I begin classes in a half decade-long program on Wednesday, bringing the three years I spent in the hilariously misnomered real-world to a close. Thanks to extreme and borderline masochistic efforts on my part, and more than a little support from my friends and family, no one can tell me that I haven't seen this period off in style. If there's anyone more excited to get back to school than me, it would have to be my liver and the homunculus controlling my circadian rhythm.

Enough of that; let's talk about the ocean. Every time I visit the coast, I marvel at the bravery of its inhabitants, willing to live next to one of the largest continuous objects on the planet, unconcerned about being at its mercy. Nevertheless, during each visit I brashly carry a host of objects with which to tease forth some enjoyment from this behemoth, my favorite of these being a composite of plastic and foam mysteriously named the "boogie board". My trip this past weekend was no exception, and after waiting the prescribed 20min to nerdily allow my SPF30 to soak in, I ran into the waves, excited to ride the board back and forth into the surf like a dog chasing a stick.

After perhaps 5 minutes, a blue wall in my 20/400 vision and a series of "ooohs" from my fellow boarders alerted me that a fantastic wave was nearly upon us. "This is it," I thought cockily. Positioning my body directly between the board and the 4 meter surge, I lunged forward, with what the wave undoubtedly saw as laughable feebleness, just when I calculated it was going to break. What followed was reminiscent of what would have happened had the tanks at Tiananmen Square not stopped. I was slammed into and dragged across the sea floor like a man-shaped sack of tenderized meat, certain that when I eventually surfaced, it was going to be face down and a half mile away. When I stood up, blood dripping from half a dozen cuts and my thumb swelling like a sanguine cucumber, I saw a boomer on her hands and knees, picking up her board from the sand. "Ma'am, ma'am, are you OK?", I asked, limping forward worriedly. "Oh yes, that was fantastic!", she cried, and ran, unscathed back into the water. I could have died from shame.