I think I’m too excited to write this week. Josie used one of my own posts as a prompt!! I’ve finally ‘made it’! Thanks Josie for making me feel competent finally!

And that actually leads me nicely into my chosen topic this week, number 5. A deep, dark fear.

I don’t have many fears really, just the typical ones like someone close to me dying. I’m not overly keen on spiders but I do have an insanely irrational fear of sharks, to the extent that I struggle to even swim in a pool anymore (see, irrational). I had to stop swimming competitively when I was 17 because I just couldn’t go in the deep end! Ridiculous. My mum’s tried cognitive therapy with me but it hasn’t stopped me having a panic attack whenever I see even a picture of a shark (Blue Planet is not my favourite place).

But my biggest fear is not being good enough. I’m just waiting for somebody to out me as incompetent. In all areas of life.

I worry that I’m not good enough at working. My manager knows everything (although she disagrees and says she has to look most of it up) about everything and can advise our employees on anything from maternity rights to discipline issues. Whenever someone asks me I say I’ll call them back and quickly read anything I can find to get the answer. I’m just waiting for the time they say to me ‘Actually, you’re shit. You don’t know anything, you don’t retain enough knowledge from your uni course, you have a memory like a sieve (since having Sam) and you’ll never be good enough to progress. Sod off.’ What if I’m not good enough to move into management like I want to? What if I’m vaguely intelligent enough to do the qualification but forget it all when it comes to an important meeting? What if I think I’m right but I’m not, give someone the wrong advice and we get taken to tribunal? What if I have to be a lowly assistant all my life? I want to progress in my career but I just don’t think I’m good enough.

I worry that my friends will be so sick of me turning down invitations to go out/go on holiday/ go for meals that they’ll just stop asking me. I’m not a great friend, I tend to breeze in for a couple of hours, have a catch up then rush off to pick Sam up, go back to work or just go home because I can’t afford to stay out. I rarely find time to call or even text and thank the internet gods for Facebook and Twitter. Online isn’t how I like to conduct my friendships but it’ll have to do for now.  I just hope they stick around until life calms down and I give them the attention they deserve.

I worry that I’m not a good wife. I try to keep the house clean and tidy, to cook nice, healthy, substantial meals for Craig who works 4 nights a week then has Sam 2 full days and 3 afternoons a week alone. I try to do that whole ‘maid in the living room, a cook in the kitchen and a whore in the bedroom’  Jerry Hall advises but am failing miserably. By the time I’ve been a maid and a cook I’m fast asleep & Craig doesn’t have a hope in hell of finding a whore in the bedroom! Unless it’s one I’ve hired out of pity for him. I am not stuck in the 1950’s but do try to look nice for him so he won’t look elsewhere. I feel better being his wife now I’ve lost so much weight. I used to worry that people wondered why he was with that fat heifer. Of course Craig is well trained and always tells me I look gorgeous dressed up or in my pjs after a bath with wet hair. He loved me when I was 9 months pregnant and massive, and with a new born and massive. He’s the most supportive husband I could wish for and sometimes I don’t think I’m good enough. I don’t worry that he’ll run off with anyone else, he’s not like that. But I do worry he’ll get sick of me not pulling my weight and tell me to do one.

I worry about not being a good mum more than anything. When Sam falls over and bangs his head I worry Social Services are just waiting round the corner to drag him away from me. I worry he’s too little for his age. He’s barely 26lbs and still in some 6-9 month trousers although he’s getting in more 9-12 month now (he’s 16 months old!). I worry that I’m not encouraging him enough to talk. He still only says ‘hiya’ and ‘Emma’ occasionally ‘Creg’ or ‘no’. I worry both of these are down to me not feeding him the right food. I’ve near killed myself the last month making sure he has fresh meals everyday but it’s not enough! He isn’t eating enough oily fish. In fact, I’m going to Asda tonight to buy some mackerel. I’ll make cheesy, creamy mackerel rice which he usually likes. I worry if I’m not there for him because I work will he grow up to be one of these angst ridden hoodies with an ASBO? I know I’m over reacting but I can’t help worrying? What if I’m just not good enough to bring him up the way he should be brought up?

Sometimes, at night, I think about all of this and just cry in bed. I’m working flat out to keep my life on track and up to date and although I’m doing my best there’s a voice in my head that tells me it’s not enough. My biggest fear is that when I’m juggling all these bits of my life I’m going to drop something. I’m hoping it’ll be something less important like my sanity or my health rather than my marriage, job or studies. I hope that soon I’ll be able to banish that little voice and feel secure in the knowledge that I’m not doing too bad. I don’t think it will be for a while though.

