Holding On

With the holidays over and things becoming quiet while I'm on winter break I've taken the opportunity to relax my brain for a while. I am very pleased with the outcome of the semester. I got A's in all but one subject. I got a B+ in Civil War, but even that I am very pleased with considering the enormous amount of pressure that was on me to do good on the final to ensure a good grade. I aced the final with only a few wrong answers which catapulted me to the B+. Otherwise I'd have been hard pressed to hold a B with the way the rest of the semester went. Overall though I really cannot complain.

So I've been doing some thinking and trying to come up with a new outlook on the world. Something I really haven't thought of doing for a while. Personally, 2011 was a pretty good year overall. No giant tragedies to speak of. There were a few sad occurrences, but that is part of life. Animals pass away, friends leave, family pass on... it happens. What does this have to do with my outlook on the world? Hard to say really... Just something I felt like sharing. So with all that being said. My new outlook on the world is this.....

"The world is full of evil. Look around and see for yourself. People killing one another, intoxicating themselves to the point of no return, co-workers stabbing each other in the back to better their own positions, and even on the internet, people throwing stones at one another. It's all madness.Despite this though, there are rays of light that cut through the perpetual darkness of the world. These are the good people. The ones who resist the overwhelming evils of the world and try to lead a successful life for themselves and their friends without stepping on everyone else. These are the types of people who I have decided to spend my life dealing with. People who are out to get one another I have no time for. People who help each other and prove that there is still good in this world are the ones I choose to communicate and befriend."

So that's my new outlook on the world. I've stuck to that since before I even came up with it. Right now my social life is very small and includes 1 person I've known for like 18 or so years, 1 person who I've known for over 3 years and I love very much. The other 4 I've known for varying years. I am fiercely loyal to each and everyone of them. These people ought to know who they are by now. If they don't I'd be kinda saddened, but rest assured if these people were to ask if they were one of them I'd let em know. So in a sense I guess this has been my outlook for a while now, but never realized it. Oh well, at least now I know and can continue to do what I need to do.

So not too much is new outside of this. Still working at the Aquarium with another once in a lifetime opportunity to perform tomorrow morning. What that is I won't say right now, but rest assured, for me it is probably one of the most nerve racking things I will do with animals. I guess it won't be any worse than dragging Illya out of the industrial plant, but it still should be an adventure none the less. Speaking of Illya.... I wonder how that manatee is... My next big goal right now is to complete my final course at Kean University starting later this month. I make it through. I graduate. I don't... Then I don't. I do not intend on waiting another semester to get what I have worked so hard on getting. 2012 is starting off where 2011 left off, with a ton of momentum pushing me forward through both good and bad times. Sure it has slowed from time to time, but I have not been on a downward spiral in a long time now and I intend to keep it that way.

Just Don't Let Go

2 weeks left in the semester. 1 more paper to write. 2 exams to take. 1 presentation to make. Not too much left to go in my second to last semester at Kean University. All I can say about it is thank God. This semester has seen the most work I have ever run into in a semester and the added hours I received at work only added on to the stress and anxiety. Well I can say with the end in sight that I am going to make it through. I feel incredibly fatigued, tired, exhausted, drained, fried, and a variety of other feelings. However, I continue to push myself through, which is something I have never had to do before. This semester I've balanced so much and accomplished a lot as well. Really it's to the point that when this semester is over I will literally celebrate. The classes this semester were all great with the exception of two that were big letdowns. None the less though, they all had heavy workloads and I've managed to get it all done.

I need to make it through these last two weeks. I need to make it through. I feel physically terrible lately, but I've continued to endure. Tomorrow night I am going to actually take a night to relax and possibly see a movie with Lauren. Something that I have not done in quite a while. In fact I haven't done much with Lauren in quite a while... That is certainly not something I am proud of. I guess I've been failing in trying to balance time between school, work, friends, and girlfriend. That's okay though, because this is something I should be able to work on and fix. Luckily for me, next semester I will only be taking one course and will in theory have some more time on my hands. Hopefully this will be time that I will be able to see Lauren despite the fact that she'll be living away from home for the semester. I've still got a chance to change things around and fix the issues I've been having with my time management. I suppose a weekend away will be nice for New Years weekend, but that's still a little ways off.

So that's enough about me for now really. Till next time...

Destroying the World... One Creature at a Time...

So out of the news of the situation going on in Ohio, I feel the need to voice my opinion and point out some interesting things. Of course the situation in Ohio is horrible and the bottom line is that no one is right in the event. The guy who kept these animals was wrong. The officials who decided to mow these creatures down for being themselves was wrong, and the fact that people are actually in support of what the police did are all wrong. Those lions, tigers, bears, etc. did nothing out of what they would normally do in the wild. Those people had no business killing them. How is this ok?
Simply put, the answer is that it is not ok. As soon as those animals were reported gone, they should have been all out found and tranquilized. There was no reason to kill these animals. There was no reason for these animals to have been put in the position they were put in period. It's just another tragedy that deals another blow to several threatened species. It's not just this incident that had gotten me going tonight...


