This past weekend we were in New York for Melanie's graduation. Aaron Sorkin, delivered an eloquent, powerful, and inspiring
commencement speech. When he spoke of failure, he talked about his personal battle with addiction. That story, like books written as stories, will linger long in my memory because there is emotion tied to the struggle. When he spoke of taking risks and seeking opportunities, I thought of my mother who used to always say "take opportunities because they don't happen again." She knew how fleeting life was because she lost her husband at a young age. Apparently, I must echo those same words because I heard them again in my own daughter's writing. At an awards dinner on Friday evening, we listened to stories the student's submitted. Melanie wrote of taking every opportunity the college had to offer. My mother was surely smiling down.
I took these photographs on a recent visit to Mystic Aquarium. In 2008, when I wrote an article for ChemMatters, I wanted to visit an aquarium with crystal jellyfish. I searched online, but you simply can not find every animal every zoo or aquarium stocks. At the time, Mystic did not have these jellyfish. Boy was I ever excited to see them on my trip there two weeks ago. Studies of these tiny creatures led to the Nobel Prize winning discovery of Green Fluorescent Protein, a revolutionary tool in medical research!
This past weekend we were in New York for Melanie's graduation. Aaron Sorkin, delivered an eloquent, powerful, and inspiring commencement speech. When he spoke of failure, he talked about his personal battle with addiction. That story, like books written as stories, will linger long in my memory because there is emotion tied to the struggle. When he spoke of taking risks and seeking opportunities, I thought of my mother who used to always say "take opportunities because they don't happen again." She knew how fleeting life was because she lost her husband at a young age. Apparently, I must echo those same words because I heard them again in my own daughter's writing. At an awards dinner on Friday evening, we listened to stories the student's submitted. Melanie wrote of taking every opportunity the college had to offer. My mother was surely smiling down.
I took these photographs on a recent visit to Mystic Aquarium. In 2008, when I wrote an article for ChemMatters, I wanted to visit an aquarium with crystal jellyfish. I searched online, but you simply can not find every animal every zoo or aquarium stocks. At the time, Mystic did not have these jellyfish. Boy was I ever excited to see them on my trip there two weeks ago. Studies of these tiny creatures led to the Nobel Prize winning discovery of Green Fluorescent Protein, a revolutionary tool in medical research!
No comments:
Post a Comment