5/15 Swim

The pool was quite empty tonight, only the best swimmers were there tonight ;-)

Swim: 1.5km
Time: 0:40
Best 100m: 1:16
Did some fly and crawl.
Weight: 84.7kg

I saw a Korean friend of mine in the pool too, swimming two lengths of Butterfly, back to back. She's really strong. Very impressive.

Funny, while I was swimming, I reflected on a character in the latest Harry Potter book, Slughorn, who is a fat, bald, cronying personality, who sets up his favorites and gathers people around him who have connections. He tries to get Harry Potter to be part of his 'club'. At first Harry sort of goes along with it. Not sure what happens after that, I'm not there yet in the book.
I remember at school, after placing first in state swim championships, a High School teacher approached me and said I was going to be a 'champion' and he was going to 'look after me'.
I told him, shortly after that, that I thought I was going to 'take a break from swimming'. He was aghast that this star, 'with so much potential', was going to give up his apparent destiny, and promptly shipped in stars from other schools, including arch rivals like Luke, a swimmer I'd narrowly forced into second at State Championships.
Funny to have that memory surface.

Speaking of slugs...After swimming I went with a Korean friend to a coffee shop across from the pool. We were busy ordering when two girls pushed in from behind us, and as I confirmed the order we were told to wait, while they filled in loyalty cards and what not. There's no sense in Korea of first come first serve. It's more, push-in and serve me. It's a hurry up world, and we hurry to take money and spend money, but manners get left behind. That's how you get rich quickly, and get poor slowly, but over the long term. Even companies like MacDonald's will one day face bankruptcy, after getting rich exceedingly fast. They will fail, because at heart, they have no principles.
Since we'd placed the order verbally, in English and Korean, we sat down, but about three new tables were served while we spoke of other things.
Anyway, being a coffee shop a sandwich was priced at about W5000 so when it was clear they weren't bringing us our food, I was happy to leave. It wasn't a total loss. I told the (probably gay) fellow behind the counter that I wouldn't come to this shop again.
"Okay," he said brightly.
Maybe he thought I said, "I'll definitely come back again later."

Well, my Korean friend and I had an important conversation, and she didn't have much time anyway. She had to leave for another engagement, so it was good that we got to sit down and have a meaningful conversation. I must say, I will miss her when I go.