Off the coast of Columbia, there is a massive Shark Sanctuary where no one is allowed to enter with the intent of hunting or killing sharks. Very grim news has come out of Columbia that 2,000 sharks had been slaughtered within the last couple of days. Research divers stumbled on fresh carcasses of Galapagos, Hammerhead, and Whale Sharks. None of the sharks had fins. 10 of the boats seen inside the sanctuary had Costa Rica flags flying. Costa Rica condemns the involvement and if any of the boats are registered in Costa Rica, they will be punished. Of course money speaks louder than words and the government will probably wind up doing nothing.

Outside of these two incidents... Another horrendous slaughter has been uncovered. This one straight from Taiwan. The images in the below video are NEW and VERY RECENT! Watch and learn that WE ARE DESTROYING THIS PLANET... ONE CREATURE AT A TIME!!!

The Final Plan

As of late I've been feeling like I'm on top of the world again. Seemingly nothing has been going wrong in life as of late, which feels really good. So I've got some big news. Before last summer I blogged about a 1 year plan for school which had me taking 5 courses this semester, 1 winter course, and 5 courses this upcoming Spring Semester. Well after talking with my adviser, and graduation people, it turns out that I need to take 5 courses this semester(in progress), 0 courses this winter, and 1 course this spring. 1 freaking class left. Let's get it finished! That's my motto for the next 8 months or so.

Flee the Burning, Greedy City...

It's been almost a month since my last entry. It's not that I haven't had the time to type one up, rather I just haven't been able to put my thoughts into actual words. I have basically had a typers block and its continuing, but I really want to type something... Anything. So for the past month I have been pretty busy with work, but not too much else. I went back to work at Sea View for the month, but am done with it already as I am going to back to school on...... Friday. It was nice being back at the store, but at the same time I know that I have to get this last year of school over with.

I think it's time for me to make some choices in my personal life. One of those things is choosing a group of friends. At this point my group of friends is pretty small, but something happened recently that really made me question just how much the group cares about me... Hurricane Irene was less than a day away and I was ordered to evacuate. Out of my group of friends... only 1 offered me any kind of help if it was needed. I'm not going to say his or her name, but just 1 freaking friend actually cared enough to say anything . Meanwhile... My family got phone calls, texts, messages, etc from many people offering help. It really made me see that perhaps my friends are just that. Friends, but not people who I can really rely on to help me out when situations arise. I'm not bitter about it. I'm really not. I just don't think that I should waste my time, staying up till 3:00am in the middle of a Hurricane worrying about my friends anymore. This does not include my co-workers who actually seemed to care a lot more than people I've known much longer.

Another decision I have made is that I will really back off purchasing video games and Yu-Gi-Oh cards. As far as cards go, it will be incredibly easy as the game has just introduced a new mechanic that will eventually take the place of Synchros in a new series. So I simply won't get involved in the mechanic. Stopping buying video games is going to be a little more difficult. I have a list of newer games that I would like to purchase. After that list is complete I will be purchasing only old games. By that I mean games for Playstation 1, Nintendo 64, Sega Genesis, Super Nintendo, Nintendo, Sega Saturn, Sega Dreamcast, Game Boy, Game Boy Advance, Game Boy Color.

Music is a funny thing to me now. My taste just keeps changing as to what I like best. At the start of this year I had strayed a bit from my normal hard rock and metal and took interest in some older rock and other, less heavy stuff. This past month though I've been back to what I originally liked, hard rock, screamo, and metal. Bands like Eighteen Visions, Avenged Sevenfold, Bleeding Through, and As I Lay Dying are seeing more playtime while others like Queens of the Stoneage, Fuel, AC/DC, and Weird Al are seeing less playtime. I've been really connecting with the lyrics of songs again that I used to listen to a lot and am remembering why I liked them in the first place. My Zune has so much variety on it now that it's insane. Generes on it are... Rock, Metal, Screamo, Classical, Classic Rock, Techno, Showtunes, Alternative Rock, Pop, JPop, and Hybrid. There is still no Rap to be found and that isn't going to be changing any time soon!

Well that's about it for now. I can't figure out how to put other things into words right now. I have a lot on my mind. Mostly due to the Hurricane thing. That actually really deflated me a little bit and I am trying to recover as quickly as I can. Thanks friends for caring so much... You monsters... Thanks co-workers for caring so much :)

Commercial Fishing and the Death of the Sea

Every year more and more fish are being taken out of the ocean by humans. Hundreds of thousands, if not millions of people go out on their own boats, stand on the beach, sit on docks, and carefully wait for a fish to swim by their feet. The bottom line is that all of these people are catching fish for themselves to eat. This has been going on for thousands of years and really has not impacted the populations of most fish that much, the exception of course being sharks. If you walk into the sea food section of a store and take a look at the amount of different fish that are on display stop and think for a moment. Ask yourself, how long did it take for someone to catch just the fish that you are looking at. For your average person catching fish, it would take at least a few days to catch the amount of fish that you can find in your local supermarket. However there is an industry in this world that does much more than that in the blink of an eye.

