I now dream of a career in writing, but once I dreamt of studying to become a marine biologist. I loved/love the ocean and all creatures within, so so much, that I wish I could have done better in science and somehow become someone who could study marine ecosystems and make a difference to the oceans and everything living in them.
I didn’t do too well in science and I am afraid of boats. Always have been. I believe I carry a healthy, respectful fear of the sea. Its immensity makes me feel as small as anything else ever could. Yet, I am utterly fascinated by it and everything existing in it.
I want to study dolphins, whales, sharks, sea turtles, rays, from the smallest organism to the blue whale. I love it all.
We sometimes must admit that we won’t ever be what we once dreamed of, but I keep the faith I might one day get to write about the ocean, even if I will never study it scientifically.
***This is my first year of joining the A to Z Challenge and so I’ve decided to post randomly, as a way for new visitors to my blog to get to know me a little better. I look forward to discovering some interesting new blogs too.
but I am not a scientist and I don’t understand most of what is being discussed.
I do know what an amazing place our planet is. I do know I love nature and the earth. I do know it will likely be here long after I am gone, long after we’re all gone in all likelihood, but what if, maybe just maybe, we are messing it up through our carelessness and our actions.
I know things change. I just know humans are experts in screwing things up and making them worse, for what we want in the present, without really taking into consideration what the future could look like.
I did learn about science in school. I just don’t know much about fossil fuels and carbon emissions. I know big business is all about the money. Oil has been necessary, but there’s got to be a better way. I don’t think I am the one to find it, but I can still care, can’t I?
I feel like I lack much of substance to add to a discussion on climate change. I won’t just add to the debate over whether climate change is a real thing, really going on. I know the world is going to do what it’s going to do, but with a little help or a lot, it may not come out on the other side without a lot of scars and bruises.
Whether God created earth or some giant astronomical event is of little concern to me. I still have a hard time believing the earth is not flat, but that has very little to do with religion. It’s all just so huge and unbelievable, hard for me to wrap my brain around.
I am sick of the tired fighting going on. This has become some battle between religion and science and I don’t get that. I guess, if you believe God is going to be your salvation, you may not care much about this world, once you think you won’t need it anymore. I know science can become rather full of itself at times, with activism taking on a life of its own. I want to put both these things aside and hope that we all just care, when it comes down to it.
A strong wind can nearly knock me off my feet. Lots of rain or snow coming at me, in my face, blinds me even more than I already am.
🙂
When it’s the dead of winter and so bone-chillingly cold, I wish for the heat of summer. When those blisteringly humid temps arrive, I pray for winter again.
All that thunder and lightening across the sky, and imagining it out over the ocean is wild to me.
I know there is great power and fierceness in the storms and severe weather that we experience. Earthquakes, tornados, flooding, and I am glad I’ve stayed out of all that so far. I don’t know what we’re really doing to bring these events into people’s lives.
I imagine all those majestic creatures out there in the ocean. I want to protect the climate so they can go on living, those sharks who’ve lived since the dinosaurs. Wait, that’s right isn’t it? Too tired to Google to confirm.
Yes, that should show just how unqualified I am to be offering up about climate change, other than to say I want to not destroy the planet for the next generation.
So a conference on the state of climate change took place recently. Canada’s new prime minister was there. Does he care about the planet, enough to do what a prime minster has the power to do? Is that much at all?
Will the world really step up to the plate here, actually come together, work together, to work toward a common goal, for once? Is it in everyone’s best interest? Should I continue to ramble on a subject I don’t understand by far, if I am not likely going to offer up any suggestions for us to do better?
I need a comfortable climate in life. I am not about to become one of those storm chasers. I don’t even watch Discovery Channel.
There is a program about global warming and the environment on as I type this. I am really trying to pay attention, to possibly, hopefully learn something. I watch nature documentaries with Sir David Attenborough. I watched that one with Al Gore and was bored out of my mind. That’s likely not the way to reach today’s youth, but it could have been all me on that one.
