February 6 - Australia: Cairns, Queensland
OWSI - Open Water Scuba Instructor Course - Day 2
Morning Run
I woke up at 6:00AM to run. Because it was nice and early, the sun didn't top the mountains until halfway through my run. So while it wasn't cool, it wasn't quite stifling either. By the time my run was over, however, I was drained by the heat. Even back at the townhouse, where I stretch in the shade, the heat and humidity was making me sweat bullets. I don't know how Jon does it!
Morning Lecture
We were in the classroom by 8:30 for a lecture on "Prescriptive Teaching". Basically, this means that we change the layout of our class lectures according to the information the class is lacking. (Duh.) This is important if the bulk of the Knowledge Development is done through student self-study. This is how Jon and I will likely teach our courses. We plan to take our act back to NYC and milk the largely untapped market of MBA Students going on Spring Break. Hundreds of them are certified over Spring Break, and we think that many of them would rather get some of the work out of the way before they reach their tropical locale. So we plan to teach the bulk of their course in NY and send them away with referral forms. With the referral forms, they can do their Open Water Dives in whatever location they're going to.
Lunch
We broke for lunch at 12:30 and w went home and reheated the last of the pizza. Yesterday, Jon used the last of the pasta sauce and made lasagna so we were pretty excited to have it for dinner, despite the fact that we didn't get out of the pool until late.
Afternoon Lecture
The afternoon's lecture was taught by Chookie, and we discussed the Scuba Diver and OW Diver courses. We're finding it very difficult to focus lately. I think we're all very tired of lectures-poolwork-homework thing. Multiple times today, Chookie would ask us a question and we would simply stare at her. We're just beat.
Pool Time
For the evening pool session, we presented another round of Confined Water Skills. Sauf is gone from our group because he's taken off to the UK. Since "Group A" now had only four people and "Group B" had six, Yoshi came over to our group for the the Confined Water. All in all, our tired, somewhat apathetic attitudes followed us into the pool. We were full of goofiness and silly antics and - as a result - whoever was presenting (i.e. acting as the instructor) just learned to ignore the rest of us.
Tom, UK Jon and I were in hysterics for a good five minutes laughing about Jon's "Safety Sausage". Queensland law requires that every diver has a safety sausage. This is a long orange inflatable balloon, usually one meter long or longer. You can imagine the double innuendos that were flying around. It kept us giggling for quite a while and only added to the goofiness of the evening.
This is a safety sausage. Enough said.
Unfortunately, Chookie - who was evaluating our group - decided to use this session as a "get their butts in gear" session. Which is good because we need to get serious for the IE (Instructor Exam). Unfortunately, we didn't know until the end that we were getting our butts kicked. Both Jon and I "failed" our skills, for various reasons, as did a few other people in the group. My skill was the CESA (Controlled Emergency Swimming Ascent) and Jon's as "Orally Inflate and Deflate BCD on Surface". Now granted, failing anything is a major drag. And it's NOT something that we're used to doing. But it's better to fail and make all our mistakes here rather than in the IE or in front of an actual class. And once I remembered that it was easier to accept. At least I'm getting my money's worth out of this class. Besides, we have two chances to pass and we've passed all the previous skills so no worries.
But that's in hindsight. At the time, when we left the pool at 9:30, neither of us were happy campers.
At home, Jon put the lasagna into the oven and we cleaned up the gear and showered. At 10:30, dinner war ready so we ate, but just a little because it was so late. Since we were both grumpy, we had dinner in front of the TV and didn't say much.
Sometimes, you just need an evening in quiet.