- Plankton glowing in Cairns, Australia

They spill like stardust over the sides of the container. Little flickers of light, electrical sparks responding to the swirling movement of our hands shaking the bucket as we try and get them to bioluminesce…

The “they” in question are plankton, the tiny plants and animals at the mercy of the ocean currents. I am at Shoals Marine Lab on Appledore Island, part of the Isles of Shoals – a group of islands partly in New Hampshire, partly in Maine. I am taking a marine botany course and we’re out underneath dark skies taking a plankton tow. We toss the net behind the boat, drag it through the summer-cold saline water, and bring it back onto the deck. We later take water samples back to the laboratory and find most of our biological light is being produced by diatoms. Diatoms are part of the tiny planktonic marine plants; they have beautiful, delicate silicon shells arranged in various symmetrical configurations.

Another vivid memory: a night dive at the Shoals, my first. It’s easy to be scared; we are out of our element and enveloped in an icy darkness with only a narrow flashlight beam to interrupt the visual silence. At some point during the experience, we turn of the flashlights and as our eyes acclimate to the blackness, the faintest glimmers are present. We wave our gloved hands and sparks fly around our covered fingertips – even at its seemingly blackest, the ocean has a shine…

There are many different types of creatures that cast a natural glow, both on land and at sea (although this is mostly a marine happening). The phenomenon is called bioluminescence and translates literally to “living light”.  An enzyme-mediated chemical reaction is generally responsible for its production. There are several different light-producing chemicals that have been isolated in bioluminescent organisms an are usually all referred to by a catch-all term, “luciferins.” In larger organisms these chemicals can be released in mucuses, inks, or concentrated in special light organs known as “chromatophores.” It’s also been discovered that some organisms concentrate luminescent bacteria in specialized organs – forming a symbiotic relationship where the bacteria corner the market on light-making.

The organisms that cast their own glow are diverse. Natural light is produced by fungi, bacteria, plankton, molluscs, fish, insects, and others. So why waste the energy? Why bother being a beacon in the darkness?

• Communication: Some living things use light to send vibrant messages, something like a visual morse code. Fireflies use light to find their special someones. Different species will use different patterns of flashes to find one another, so they’re not wasting their energies on blind dates with incompatible mates.
• To escape predators: The concept here is to blind or distract ( “Look, a diversion!”) things that potentially want to eat you. This seems to be the case with the newly discovered deep sea “green-bomber” worms. Some species of squid will eject clouds of bright ink when startled. Also, it’s possible smaller creatures will try to lure bigger predators to snack on whatever’s currently threatening them.
• To attract prey:We all know it’s easy to get distracted by shiny objects… This is the way anglerfish get their man (or dinner as it were) by dangling a glowing lure. Predators may spy on potential nom noms as well. Some fish are equipped with what amounts to sneak-a-scopes. Red light is often not a color really deep sea fishes can see.  Red light is more easily absorbed and less visible in deeper waters than other wavelengths of light falling in  the blue-violet part of the spectrum, and as such, many organisms are not adapted to see or detect it. Sneakier fish take use of this and produce red-light lamps they can use to detect prey without alerting the food source to their presence.
• Camouflage – alot of marine creatures employ something called countershading where the top of the organism is darker (when you or in this case, a predator, looks down at it with darker ocean water for background, it appears to blends in) and the bottom of the organisms is pale (to blend in with the incoming light coming from above). A similar effect can be achieved with the production of your own light – it can help you blend in with the light coming from above as a predator stares up at you. This strategy is thought to be used by at least a couple species of squid.

Of course we’re still discovering new variations on the bioluminscence model and developing new ideas about why organisms are putting on light shows…

The following video is from David Attenborough’s Blue Planet Series, and gives a glimpse about bioluminescence in the deep sea. Very little light reaches the murky depths but organisms create light where there is none:

Resources:

How Stuff Works: Bioluminescence

DeepSeaLife.net : Bioluminescence

San Diego Natural History Museum: Lights Alive

One of my favorite pages on the subject:

University of California at Santa Barbara: The Bioluminescence Web Page – I really enjoy the last question on the Q&A page

Un lugar abrupto, noche perpetua, presiones extremas, frío…y las más increibles formas de vida de nuestro planeta. Un auténtico viaje a lo desconocido que guarda constantes sorpresas. Peces con bocas grotescamente cavernosas y despiadados dientes que acechan un kilómetro bajo la superficie… Cualquier luz significa vida y un destello en la oscuridad puede estar dirigido a atraer al sexo opuesto, a no ser que se trate del pez pescador, que ya tiene a su macho convenientemente fusionado en la punta de su hocico. En el suelo de las profundidades oceánicas, todo tipo de criaturas primitivas reptan por el lodo.

