Swimming has always been a very relaxing and fun activity for me - almost meditative. I've never seen it as a competitive activity, although I highly respect those that can and do. :)
PB & Thalassamania: as for contacting the dude-in-charge at PADI re: the CD-course, I think that would be a moot point now as they have already moved on to the eLearning curriculum - that is, unless it's the exact same thing on a different format. I'm not an instructor and have no access to the material so I'm hoping for future students' sake that it's not the same one I had. It really wasn't flexible in any way which was my main problem with it. Thanks guys for offering to give me the contact info for PADI. :)
Computers are cool, but they should really make them in cooler colours. Why all the black? :confused: Besides if you drop it, day-glow colours are easier to locate underwater.