Barrett Payne, a man who first strapped a tank on his back and sunk to the bottom of a pool at the tender age of 12. Payne estimates he has taught about 3,000 students to scuba dive since he became a certified instructor back in 1974.
"The biggest change that I have seen in scuba since I started is technology," Payne said. "We now have computers that will figure out your dive tables for you. These computers can be linked to your home computer and do all sorts of wonderful things for you. The advances in equipment have made diving much easier than it was 35 years ago."
In other news, it is unclear whether Payne was the model for the 'Scuba Steve' action figure, but signs (and an uncanny plastic resemblance) point to yes.
Once in the pool, the first thing we learned was how to survive without the tank. This meant swimming, and lots of it
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