Three Days Left.

So.  It's been five months.  Crazy, eh?
So where am I?  What's changed?  Who have I become?  To be honest I haven't thought about it much, that will have to wait for my final blog post, when I've spent some time thinking over those questions.  (I will do one last post hopefully on the last day of the course, when everything is finished.)   That's not to say that I haven't been thinking about what's happened, only that my thoughts have been more directed at what has happened.
 
I walk down the pontoon and think of the first time I walked down it; I go into dinner and remember the first meals I had at UKSA - how quiet it was, how simple.  I didn't even know half the people I do now at that point.  I go sailing and I set my sail automatically, my eyes flick from going forwards, to my sail, to water traffic and back again, I keep my boat flat, I adjust the five essentials, and I tamper with my sail controls to tune the sail correctly: I can't remember learning how to do it, it feels like I've been known how to do it since the beginning.  Still, I can remember the first sessions I had sailing: beam-reach to beam-reach, wobbly tacks, aching head, being so pleased that I could dry-capsize.  Then I kayak and I know I can roll now, I could tell you how best to get the most speed from it, how to keep it going straight, or how to turn a sea kayak.  And still every time I go out I improve a little more: the theory I know, I practise; what I can do, I practise more.  I needn't go into windsurfing: I plane, I fall in, I get up and do it again.  And again.  And again.

All around UKSA ghostly memories walk around, replay themselves in my head, times fast forwards to the present day and flows back again.  And why?  Because it's coming to an end?  My life for five months is about to come to an end, and five months is such a small amount of time, but so much has happened.  It's flashed past, especially this last half since I've come back from Egypt.  And now it nears its completion.

I'm looking forward to spending some time back at home, but I'm also excited to be coming back to work here.  With this step nothing will ever be the same again.  I can never unlearn what I've learnt, even if the worst were to happen and I never taught anyone so much as a single lesson, these five months would leave a scar on my life, living on in the practical skills that I cannot choose to keep or forget. 

But should I continue, which I intend to, then I can step from strength to strength, gaining in every day experience and confidence, growing each year in ability and technique.  This time comes to its cut off day, soon the training ends.