E un altro corso di Coursera è terminato; questa volta, si trattava di uno sulla grammatica inglese, Crafting an Effective Writer: Tools of the Trade, tenuto dalla The San Jacinto University. Questo è il saggio finale, un paragrafo che doveva rispettare una serie di regole (e che mi è valso 90 punti su 90), ma che soprattutto è una riflessione sul perché mi piace immergermi sott'acqua...

Scuba-diving let me enter a whole new world. Whenever I put on the wetsuit, the mask and the mouth-piece, connect to the huge air cylinder on my back, and enter the water, I''''m literally getting into a world that is completely different from the one on the surface. To be alone with onÈ''''s self, and at the same time surrounded by colours and shapes, is like daydreaming; in fact, there is so much silence, down there, that your thoughts seem to get a new dimension. And even the few sounds that hit me, like the coral crunching of the parrot fish or the metal echoes of a distant buoy, are changed, distorted, somehow unrecognizable. As I am floating, moving three-dimensionally, I am no more limited by my own weight. Indeed, every single little movement is following Newton''''s laws, taking me to new positions, no longer a prisoner of Earth''''s gravity. I am free. All around me, fishes of all species, sizes, colours swim, float, stand steady. I cannot possibly think of another place on the planet where I can be surrounded by so many different animals, each one living its own life. I relax watching them, and as I do my breath slows down, giving me a chance to stay longer underwater. You need some kind of balance, down there; as a matter of fact, you need it not just in your lungs, but in your brain. And you can learn how to build that balance, you can train yourself. It''''s not a matter of being special; it''''s more a matter of becoming special. So that, once you come out of the water, you''''re a different person. A better person.