I know I’m quite a late worm for a spectacular feat that’s been out in BBC air two years ago, but, yes, it took me long to find entertainment extraordinaire amidst the heaps of substandard films out in the market (although some of the views i had were really worth the time too). What makes it a special masterpiece? Planet Earth, the documentary, is telling me a lot about nature’s paradoxical nature of which I am a curious quester. With cutting-edge camera technology, unparalleled filming skills, and genius scientific input, I am taken aback, blown away, engrossed, transfixed, and drawn to life’s breathtaking conditions even more – I am earth’s inhabitant, and so are they.

Planet Earth is a BBC – Discovery Channel team-up, a multi-million (so it seems) production that has provided the viewing public the first ever high-definition nature documentary. But to call it a brilliant nature documentary would not suffice. And what is it then? A looking glass of what could take place in this blue planet for four years. With the footages it mirrors on screen, you’d be surprised its not Hollywood where hunter-to-prey chases are smartly simulated and audio-visual digital effects get in the way more often than not. Here, it’s all real.

The production team has very well taken advantage of modern filming techniques — time-lapse and satellite imaging to name a few. Add to this the perfectly fitted musical scoring so in sync with the footages and the storyline. The script, too, is rich in both artistic and scientific magnificence. It manages to weave everything into one cohesive delivery.

Digesting it feels like a flash, an induced eureka where everything, the mysteriously cloaked phenomena of the times, evolution, and so on and so forth, seem to fall into place.

My guy and I are still on the eighth episode of the series and we’re still to watch “Shallow Seas,” “Seasonal Forests,” and finally, “Ocean Deep.” And, yep, a geeky couple we may seem, but there’s something so big about Planet Earth that’s not geeky at all.

I had a big piece of canvas draped over an empty stretcher for a long time.  Well, finally got the staple gun loaded and got to work.  The canvas was stretched, the idea was laying there ready to begin, and I’ve begun work on the last large koi painting of the season.  I know that I’ll want to do others, maybe next year or a few years hence, but for now I’m in finishing mode.  All the koi are coming up to the surface — so to speak — getting their last layers of paint.  The pond will be stocked.  The fish can just swim.  And afterwards I’ll begin a new series on some other topic.

The last koi picture has perhaps some added allure for me.  Call it the finale.  Accordingly, for me, this canvas feels most like a dip in the water.  The innate beauty of the color blue captivates me now while I work.  This picture is one in which the water and its fluidity will provide the central theme.  Added to the indulgent pleasure of the motif, I’m using acrylic paint this time so that the work goes much faster.  Usually I love oil for the exact opposite reason — its slowness, its nuance — but I’m dolloping large puddles of color, pushing loaded brushes at this canvas, letting the shapes happen fast, thinking and reacting in one gesture.  It’s really a lot like swimming — which seems just about right. 

The painting is still new, lots of work ahead.  It sits at the end of a long gallery of fellow fish.  It’s my delight to see in the morning.  It reminds me why I first began painting.  This big pond will, I hope, make the spectator feel as free a fish!  Oh, may we truly know the delight of life on our blue planet.

Hey all.  So, it’s been a bit since I’ve updated, I know.  It has been an ok week.  Tuesday was our last dive for the Advanced Open Water course.  We practiced lifting things to the surface using the proper method, which is tying it to a bag and inflating the bag using your alternate regulator.  Then we dove from Predial, the dock, over to Playa Mann, the beach.  We saw a ginormous blue puffer, which was pretty cool, as well as a flounder.  Some people saw an octopus, but I missed it.  Ah well.  So as soon as Padi files the paperwork, I am officially an Advanced Open Water diver.  Coolness.  I’m also glad it’s over.  I love diving, but I was getting tired of the whole process.  Needed a little break.  besides, for the class we always went to Predial, and that is not an interesting place when you’ve been there 10 times.  Rocks at the edges, and then sand and nothingness. 

On Wednesday we went snorkeling at La Loberia for class.  I hadn’t been to that beach before, and it was pretty neat.  We saw most of the fish we had seen before, and also several new ones.  We should have gone to Loberia before for class.  I  saw about 5 cornetfish just chillin, and there was a huge school of Black striped Salemas.  There were probably at least 2000 swimming barely above the surface of the rocks and getting picked off by Blue Footed Boobies every so often.  There were a few sea turtles too.  They look so graceful in the water.  What was very cool was that I saw an Eagle Ray.  We were looking for another fish that a girl had seen, to try to identify it, and I turned around and there it was!  Awesome.  It was kind of flying through the water, and it was sooo pretty.  That was a good day and it’s a nice beach.  I’ll have to go back someday.

