I can't even remember the first time I learned how to swim. My parents like to joke that they tossed me into a pool and hoped for the best, but what I do know is this: I grew up directly across from the beach (on Sharjah's Corniche Road, to be exact); I was taught how to swim by a stern-with-a-heart-of-gold Finnish woman called Mrs. Turner (I was so young I never knew her first name), a former Olympian who was almost into retirement age lest for the fact that she'd never quit