You know, I feel a little cheated by that scene in Runaway Bride now, cause in the wider shot you can see the Doctor’s arms going around Donna to catch her, but in the closeup suddenly his hands are off her and just sort of splayed backwards. We deserve the take where they weren’t!
Much like the kitchen kiss (or so I’ve read), the Doctor clasped Donna close, and yet we are supposed to believe he would instantly let go and not make sure she is still safe.
But it isn’t normal to go from this arm position
to this position
in nanoseconds. So we are left to blame the editor and/or RTD for insisting that the Doctor wouldn’t care enough to hang on.
Then again, we are also supposed to believe that the Doctor wouldn’t be capable of caring for a different woman.
Oh yes, so uncaring he instantly marries biodamps her minutes later.
thus making this a romcom, with a SciFi twist. The twist being that RTD was determined to stamp all over it with his own shippy preferences. Which is why we will never see the take where he hangs on to her - it won’t be sell-able to the young fangirls isn’t part of the S1-S4 plot. *deep sigh*
But then I’m a Doctor/Donna shipper, through and through, so what do I know? And nor do I matter. Apparently.
I’m going to try a bit of an experiment, if possible. Ala Last Week Tonight, with John Oliver, I thought it might be fun to have a post-weekend update.
Two US teens injured in US from shark attacks (http://www.bbc.com/news/world-us-canada-33132704)
I hesitate to comment on this other than to continue to urge caution to all those involved. Yes, two teenage children were gravely injured in two shark attacks in North Carolina, however there is too limited of information at this time to make any conjectures about how or why these attacks occurred. Without any information about the specific conditions and events that led up to the attacks, there is no way to be certain what occurred.
That being said, you can protect yourself by using just plain common sense. If you see a shark in the water, do not approach it. Observe from a distance and slowly move away, exiting the water if possible. Exit the water if you encounter dead or dying fish and/or schools of bait fish. Only swim at beaches with lifeguards posted, following their instructions/cautions at all times. Do not swim at dusk or dawn (when sharks are more active, and when lifeguards aren’t around!)
Rescue Scenario Shenanigans
I almost completely Rescue Dive this weekend, but my ears would not cooperate for two portions (the search and recovery skill as well as surfacing an unresponsive diver). So I will be back out at Dutch Springs for another weekend. It was tons of fun, especially the scenarios. If you’re really interested in what Rescue Dive really involves, follow behind the cut!
So, for our search and recovery skill, two of our volunteers dropped two weight belts in a small area of Dutch Springs in between 20 and 30 ft. Unfortunately, I couldn’t descend any deeper than 10 ft because my right ear just refused to equalize. I got to stay topside and watch the hilarity unfold as the other groups tried desperately to find the weight belts which were dropped in clear water. That is, the water was clear before another group came through and kicked up a ton of silt. It made it much more challenging for the teams searching. The expanding circle teams using a line and reel kept moving the center of their circle, while the u-pattern team kept changing the length of their lines. In the end, the search was called off after 20 minutes.
This is okay, because we figured the silt could settle, allowing for us to easily locate the belts the next day.
As the searchers came in, they found one of the weight belts....... on the dock. Someone had already picked up the weight belt before our teams had even descended to start the search! The “DO NOT REMOVE” tag must have fallen off. A second team of divemasters tried later to find the second weight belt, with no luck.
So, after we had finished most of our skills the next day, we were sitting around, waiting for lunch to get ready, when our instructor came to us to tell us that we had lost a diver. She informed the rescue dive class that one of the people who had set the weight belts the day before had gone with a divemaster to retrieve the weight belt from where he remembered dropping it. The buddy team experienced the same silting and got separated. One buddy searched for a few moments before surfacing (following buddy separate procedure) and alerted us on land that he could not find the divemaster.
This initiated our first rescue scenario in a seriously plausible way, so much so that it could our entire crew off guard until we realized that Dutch Springs Aquapark has a very specific rescue protocol outside of this that our instructor is well aware of (and drills even noncertified divers in during the site briefing before their certification dives). We had a haphazard search, found our diver, and brought him up but were unsuccessful in reviving him (we kind of screwed up in several ways, but it’s a learning experience).
After the failed rescue, we went back up to debrief..... where it was discovered that someone had found the second dive belt....... on the picnic table. Someone else found the weight belt and dropped it off while the rest of the dive crew was down with the rescue. Evidently, the reason why we never found the two weight belts the day before is because neither of them was actually there.
Our second rescue scenario was just as much fun and a bit more successful. It was very eye opening as to how just knowing the skills isn’t enough. You have to drill scenarios to get your head into the mindset of think, then act. I totally recommend Rescue Dive training to any diver. It is challenging, but it is very rewarding. At least, it will be when I finish those last two skills and get certified.
So, I will be away tomorrow for a lovely weekend at Dutch Springs Aquapark to hopefully complete my rescue dive training with open water exercises. Yay! Because it’s fudging hot and sticky here. I can use that 40 degree temp below the second thermocline to chill out.
I just want you to know, if you were ever looking for a good cardio work-out, take a rescue diver course and/or volunteer to be the "panicked diver" for confined water training. Thrashing about wildly with a half-inflated or totally deflated BCD is exhausting!
It gets even more fun when you get to try to drown your fellow students! Panicked individuals in the water tend to climb on anything within range instinctively. This means a panicked individual may even attempt to climb on a would-be rescuer, shoving their potential savior under the water and possibly drowning them. Rescue dive students practice releases, or ways to get away from a panicked individual that has gotten a hold of them, but, from an outside perspective, it probably looks like we're trying to drown one another.
FYI Rescue dive class is tons of fun. We did some great classroom discussion until the dive well opened up, then headed down to gear up. We have something of an uneven class, so I got buddied in a three-person team including two more experienced and a bit older, male divers (meaning dirty jokes prevailed as we were helping each other take off gear at the end of the dive).
Seriously, I cannot stress this enough: if you attend or live near Rutgers University and wish to learn to dive, check them out.
They have all the gear, so you do not need to purchase anything unless you personally have a special equipment need (like I needed a prescription mask so I could better see at distance). The staff is amazing. And, can I mention again a 16.5 foot dive well? It's a great space to train in. Oh, and a variable depth pool that goes from 4 to 6 feet (depending on what they have the bottom set to) for newbies on the first few nights to get their feet wet. Oh, oh, oh, and sauna. There's a sauna in each locker room, which is just as delightful after a dive as Wandering Oaken's family made it seem.
I completed my Emergency First Response course yesterday in preparation for my Rescue Dive course that starts on Thursday.
Everyone should take an emergency first response course if possible.
CPR is a critical skill. The higher the saturation of people who know CPR, the more likely it is that someone who knows how to perform primary care will be present and able to assist in event of an emergency. You never know if you will ever need the skills taught in a first response course, but it's better to know and never need 'em that need 'em and not know.
Added bonus - it was really fun.
The three guys in my course are also the guys who will be in my Rescue Dive course. The teacher also turned out to be my dive instructor from Open Water Dive and the guy who will be teaching the coming course. We had a blast (and shared some super inapprops jokes when it came to taking illness assessments) Rescue is going to be a riot!