Thursday was spent studying for my final test on friday.  I think I did well.  It wasn’t too hard.  Part of it was written, fill in the blanks, short answer, etc, and the other half was a practical.  She showed a picture of a fish and we had to name at least four things about it, like classification, name, feeding, reproduction, stuff like that.  Then we spent part of the afternoon watching Blue Planet with the class.  We were going to go to Puerto Chino, because one of the groups had a field trip to Galapaguera and Puerto Chino, but it was really rainy and gross at the school so we decided not to.  Turns out it was gorgeous at Puerto Chino, but no worries.  We got hamburgers and cookies and just chilled out watching the show.  Fun times.

So, saturday and today have been spent in preparation for Canadian Thanksgiving.  Yesterday me and three others went shopping because we decided to do a group dinner.  We are having chicken, salad, steamed veggies, mashed potatoes, beans, watermelon, cake, and apple crumble.  It is going to be delicious.  We have been cooking all day, the main group of about 5, with occasional people popping in to help.  I’m super excited about the steamed veggies.  We do not get fed veggies here.  It’s all meat and carbs.  Don’t get me wrong, I love bread, potatoes and rice, but these three things, a meal do not make.  Juice and carbs appear to be the staple foods.  It gets old.  SO we decided we wanted to have a nice group dinner, with delicious foods and some of the things we missed, and NO RICE!  I was going to try to make pumpkin pie from scratch, but I couldn’t find all the ingredients including the main one, pumpkin.  It was kind of sad, but maybe I can for American thanksgiving.  I’ll have to do some more looking around.

So, it should be a good day.  We start a new module tomorrow, with a new teacher, so we’ll see how that goes.  I was sad that our teacher for this module left today.  Sole was so cool.  Ah well.

Farewell for now.

Quite frankly, until I read Evolution of Man for the first time, I never really connected to the Bible. I had a copy because a copy was given to me at some point…by whom I don’t remember. Not that I didn’t read much. I remember going to the library before I started first grade, and getting as many books as allowed.

The books that rang true I read more than once. Others I started but never finished. The chemistry had to be there, had to connect to something inside. The Bible never did that. I think if people wanted me to get into the Bible, it needed to come without the baggage of religion.

The first sentence in the Introduction to Evolution of Man changed my relationship to the Bible in an instant: “The Holy Bible contains the story of the creation of this solar system and man’s inhabitation of it.”

Whoa! That breath of fresh air blew my soul doors wide open.

In the early 1970’s, my lifelong interest in the natural world took a leap into what I would call spiritual dimensions. My first connection to more or less organized systems of spiritual teachings (other than the churches of childhood) came by way of an organization called Mark-Age. The first material I read left me somewhat skeptical. The book that really grabbed me, though, came into my hands a few years later –Evolution of Man: 206,000,000 Years on Earth — the inspiration for my writing project and the name of this blog.

This book and my ongoing explorations of life on Earth have many quilting points…or maybe nexes.  Or maybe bungee cords! How many times have I bunged back to its ideas from a thought, a feeling, an observation? How many times have I leapt into the unknown, launched by something I found in those pages into new territory for exploration?

A lot…

Our

Blue Planet

What a beautiful

World?

ŞTIRE. Stufstock 7

Data stabilită pentru această ediţie autohtonă este 4 -5 septembrie 2009 la Vama Veche

Se doreşte să fie o ediţie cu intrare liberă.

Nu se ştie încă dacă se va face sau nu. Totul depinde de confirmarea unui sponsor în perioada asta.

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Website: www.stufstock.com

Website-ul NU funcţionează deocamdată (11 august 2009).

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Doar cei care nu sunt interesaţi deloc de muzica românească contemporană nu au auzit de festivalurile din Vama Veche, Stufstock, şi din Roşia Montană, FânFest (acesta din urmă nu se mai organizează, scopul său fiind atins acum doi ani).

Evenimentele s-au născut ca reacţie la violarea unor principii, în ambele cazuri, iniţiatorii proiectelor fiind oameni deosebiţi. La ambele festivaluri, la primele ediţii, formaţiile invitate au cântat pro-bono. Ambele au avut dificultăţi cu autorităţile locale.

