Background

The QUESTIONS. When we are eighteen, we suddenly become interesting to adults, and the first major QUESTION is asked; "What colleges are you looking at?" No seventeen- eighteen year old can get a moment's peace at any family reunion or dinner party- its simply unmerciful. As I am just now learning, the very moment you turn twenty one and senior year rolls around (correction- senior year does not roll around. Senior year comes screaming around the corner going 100000000000 miles per hour and smacks you in the face, leaving you on the ground rubbing your face wondering what the hell happened to being eighteen and looking at colleges) and all of a sudden everybody instantly asks you the next big QUESTION. "What are you doing after college?" Which of course is code for "What are you going to do with your LIFE?" My current answer; Gulp. "Something... I hope!" I really have no answer. I don't want to go to grad school, yet anyway (what the heck would I go for?!). I have no money to travel. I have no money period. I have no internships or companies angling for me to bite. I'm not particularly promising for any kind of business really... being an art/environmental studies dual major. All I know is that what I want to be in life is Happy. As long as I am that, I'll be anything.

Anyway, my point is that before we turn eighteen we as youth in general are not particularly interesting to adult audiences not usually experienced with dealing with us. They don't know how to include us in their conversations (we don't really want that anyway) and they don't know what we talk about. So starting from the minute we can articulate some kind of structured sentence we are asked the big one. The introductory QUESTION, the one that someone should have told us prepares us for the others (I can only assume "When are you getting married?," When are you having a baby?," and "When are you retiring?," all follow the ones I've been asked). The big beginning QUESTION; "What do you want to be when you grow up?"

Now that one I could answer. As soon as two year old me could put the words together in decipherable syllables I knew and would tell you. The answer was a mermaid.

I remember the first day I went fishing. I was two again. Maybe three. Little. Bowl cut. Yellow shirt. I sat in my Dad's lap by a pond in the mountains and he held the rod but it was my job to turn the thing (my fishing career really took off as you can tell by my vocabulary). We caught only one fish the whole day. Little. Like me. Silver and shiny, slick as ice. One pink stripe down its side. My dad held it in a paper towel and I shyly touched its heaving sides with one finger. It was from the water, and it was out, for me to see. Then we put it back.
And that was it.
Maybe it wasn't. Maybe it has no connection with me wanting to be a mermaid. Maybe I didn't really remember this. Maybe afterwards I didn't think about the world underwater where Other Things live. It was a Secret world. I wanted to see it. At least I think I did.

Regardless of how it happened, my parents fostered a great love of the water in me. Eventually it became an insatiable curiosity, and the ocean became particularly special. My parents fostered the love and my grandfather fed the curiosity. I wanted to learn as much as I could. I still do.

Pretending I was two at the Beginning, several beach vacations, four years of marine science summer camp, several scuba certifications, employment at the previously mentioned camp, college courses and twenty years later there is almost grown- up me. A 21.5 year old girl insatiably marveling at the natural world in general, but particularly the ocean. I'm back from Australia. I miss the people, the adventure, the bare feet, and the wilderness (marine or other), right at my doorstep. I love to teach, I love to work with children, and I love to learn. A year ago I tried to get a volunteer position at our local beach Aquarium (the name of which I won't mention for the right reasons, though its not hard to figure out for yourself) but I didn't have the time availability because of my approaching trip abroad. This year I had the time and the need (less than excited about being back at school for several reasons I will also keep to myself) to do something completely separate from school life (which in perspective is about as real as high school life) completely new for me, and completely fulfilling. I applied again and got the job as Exhibit Interpreter at the Aquarium of the West Coast (which is what I'll call it). My duties as far as I am aware currently include; wandering the aquarium grounds answering questions and providing customer service, educating the public on marine facts and stewardship, giving talks, reminding you of the two- finger touch, participating in basic feeding and care of the animals, assisting to take out whale watching boats, and basically anything I can get my fishy hands onto.

Dream come true.

I haven't started yet. That day is coming (and soon!) and I'm pretty sure it will be one of the most wonderful, frightening, exhilarating, exhausting, fun, learning experience I have ever had. I have two training sessions to go before I can start. They can't come soon enough.


Did You Know?: The Pacific Ocean is approximately 64186000 feet deep (on average), 11000 miles wide, and 8637 miles long. Think of all the wilderness...