So we decided to give diving a go. Luis, the instructor, said we could pay for our books first--that's P3K each--and the rest before the weekend dive. Em, the sweetheart that he is, volunteered to deliver our payment and pick up the books from Diver's Network. When I got back from a long weekend, my PADI Open Water Diver Manual was already on my desk. And there was no turning back.
That evening, I gingerly unwrapped my book of the clear plastic packaging. Browsing the contents, my impression was, wow, there’s so much to learn! Do I still have space in my brain for this? Am I fit enough? Are my reflexes still up to the challenge?
The book
The book cover was blue with pictures of beautiful people in diving gear, smiling and looking like they were enjoying themselves. There was a table and a dive planning guide enclosed, but at that time I had no idea what they were for. But the table had numbers on it, and I thought, dang, there's math involved.
Here's the PADI dive manual, with the Dive Planner and the table. Our instructor had a jumbo version of the table that was easier to read. BTW, I filched this image from the Net. If it's yours and it bothers you that it's here, let me know and I'll take it down.
Inside, the lessons were presented simply and logically. As a content specialist working in the learning and development industry, I was impressed by how the content was designed. The language was accessible and the layout was easy on the eyes. It was optimized for self-study. Every few pages, there were self tests. At the end of each section--there were five--was an assessment, which the student had to complete, sign, and submit to the instructor.
So on to the lessons. Wednesday, August 25, I tried to come to work an hour earlier, as we have agreed. I failed, of course. So leaving early felt awkward. But Em, Eleanor and I are ninjas, and so we were at Diver's Network before 5:30pm.
Our classroom was a cozy office with a table and a whiteboard. I thought our class of three was just perfect. If there were more of us, plus the instructor, our cubbyhole would have been too crowded.
The lessons
And so the lessons began. If I wondered at first how we could go through all the lessons in 5-6hrs, I soon found out. We went straight to the assessment pages and went through each question. The questions became the instructor's talking points, which did save a lot of time. It was assumed that the students have read, or at least scanned, the lesson pages. We had a short assessment at the end of each section. The items we missed became takeoff points for further discussion.
Because I didn't do much pre-reading, I was dependent on the instructor's lecture. I was the annoying orange who asked all questions from the top of her head, even before she thought them out. I figured that the more questions I asked, the more I would know. And that the more I knew, the less scared I would be. But it didn't really work that way. I was still uneasy about the whole thing, even after the questions. And asking questions just led to more questions.
The instructor
Thankfully, our instructor was up to the challenge. Luis Nazareno fielded my half-baked questions like a sport. His manner was courteous, composed, and confident, and he always ended his answers with encouragement. Let me explain why this is important, especially to people like me who are of a certain age, and are therefore overcautious.
Learning to dive, at least to me, is like learning to drive. If I didn't do it right, I could potentially maim or kill myself, or other people. Plus, I am aware that at my age, my reflexes are not as quick anymore, and I don't heal as quickly when injured. In other words, I'm not very confident about diving. So if you gave me an instructor who sounded unsure of himself, or someone who didn't exude or inspire confidence, I'd just walk all over him--on my way to the door.
That that didn't happen says a lot about Luis. The instructor matters not just in the overall learning experience, but in the student's psychological preparation as well. And Luis has delivered on both, even if he had to chug mugfuls of warm Coke Zero in between.
And so our first classroom session ended. We got three out of five sections out of the way. We only had to do two more.
The next day, I came to work late again. And leaving early was more awkward now because I did it two days in a row. And this time it was raining really hard. But we still managed to slip out smoothly, and Em was able to maneuver through Edsa despite the low visibility. That was his first time to drive in the rain without supervision. To his credit, he was also able to park in front of Diver's Network unassisted, and didn't run over a garbage bin or a pole. If anything, this diving adventure forced us to get out of our comfort zones and take on normal-people responsibilities.
The dive table
On to the second classroom session. We did the same thing: went through the questions in the assessment page and discussed the concepts. For some, there were instructional videos. The challenging part was about dive planning, where we computed the needed surface interval for multiple dives. This was where the table with numbers figured. There was no math, but there was a formula we had to apply. The tricky part was understanding the backbone of the concept--why we needed to do it and how each step related to the next. Once I got that out of the way, working the formula was easy.
When we were done with the 5th section, Luis gave us time to get some refreshments, because we were to take a real assessment afterward. By real I mean we had to do it without our instructor's coaching, and there was a passing score. That scared me a bit. Luis tried to assure us that no one ever failed the assessment. Still I had that lingering concern that I might be the first.
We went to a nearby Kopi Roti. Their dumplings were surprisingly good. I felt my brain going jelly so I also ordered coffee for takeout. The coffee turned out to be stronger than I'm used to, so when I got back I felt my hands were shaky and my heart was palpitating. But that could have been my nerves.
The assessment
It was a 50-item test with a passing score of 38. I was the last one to finish because it took me a while to recall some things. I knew the information I needed was filed somewhere in my brain, but my retrieval was slow. It clearly wasn't a quad-core moment for me. But I waited, and thankfully the answers came. I scored 44. The six items I missed were either not discussed during the lectures (they were in the book, but I didn't go very far reading it), or they felt like trick questions. But the score didn't really matter to me. The important thing was I passed.
We discussed the items we missed. Then Luis cut out the assessment pages from our books. These were the ones he helped us answer during the lecture. My assessment pages were messy because I wrote notes all over them. Too bad Luis had to take them.
And so ended our classroom sessions. We scheduled our confined and open water dive weekend with Luis, and we were done. I'll write about the weekend in my next entry.
Read Part 1
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