As of late, I have been hearing much of the oil spill that has occurred in the Gulf of Mexico. British Petroleum has been trying to stop the oil from spreading, but to no avail. Animals there are dying as the water becomes polluted.

All this death and destruction evoked my memories of learning about how the Earth was formed and came to be the way it is now. I recall having watched a film about the Earth since its formation after the Big Bang, scribbling madly to take notes on the various periods (Precambrian, Cambrian, and Jurassic are the only names I remember now, though). It was a giant meteorite striking the Earth that created the Gulf of Mexico - that area used to be land, but it became sea.

The dust that rose up into the air from the collision blocked out the sunlight, and the dinosaurs, who were cold-blooded, died out, unable to deal with the frigid temperatures. It was the mammals, with their warm blood and coats of fur and hair, who were best able to survive through this time.

I wonder if perhaps the gulf is a place that has a curse upon it. That perhaps it is doomed to always be a site of death and of sorrow.

I've been watching an anime called Kuroshitsuji lately. (In English, the name would be "Black Butler".) I was surprised to see that the Hope Diamond was mentioned in the anime. Click for a picture of the diamond. I saw the diamond when I visited Washington D.C. and went to the National Museum of Natural History. I don't remember that much of it anymore, but I do recall that many people were crowded around the glass case, trying to take photos of the diamond. It is still very much a desired jewel, although it has been called "cursed" and "unlucky" (it is said to have been connected to Marie Antoinette's death, for instance). It always makes me happy when there is something I can relate to in anime or books. It's like a personal connection. Like the author of the book has the same brain as me.

Labels: anime, books, connection, curse, diamond, dinosaur, earth, gulf of mexico, history, hope, kuroshitsuji, mammal, national museum of natural history, nature, oil, smithsonian, spill, washington D.C.

Soon I'll be going on a school trip to Yosemite, where we will spend our days hiking and writing in our "journals". There's a lot of things that I needed to buy for this trip, because I'm not much of an outdoorsman. In fact, I've never really been camping out in a tent, seeing as my mom prefers civilization (and I guess I would really miss indoor plumbing, myself). But it'd still be nice to just try it, you know? For the sake of having that experience. It's not good to judge something you don't understand.

There's a whole lot of things that I needed to buy for Yosemite, including...
- A sleeping bag (I almost never sleep at other people's houses)
- Hiking boots
- Waterproof pants
- Waterproof jacket
- Snow gaiters (well, I guess I don't REALLY need them, but they're useful to have. They're like half pant legs that you can put on.)

There's probably a few more things that I have forgotten to mention. But anyways, I'll probably never use most of the things I bought for Yosemite after I come back. We don't really go hiking much in the first place (probably because I didn't like to do it...Too hot outside, I usually burned up my energy in the beginning through running, etc. Not that it isn't nice once in a while. In science camp back in fifth grade, we had the chance to hike alone, and it was really relaxing).

One of the things we needed to get was a bandana. Apparently, when we're out hiking, we'll stop to eat lunch, and we'll be using the bandanas as "plates" for our food. I set to thinking about bandanas.

Bandanas seem to have many uses. They can be used as hankerchiefs if you have allergies, you can wear them to look sort of like a cowboy (and you could also wear it if you're sick or people around you are sick as a kind of mask), you could put them on your head...I'm not sure if people usually do this, but somehow or other I got the notion that people who have gone through chemotherapy and thus lost their hair tend to wear bandanas to cover their heads.

To me, this gives the bandana a lot of meaning. The bandana is a sign of struggle, showing the battle between people and cancer and their fight to survive. It is a visible symbol of pain, fear, and desperation. At the same time, bandanas also show hope - a little hope that a person will pull through, fight off the cancer, and be able to resume living their life again. Maybe things will never be the same. Perhaps the scars, physical and mental, will always be there. But it's something precious, getting to have a second chance.

Bandanas are pretty cheap to get, but they're not necessarily useless. I hope you're paying attention things and what kind of purpose they really serve. I guess that's what teachers mean when they're saying, "You should ask under the surface questions!" You should still pay attention at school, even if you find it boring, because you never know, something important might be said.

My history teacher sometimes tells us stories, such as about having to transport a cake, being a valet, gambling in Las Vegas, and so on. He says we should pay attention since there is something to be learned from his stories; they're not just for entertainment. I think I might want to be a teacher sometime.

Here are some of my possible careers:
- Writer (well, that may have to be just something I do in my free time, what with the "starving artists" thing)
- Photographer (again, only if I can make a living off of it. Nowadays lots of people have huge Nikon or Canon black cameras)
- Interior designer or travel show host (too bad those jobs aren't that common)
- Ice cream shop owner (or some other kind of shop, with yummy food XD)
- Fashion designer (it'd be fun to come up with things, and I'd like to steer people away from those really low colors and tight clothing. x_x )

Labels: bandana, camping, cancer, career, chance, chemotherapy, future, hiking, hope, learn, outdoor, science camp, shopping, sign, significance, struggle, symbol, trip, useful, yosemite

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