Truths are often inconvenient, so I do, upon suddenly recalling the title of that doc, approve of what Al decided to call the thing. It’s inconvenient to have to care so much about the planet, but I don’t see how we can ignore what’s staring us all right in the face everyday.
When you hear the title “Open Water”, either the image is one of relaxation, tranquility, and nature or terror: it’s the fear of the openness, endlessness, and getting lost. Well, more to the point I mean being eaten by sharks or drowning.
I had an entire catalog of movies to choose from. I’ve been watching movies, picking from among this list for a while. It is hard to say which title came to my mind first though. I’ve been going through title after title for the last few days, whenever I have a spare moment.
Of course, these are all MP3s, I think it is. They are all audio tracks only, describing the movies because I can’t see and miss a lot of the visual details, but a database like this allows me to watch any movie I feel like, even action (which isn’t my favourite genre, but which has a time and place) and I can watch all the movies I never got to see before.
Shakespeare said “What’s in a name?” I like a good one, that’s for sure. There’s nothing quite as satisfying.
I love a perfectly selected and given title for a story, in this case for a movie. Or a blog post.
🙂
But this week’s prompt is asking for a movie title.
This movie is one I saw in the theatre, probably ten years ago now, when it came out. I heard the title and immediately I was hooked.
I both love and fear the ocean and this title was to-the-point, direct.
Directly chilling.
Many people may not have seen it because it didn’t draw the same crowds as, oh say “JAWS”, but it’s just as frightening, in my opinion.
It was a more independent film, and filmed more like a documentary, which makes it feel even more real. It’s based on true events, which makes me shiver a little every time I think of it. It’s my worst nightmare, to be left out in the middle of the ocean, with nothing but miles and miles of open and empty water everywhere.
I also think the image is haunting, as in it has haunted me, ever since I knew what the sea was, and certainly ever since seeing this film.
I just don’t go out there. I can’t see and so the thought of going diving is not an appealing thought, in actuality. In theory it sounds just great. All the colourful fish you could discover out there. So meditative. The part of me that has always dreamed of becoming a marine biologist thinks it sounds like home, or like heaven.
I don’t think I would like it in reality. I would be afraid of being mistakenly left behind out there. In all that open water it’s impossible to know how to get back, how far out you might be, and with no sign of land there’s really little to be done at that point.
Here I am, speeding along through July and toward the middle of the month.
Now we’re talking, July!
Things are really starting to heat up, or I hope that’s what’s happening. I’ve just got to stay alert and focused on my goals.
TEN THINGS OF THANKFUL
Lately, I’ve been feeling rather restless and in a hurry, impatiently anxious and waiting for something, some things to happen.
What things, you ask…well, read on to find out. Hopefully this second week of July is the week things are really going to start happening for me this summer.
Monday: Shark Week
For awareness brought to these spectacular survivors and rulers of the ocean.
I hope we won’t need a week to remember the sharks, by the time my niece and my nephews are grown, because we’ve done something irresponsible and something we can’t take back, here in 2015.
Online, everywhere you go when searching sharks, so many attention-grabbing articles and videos are posted. However, they are all ones that involve the word “attack” and are meant to fit stereotypes of what dangerous, man-eating creatures sharks are.
That title is old and outdated. I am not sure I could swim with one, but I respect sharks and I don’t want to lose them.
Tuesday: The Mess Of Me
For the pleasant surprise I received when I arrived home, to find a book waiting for me in the mail.
I had been eagerly waiting for this for days, but apparently the trip over from England to Canada, for a book in the mail is a long one.
I found Chantelle Atkins on Facebook and have been following her journey as an author for some time now. Then I entered a contest and won a copy of one of her novels.
I sometimes feel bad, entering contests for books, because I can not even read them in print. I didn’t really want to take the chance of winning a copy away from someone else, but I love books, whether or not I can still read them without the aid of technology. I love to collect them and put them on my bookshelf. I even got a signed copy.
Wednesday: Could it be? A new little storyteller in the making?
