I have been hastily slapping together plans to travel cross country, so it's been a very busy week.  I am SO excited and exceptionally grateful that I will get the opportunity to visit two places I am currently writing about.  One is in the Midwest and the other is on the West Coast.  I was initially planning to leave all writing behind, but now I'm so charged up I wouldn't dream of it! 

I bought a few things for the trip: a 2-person tent, sleeping pads, a headlamp (Walt lost his), and a waterproof bag.  The last time we went family camping, rain turned our cheap tent into a waterbed, so finding a watertight tent was a biggie.  I have some adventures planned, but they are weather dependent so no sense going into details now.

Poor Charlotte was a sorry sight at Mystic Aquarium.  She was hit by a propeller and now she spends most of the day on her head (kinda like me last week!).  It was sad to see a turtle with bubble-butt.

In addition to writing, this past week I researched how the teen brain is different from the adult brain.  Faced with the same situation, a teen will take risks, but an adult will not.  I found this National Geographic article about a study of teen risk taking, called Beautiful Brains, really helpful.  Here's the bottom line:

"So if teens think as well as adults do and recognize risk just as well, why do they take more chances? Here, as elsewhere, the problem lies less in what teens lack compared with adults than in what they have more of. Teens take more risks not because they don't understand the dangers but because they weigh risk versus reward differently: In situations where risk can get them something they want, they value the reward more heavily than adults do."

This explains why I knew better, but I still took a ride home with a stranger after track practice in high school.  I was walking home exhausted after running the mile, 2 mile and a relay in a track meet.   Thankfully, nothing bad happened.  

The brain is a fascinating organ.  Vanderbilt University in Tennessee has a new doctoral program for educational neuroscience.  It combines the field of education with studies of the brain.   Neuroscience research is quite interesting.  It's giving us new understanding on how we learn.  Educating children is what writing nonfiction is all about.  In the wrong hands, that research could be used in a negative manner.   

In other news, I spent the week working on a new article fashioned from the scraps of a completed article.   Also, I put together proposals for two classes (one is about jellyfish) for kids at the brand new Vernon Community Arts Center.  Hopefully, they will be accepted and that enough students will sign up so the class will run.

These photographs are moon jellies at Mystic Aquarium.

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!

I posted a few more photographs from Woods Hole Science Aquarium. The top is a preserved octopus in a glass jar that did not fair as well as the other living exhibits. I loved the color of that copper fish, it reminded me of the copper Opal Manta I used to drive many moons ago. The bottom photograph has become a mystery. I could have sworn that fish had an amusing name. I thought it was called a Buttfish, but I can't seem to find any information about Buttfishes online, so now I'm not so sure.

Today, I was in the right mindset and really ripped into the first page of this article, making it mine again. I came up with three new titles and revised the ending too. I like to let the thing marinate for a while before emailing it. Generally, I end up refining it even more.

The weekend before last, Walt and I were up at Cape Cod celebrating my birthday and our anniversary. We biked the very scenic Shining Sea Bike Trail from Falmouth to Woods Hole, passing cranberry bogs and ocean views. While we were at Woods Hole we stopped in the Woods Hole Science Aquarium where I took a few photographs which I've posted. I was disappointed some of the other science facilities in the area were not open. Next time.

I've been working steady revising throughout this week despite numerous social activities. The article is in pretty good shape, but still needs more work.

The bottom photograph is a very interesting looking creature called a leafy sea dragon (excellent photo). It looks like it has seaweed hanging off of it that must certainly help camouflage it in the ocean. The top photograph is also a sea dragon.

Yesterday, I finally received the edits for my article. Hoo boy. It was not a pretty sight.

I skipped off to the Vernon Arts Commission meeting this evening and I'm very glad I went.

I posted a few more photographs of poor Myrtle the green (in the gills) turtle. They measured her carapace (a fancy word for shell). They took an ultrasound of her heart. I'm not sure where the heart is in the turtle, but I can imagine it might be difficult to view it through a thick shell.

Currently, I'm working on three different projects, all different. Two are nearly complete as far as the writing goes. The presentation is still in its infancy, but I have a solid list of creative ideas.

Today, I posted photographs of Myrtle, a green turtle at the New England Aquarium. Like Ari, she also had a health check-up, but she was small enough for them to pull out of the water and examine up close and personal. They drew blood and tested it for disease. The Aquarium website says this turtle is at least seventy years old!