Commercial fishing is a large part of the reason fish populations have been dropping worldwide. Take this into consideration. Certain species of fish that are sought after by people as a food source lay over a million eggs at one time. Those eggs hatch into baby fish that are eaten by larger fish. Generally only a few thousand will survive to become adults. Then comes man with their gigantic nets that scoop up literally thousands of fish per scoop. Out of one litter... Possibly 1,000 or less of a potential litter would survive. Of course even as adults, those fish are targeted by other species of fish and birds. It may take a while, but as a result, those fish populations decline. Not only does commercial fishing target literally millions of fish every year, but is also indiscriminate.

In a school of fish there is often more than just one species of fish. Young fish of many different species can be seen schooling together and as a result get caught together. This includes some species of shark that reproduce slowly and often in litters of 4 or less. Hence these populations are even more at risk from this industry. There are regulations that suggest that workers sort through the fish they catch, but when the fish look so similar, it is hard to hand sort through thousands of fish and pick out one baby shark. Another problem is that many people just don't care. They are getting a paycheck for their catch regardless and in many cases in restaurants around the world, random fish are found in a flat of say herring. In those cases, the fish are just tossed into the trash literally dying for nothing.

Commercial fishing is also full of lies. When you go into the supermarket and purchase a package of scallops... What you are actually purchasing is not always scallop. Often times stingray is marked as scallop. In Japan, dolphin meat has been advertised and sold as whale meat, and around the world various fish have been marked as one thing when in fact they are another. So the next time you visit the store. Think before you purchase something because what you buy may not be what is labeled!

I am not saying that I want to see an end to commercial fishing. What I am saying is that in the near future the demand for commercial sea food MUST decrease. In the case of Aquariums, there literally needs to be a commercial fishing industry otherwise every Aquarium around the world would have to close thanks to there literally being no food. For people though, we are far more than capable of catching our own fish. I do not feel that the local food store should have a seafood section let alone entire restaurants dedicated to it. We are taking way too many fish out of the ocean and the evidence is all over the place. Overfishing is thought to be a massive threat to African Penguin populations. Not because people are eating the bird, but because people are taking all of the food away from them. Closer to home, shark populations have decreased and as a result some species have seen a spike in population, but other animals like clams have seen a sharp drop off in population as a result. Basically we are messing with the food chain and in the end the only thing that can happen is disaster! I just want to stress again that I do not wish to see an end to commercial fishing, but I do feel that it needs to be toned down a great deal. Ideally I would like to see it reserved for Aquariums, Zoos, and other places that animals cannot naturally get their own food. I know that this will probably ever happen, but at the same time I would love to see more people become aware of what is going on in the ocean and help to fix what is quickly breaking!

The End of the Line? A New Start

I've had this feeling rising up in me for some time now. I'm not proud, or happy about this feeling. In fact I feel sad, upset, and frustrated over it. Above is a picture of a shortfin mako shark. This year I vowed to take a stand against the Mako Mania Tournament, but I wound up valuing my freedom more than taking a stand for this animal. What did I learn from it? Basically that my freedom was more important to me than joining a bunch of PETA supporters. The end result? I've some to see that there really isn't much further I can go as far as saving sharks here in New Jersey.

So what more can I do? I've been to stores trying to deliver the message about shark products. I've tried to educate people on the facts of shark finning. I've managed to get over 2,000 people to sign a petition to help put an end to finning. I've helped put together week long events to further educate children and adults alike on shark finning and sharks in general. I've spammed the word of the plight of sharks all over the internet. I've done a lot of good in the fight for sharks in this small town, but I feel like I've run into a wall. Literally I feel like I'm standing on a beach looking out over the ocean and knowing I'm just unable to get to that horizon.

So the new plan is this... While I am mired here in New Jersey I am going to begin a new mission while continuing to deliver the message of shark conservation. I am going aim my educative goals on one particular shark that I see as the most beautiful animal in the entire ocean. I want to tell people about where these animals live, what they eat, how they live their lives. I want to learn more about this specific fish and help to save them from the very extinction they are threatened by. This fish is none other than the whale shark, the biggest and most beautiful of all sharks.

My mission is simple. To show the people of New Jersey these animals for what they really are. I helped bring the plight of many sharks into the limelight for the people of Point Pleasant and its visitors. I will continue to help sharks in whichever way I can, but I will make a point to educate people on these gentle giants in anyway that I can. Long ago I called my mission operation No Surrender. I'd say that mission was a success and continues to be one to this very day. Now I embark on a new mission. Operation Gentle Giant is a go!