For a perfect five minutes, holding my new pal, before she grew once more grumpy and demanded to be returned to her mommy.
My phone decided to cooperate this time, as I got a solid five with my new friend, the sweetest little doll on the planet, while her mother snapped some photos of the two of us, just chilling out.
My friend’s little girl is already ten weeks old and this time I got to hold her for a while, listening to her tell her mother and me stories.
I think she may be a writer in the making, or at least, she’ll be animated and charismatic like her mom.
Thursday: When a friend is in need, it’s Kerry to the rescue.
🙂
For the opportunity to be there, in a pinch, to help a friend out of a late-night jam.
I have a couch and if offering it up could possibly prevent one more over-tired driver from getting into a terrible accident, risking their own death or the death of someone else, I think it’s worth it.
For a huge honour, a most welcome surprise, but a definite humbling pressure to live up to.
I was just about to fall asleep, rather late, when my phone went off. It was a message from a travel writer on Facebook.
I’d submitted a few of my travel articles to this particular travel writer,
I didn’t expect that she would bestow me with the title of “number 87) on WWW’s list of women who love travel and writing about it.
As, hopefully, I grow my reputation for being a woman who loves to write about travel, (slowly but surely) I hope I am able to live up to this placement on the list.
Friday: RIP Morgan.
For the chance to have an amazing person in my life and as a part of my family, at least for a little while and always and forever.
I wrote about the impact my cousin had on me, last year, on the ten-year anniversary of his death.
Although we tend to mark these occasions annually, I only wrote about it on the ten year mark, but the people we’ve loved and lost deserve a lot more than that. They deserve to be spoken of often, to keep their memory going.
“Beyond the door, there’s peace, I’m sure.”
Eric Clapton speaks of Heaven, but no matter what your religious beliefs may be, I know we all just hope our departed loved ones are at peace. I sure hope so.
For long awaited emails and now the pressure’s on.
🙂
I have been waiting, for what felt like many months, but really it’s been just this past six months or so that my luck seemed to change for the better.
I found a place for a short story I had written and now the day is very nearly here. My story will be released in an anthology. At least, I hope it will. (A few last-minute jitters.)
Hoping all will go well and this isn’t too good to be true.
An email went out to all the authors, sharing a final final edit of the anthology. I hope I know how to follow instructions to get me to Wednesday’s release in tact.
Stay tuned for next week’s TToT post for more on how this went.
For a much needed reminder to be grateful, as the entire TToT is meant for, with the sudden stripe sighting.
While playing with my nephew, at the playground, I suddenly spotted his striped shirt.
For so long now, I’d think my little remaining vision may be slipping away, but then I see stripes and I am happy. All hope is not lost.
A date recently told me he wore a bright green T-shirt to meet me, in the hopes that I could better spot him in a crowd. Nice thought he had. Well, this was ineffective, but then I see stripes and I have hope.
Saturday: DVS
For descriptive video services.
I recently received help, from my sister, to finally get the option on my television turned on so I now have some shows I watch narrated for me.
Some movie theatres do this. (Not always…don’t get me started on that.)
🙂
My brother and I used to rent movies all the time, that came in the mail, with descriptive track to explain the visual parts to us.
Now I have that function turned on for my television, but then I came across another website, full of MP3 movies. This means there is no picture. Just soundtrack. That’s all I need. The list of movies isn’t bad. My brother showed me one last Christmas, but this one I found all on my own.
For strong family and friends in my life.
I have family who deserve to get everything they have been praying for and just might be, to friends who are discovering strengths they never even knew they had, to other family with daily longing for a loved one who is no longer with us.
These people demonstrate this strength of character, not just one day a year, but all 365 days. It’s in everything they do, that which helps me remember what true bravery and perseverance look like.
I want to thank them all.
See how this week of mine started out a little slow, but grew with its momentum? See how things really started to heat up as the week progressed?
I’m off now to make sure I have things in order, to put in the effort and make it happen.
Her Headache 
