I'm Coming, Shamu!

we are heading to sea world tomorrow for a weekend of shamu.

i don't know if you know this about me, but, i used to want to be a marine biologist. (i still have fantasies about it, but don't tell my dad, he does NOT want to be reminded of what he spent a googillion dollars on for four years of partying, piercings, self-discovery, bleeding heart liberal ideals, my education)

anyway, the inspiration for my passion for all things marine happened when i was 15 and i went to sea world. i think i cried when i saw shamu. and the dolphins. and then we did a whale watch a couple of years later and that was it for me. i don't know what it is about those animals, but they are so beautiful and perfect and awesome and i love them and i want to swim with them and communicate with them.

did you know you have to endure both CALCULUS and PHYSICS to be a marine biology major? you'd think i'd be over that by now, but you should have been there at that first calc exam.

so yes, i love the ocean and all things in it...except when i'm snorkeling in the middle of the ocean at a deep reef and someone yells, "barracuda!" - and not because they like the song -followed by, "shark!"...then i don't love the ocean as much.

but i am still inspired by whales and dolphins and i just might cry again. because my baby girl loves them as much as i do. she's all, "we're going to see the orcas! and the dolphins!" and i besides the fact that she's 3 and she calls them orcas and not "shamus" or "killer whales", i can't wait to buy her a stuffed shamu to go with my her stuffed dolphin. i won't get in to the story about how when i was in college (and still slept with "flipper" - the stuffed dolphin i got in sea world) and my mom and i were driving back home to so dak after my sophomore year and we stayed in a hotel somewhere and when we got home we didn't have flipper and i cried about that, too. it was so symbolic really, if you think about it. or maybe i'm just weird. that's why i'm not going to get in to that story. you might think me weird.

and that, my friends, is precisely how i became a theater major. see? we came full circle. ish.