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2003. 15-16 august. Stufstock 1. Probabil comparaţia nu îşi are rostul, dar ideea cu care a pornit Stufstock a fost asemănătoare ideii celor de la Woodstock 69. Povestea Stufstock a început în 1 iulie 2003, când un grup de vamaioţi s-au supărat că plaja respectivă era în pericol să fie invadată de manele şi asfalt. S-au gândit că cea mai bună formă de protest pentru a salva specificul satului Vama Veche este muzica. Astfel, sub sloganul Salvaţi Vama Veche! s-a născut Festivalul Stufstock.

Organizatorii, artiştii şi publicul a participat în egală măsură la reuşita primei ediţii, unde atmosfera a fost foarte hipiotă ca stil.

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Festivalul a demarat ca parte din proiectul Salvaţi Vama Veche, iniţiată de Asociaţia pentru Conservarea Ariilor Protejate Bio-Cultural. Stufstock avea ca scop trezirea paşnic a spiritelor adormite, cu rock, inteligenţă şi bun simţ … pentru a proteja zona Vama Veche, 2 Mai, Limanu şi Hagieni de dezvoltarea turistică haotică.

În 2003, în Vama Veche s-a demarat proiectarea unui Plan de Urbanizare Generală care ar fi schimbat satul într-o staţiune de 7 stele.

Campania a beneficiat şi de suportul organizaţiilor ecologice Blue Planet şi National Geografic. Blue Planet Foundation a realizat un proiect de reîmpădurire a fundului mării cu un anume tip de algă, pentru ca reproducerea căluţilor de mare să se realizeze în condiţii mai bune. Căluţul de mare este o specie pe cale de dispariţie care vine să se reproducă destul de aproape de mal. Proiectul a costat aproximativ 20.000 de dolari şi a fost suportat de Discovery.

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Prof. Liviu Papadima remarca în 2003: S-a ales muzica rock drept partener de dialog cu tinerii pentru care Vama Veche însemna dreptul fiecăruia de a fi el însuşi. Am ales muzica rock drept simbol pentru ceea ce leagă mai vechile şi mai noile generaţii de vamaioţi şi doimaioţi: libertatea spiritului, ocrotirea naturii, toleranţa şi acceptarea diferenţelor dintre noi, atitudinea civică, solidaritatea cu cei care împărtăşesc aceleaşi valori. Prof. Liviu Papadima spera ca actualul Stufstock să reinvie acelaşi spirit pacifist şi de toleranţă atât de special al memorabilului concert de la Woodstock.

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Au participat

Aievea

Florin Chilian

Coma

E.M.I.L.

Imago Mundi

Mihai Iordache

Kumm

Luna amară

Ada Milea

Omul cu Şobolani

Vali Răcilă

Rock’n Ghenă

Rugina

Semnal M

Corneliu Stroe

Harry Tavitian

Alex Tomaselli

Travka

Trooper

Urma

Vama Veche (Cap de afiş)

Zob

Peste 100 de voluntari au ajutat la organizarea evenimentului.

Numărul celor care au participat la Stufstock 2003 se ridică la 30.000 de persoane.

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Stufstock 2004 s-a desfăşurat in paralel pe două scene, amplasate la Hamacu lui Boboc şi la Club A.

...

La a treia ediţie, Stufstock 2005, pentru prima dată s-a pus un bilet de intrare, evenimentul fiind mutat pe partea dreaptă a drumului, cum vii pe drumul dinspre 2 Mai. Cei care au protestat împotriva intrării cu bilet au fost aceeaşi care se îngrozesc la ideea că nu le mai ajung banii de bere dacă plătesc biletul!

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Deşi se dorea salvarea ecologică a zonei, majoritatea populaţiei care merge la Vama Veche astăzi, a aflat despre ultima staţiune dinaintea graniţei cu Bulgaria după ce s-au organizat primele două ediţii ale festivalului Stufstock, televizat de regulă la TVR2.

Dacă în anii 90, plaja era pustie, exista o singură crâşmă construită din lemn, pe partea stângă a plajei, cum te uitai la mare, unde oricine putea aduce casete de acasă ca să animeze atmosfera, şi se adunau poate câteva zeci de nostalgici la nudism pe plaja sălbatică, acuma s-au construit hoteluri şi restaurante (care par improvizate) până la limita nisipului, maşinile sunt parcate pe plajă, zona corturilor a devenit foarte înghesuită, lumea face plaje în mare, s-au deschis de câţiva ani şi crâşmele cu manele de care le era teamă organizatorilor, iar lumea în general nu mai face nudism.