I'm still working on this same piece of writing that is maybe 90% complete. It may be done by our email swap date this week, but it certainly won't be verified for accuracy so, unfortunately, I will not make my own too tight deadline.

I have a new plan for a hands-on science presentation that I think will be exciting. Hopefully, I can get moving on this real fast.

I wish I could keep the photographs I really love up here forever, ahh, but that would be boring. Today, I'm posting more photographs from a visit to the New England Aquarium. I was fortunate enough to be there the day they did health check ups on two large turtles. These photographs were taken of Ari, a Kemp's Ridley turtle. They weighed the turtle, took blood from it and did an ultrasound of its heart (bottom photo). To accurately weigh it they subtracted the weight of the box it was lifted in. Ari weighed 583 pounds! The video on the Aquarium's website (bottom left) reminded me so much of snorkeling off St. John.

Saturday morning I will be heading down to the CT short to Uconn's Avery Point Campus. I will be driving some students from the high school to a CT Envirothon workshop. They plan to visit Bluff Point State Park (8/28, I wrote about Bluff Point) to sample water, study marine creatures in tanks and do other assorted environmental things.

I write like the tide coming in. The first page is excellent, the second page is pretty good, the third page is not that great and the ending isn't there. I keep washing over it from the start.

The skate in the bottom photograph looked so much like a ghost clinging to the aquarium glass. Its mouth was moving as if it were communicating, attracting quite the crowd of curiosity seekers (and also impairing my ability to take a better shot!). I got quite a kick out of the little critter. In fact, I was so close to the glass when I took the first picture, the photograph was completely white, a ghost indeed! The top photograph was taken of a really striking flower hat jellyfish. Believe me, it was not a hat I'd ever want to wear.

Since I haven't heard from my editor at ChemMatters, I've been moving forward on the proposal I've been working on and I also started making revisions to last year's attempt at a grant. Hope springs eternal.

At the New England Aquarium, I took the top photograph of a sparkly piranha. It does look kind of mad, doesn't it? Every other time I've seen an octopus at an aquarium, it's a view of the tentacles on the underside of one arm. While listening to one of the employees tell tales of marine life, the octopus moved. I grabbed the camera real fast. Unfortunately, I wish I was a little steadier. I wish I had taken another photograph. Anyhow, I was delighted to get the body of the octopus even if it's a little blurry. I had no idea it was orange until I saw the picture.

Two days ago, I submitted a proposal to teach an adult class because I felt I had something to offer. Yesterday, I dropped an 800 word article in the mail. I'm expecting to get edits for the chemistry magazine any day now, but in the meantime, I will keep working on the proposal I've spent the summer refining.

Both the diver and the shark were in the large circular tank at the New England Aquarium. I highly doubt they were both in there at the same time.

Today, I submitted my final version of the chemistry article!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Since I had quite a bit of noteworthy quotes, I deleted a bunch of stuff that actually made the article clearer. I'm real happy with it, but I know it still needs some editing because it's 500 words over the limit, which this editor actually prefers.

Have you ever tried to take a picture and have someone step right in your way as you're ready to hit the button? That happened to me at the New England Aquarium. I clicked the shutter to take a photograph of Kathleen, the anaconda, as a woman stepped in front of me. I turned thinking forget this photo and because of the momentary shutter delay ended up with this really decent unintentional photograph of the turtle. Amazing!

I've finally interviewed the scientist for the article I'm writing for ChemMatters. Thank you Earle! I have to transcribe that interview and add the quotes. I've also been adjusting and improving some wording in that article that seemed perfectly fine the last time I looked at it, but not so clear as of late. I'm realizing that letting a piece of writing sit for a few weeks or even months is a really helpful thing to do. I've been viewing the painting with a microscope and now I feel I've stepped back to look at the whole composition.

Last week, I spent three days in Boston. One afternoon I skipped off to the New England Aquarium with my camera and thoroughly enjoyed myself. I absolutely loved this colorful fish exhibit.

The other two afternoons, I brought my notecards and headed to the Boston Public Gardens to accomplish something. I found that park benches are only comfortable for so long before your back starts bothering you. I wondered if they were designed that way so people wouldn't sit on them for hours like I did.

Sea Lion

Lionfish

Beluga whale

Penguins

Since it's school vacation week, I went to the Mystic Aquarium in Mystic CT today. When my kids were little it was a full time job keeping an eye on them in the dark and busy aquarium. But now that my daughter is older, I can bring along a camera and wait out my shots.