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The microplastics "cycle". Microplastics are a type of plastic so small it can be passed through the food chain, this causes an accumulation that we eventually eat. It's estimated that throughout the year each human eats about 70,000 pieces of microplastics.

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A Cruel Delicacy

One of the most important animals in marine ecosystems are sharks. These creatures are basically the top of the marine food chain and help regulate the amount of smaller fish whose population would go out of control without them. If these fish’s population were to go out of control they would consume all their food sources and then they would die. This would cause the whole marine ecosystem to change and would lead to the extinction of thousands of species. Right now, about 28 percent of shark species are in danger of extinction some of which are thresher sharks, great white sharks and whale sharks, which is the world’s largest fish. These sharks are most in danger of extinction because of human activities. There are mainly three ways humans can affect shark populations: contamination, fishing, and bycatch. Contamination affects almost all beings in the world and I’ve covered this in one of my other essays. However, bycatch and fishing directly affect populations of sharks. Bycatch is the act in which a not desired animal is captured, most of the main fisheries use giant nets when fishing and these can capture animals like sharks, dolphins, turtles and many other species. In the case of nets, the animals might get released but it’s possible they may have died because of an absence of oxygen. On the other side, regular fishermen usually release the animal but they might get mad because of the money wasted catching it and the fact that they eat the fish they are after and kill the shark. Fishing is particularly cruel because it’s not really for the meat, it’s for the fins. It has always been known that shark fins are used for soups in some Asian cultures and that sharks were killed for these fins, but what was not known was how it was done. Gordon Ramsay filmed a documentary in 2011 that exposes many of the horrible acts done in the process of obtaining these fins. In the documentary, you could observe fishermen fish the shark, cut their biggest fins -pectoral, tail, and dorsal- without considering whether or not the shark is in danger of extinction, and toss the shark back into the ocean alive. In the documentary, you could also observe thousands of sharks that are killed in order to supply the shark fin soup demand. Current estimates say that about one hundred million sharks are killed each year. Which leads me to the main problem, the demand. Mr. Ramsay tasted the soup and said the stock was good but the only thing that ruins it was the fin because of its jelly-like mouthfeel and the fact that it's flavorless. Shark fin soup is very integrated into Chinese culture as food for rich people, in fact, it’s the most expensive soup, so many people eat it for special occasions as a way to “treat” themselves. One of the main problems is that the people that eat it don’t think about where it comes from or how cruel it is and if they do they think one soup won’t affect the sharks that much. A couple of restaurants with a good foothold in China have decided to stop selling shark fin soup after Gordon Ramsay showed them footage of how the fins are obtained. If more restaurants decide to stop selling the soup or more people are conscientious of how the fins are obtained and stop buying them we could finally get sharks off of the endangered and vulnerable species list and prevent the extinction of one of the oldest species on earth.

Ramsay, G. (2011). Motion picture on Television. “Gordon Ramsay's Shark Bait” Retrieved May 01, 2019, from https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=I2lzxgB8BXM

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An Insight into Natural Resources

This is an interview with a worker in the "Departamento de Recursos Naturales" of Puerto Rico. The worker decided to remain anonymous for personal purposes.

Q: What are your daily tasks?

A: Well my usual daily tasks are verifying that people are not fishing protected species and that if they are going to kill a fish ensure that it will be used for bait or for consumption. I also verify water quality and maintain an average of how many fish are in the reservoirs. I do this mainly to ensure that the fish will be safe and that the predator-prey ratio is stable. Most people don’t know this but the fish actually have the main purpose of verifying if the water is safe for humans to drink. Also, I check the coasts for possible turtle nests and set up an outline so that the eggs don’t get crushed and to get an idea of the population.

Q: What studies are necessary to practice in your field of work?

A: To be able to practice in my field of work you need a bachelor’s degree in science. You could have one in biology, chemistry, or general studies but it would be preferable to have one in environmental sciences because it is related directly to the job.

Q: Is there an absence of people exercising in Puerto Rico? 

A: There certainly is, there should be much more people working in the department but because of budget cuts, there aren’t enough available positions. Because of this the few people we have, have to do a lot of work and work long hours. But it’s definitely worth it, I could have a way better paying job with the degree I have but I feel like I wouldn’t enjoy it as much.

Q: What would you say to someone who wants to exercise this job? 

A: It will probably not be that hard to get a job in the “Departamento de Recursos Naturales” but you probably won’t get paid a lot so you really need to love what you do and be dedicated in conservation. The United States Fish and Wildlife Service I believe pays more and you could be placed in higher positions that carry out more important or bigger environmental projects.

