My Misunderstood obsession

Gentle swimming through the water, the blues and greens swirling around with the sunlight filtering through the top layers. Schools of fish swirling through the currents, stingrays floating across the sandy floor looking for their next meal. This is the daily scene of my life. When I am not working, you can usually find me snorkeling at the nearest beach, making friends with the various underwater creatures.

Ever since I was a child, I had been obsessed with the ocean and the life that lives therein. My life was consumed by the vast topic. I would spend hours in the library surrounded by books on the topic, and still take home a stack to read through.

My parents eventually gave in, and I got my dream room in the theme which I continued in some fashion to the present. My room looked like I was underwater. My walls had a gradient blue that started lighter, and grew to a dark blue. My Mother, being the painter that she was, came in and free hand painted all the sea creatures that appeared to swim through the waters. I had all manner of fish, sea urchins, stingrays, coral, dolphins, turtles, seahorses, and the king of all the creatures, the great white shark.

As soon as I saw that shark on my walls that appeared to come to life every time I looked at it, I became obsessed. My focus shifted from all ocean life, to a hyper focus on all things sharks. I wanted to know the multitude of species that most people grouped under the umbrella term of ‘shark’. I wanted to know what they ate, where they swam, what their family structure looked like. I still remember the day I begged my Mom for a shark as a pet, promising it would be a dwarf lantern shark, known for being the smallest shark, which can easily fit in an average human hand. When she said, absolutely not, I was the model child the rest of the year, and wrote Santa, hoping that particular year he would listen and grant my wish.

When I was old enough to go to college, my obsession had not waned. I wanted to go into Marine Biology and become a Shark Researcher. I took all the science classes I could in High School, and made extra sure to get high marks on all of them. Because of this, and with some excellent reference letters, I was accepted into several of the top Marine Biology Universities! My top three choices were Stanfords Hopkins Marine Station, University of Washington Shark research lab, and the Hawaii Institute of Marine Biology Shark Lab. After much consideration and weighing the large pros and cons of each, I ended up attending the Hawaii institute, simply with the fact they tag and focus their studies on the migratory patterns of the Great White Sharks.

Now I get to live my best life swimming with the sharks, learning everything I possibly can about them, and educating the world on how sharks are not really scary! They may look scary, but as I tell a lot of school kids that I visit, “They are just trying to smile at you, but don’t realize they have a lot of teeth.”

The next time you are swimming in the ocean and get scared by a shark, just think you are in their home. And perhaps they think you are drowning, and are trying to help. They just aren't blessed with opposable thumbs like we are. But that’s all for now! I have to go make sure my friend Penelope is doing good with her newborn pup!