Q: What conservation projects are being carried out in Puerto Rico currently? 

A: We have a lot of conservation projects currently going on but from the top of my head there’s: the growing of artificial reefs in Culebra and other parts of the coasts, lionfish elimination, reef protection lectures in schools and universities, planting of trees in danger of extinction such as mahogany, a breeding project for Puerto Rican parrots, and collecting data on populations of coquis.

Q: How do you think you can prevent people from throwing garbage on the beach?

A: Well, there have been a lot of initiatives to reduce garbage thrown in the beach but while the amount of trash they reduce is significant the amount they don’t reduce is quite large. The main problem is small garbage because people think that the small stuff won’t matter but when we do the beach cleaning we sometimes get tonnes of small garbage, it really ads up. There have recently been a few initiatives such as the no plastic straws and we put cigarette butt specific trash cans on top of regular trash cans but unless people start to realize how much this can affect the environment they won’t really care.

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The shark finning industries fish sharks, cut their fins off, and throws them back alive all for a dish of soup.

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A Brutal Tradition

In literature class, we read a chapter from a book called “Borderlands/La Frontera: The New Mestiza” in which the author describes her experience being a bilingual speaker in the United States. She expresses how when she speaks Spanish people are scared so instead of just letting her be they try to oppress her and her culture. But because she is bilingual she mixes the languages to speak a sort of Spanglish which also bothers Spanish speakers. Because of this, the Spanglish culture is being oppressed by both sides all the time. Another culture that is being oppressed is that of Faroese people. The Faroese people live in the Faroe Islands which are very separated from everything and don’t have that much land. Because of this, they have historically had to depend on the ocean for sustenance. One of the biggest events that they participate is called the Grind. The Grind constitutes the slaughter of hundreds of pilot whales in the summer to collect meat for the winter. The Grind has been celebrated for over a thousand years and almost everybody in the community participates in it. However, it has recently received criticism because of its alleged cruelty mostly by communities that are anti-whaling such as the Sea Shepard organization. Most of the natives when asked why they do the Grind say it’s for food, however because of ocean contamination for each gram of whale meat there are two micrograms of methylmercury, an extremely toxic substance because of its ability to incorporate itself into fats. This contaminant makes it so that they can only eat about 15 grams a week, therefore, it’s not a viable food source. They also have many more food sources than they had when the Grind was necessary for survival so the meat they obtain is not necessary for survival and it more a cultural delicacy. While the Grind might seem cruel because of all the whales they kill and how they usually kill whole pods of whales, 35-50 creatures, they also incorporate conservation into the activity. They don’t kill every single pod that enters their fjord and sometimes they put trackers on the whales that they don’t kill to ensure that they are maintaining their normal migratory cycle and that they breed. Before we decide whether this tradition should stop we need to consider the effects it would have on the Faroe community and if they are doing this activity in a sustainable manner. Additionally, we must consider the ethics of the situation because whales, in general, are very smart creatures that form very strong bonds with their pod members, they also, contrary to animals like fish, can feel emotional pain and suffering.

Anzaldúa, G. (1987). “Borderlands/La Frontera: The New Mestiza”, Aunt Lute Books. pp. 411-419.

Motherboard. (2015, March 31). "The Grind: Whaling In The Faroe Islands (Full Length)."  Retrieved May 01, 2019, from https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HYOTkwFhe-w

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Coral Reef Destruction

Right now, we are facing one of the worst man-made natural disasters. That disaster is the bleaching of coral reefs all around the world due to global warming. Most of the ways we produce energy are not very environmentally friendly and they produce a lot of CO2. CO2 is a gas that, being lightweight, is easily pushed upwards to the atmosphere by winds. This gas is very good at absorbing heat so the higher concentration of CO2 the more energy is maintained in the planet and the hotter it will get. Gasses that have these properties are classified as greenhouse gasses and their concentrations have been increasing exponentially because of human activities. All the energy that these gasses accumulate needs to go somewhere and since they can’t just dissipate away the ocean absorbs it. The average temperature of the world is around 56 degrees Fahrenheit but if the ocean didn’t absorb all that energy it would be somewhere near 144 degrees Fahrenheit. There’s a great documentary called chasing coral that explains all these things in depth and from where I got the inspiration to write this blog post. Because of the large amounts of water on earth, it can absorb a lot of energy before raising the temperature but even a two-degree change can have many harmful effects. Corals are a type of invertebrate that has a symbiotic relationship with photosynthetic algae called zooxanthellae, these give it it’s color. The coral host the algae in his body and he can use some of the nutrients it produces from the sun to feed itself. The coral extends its tentacles at night to feed on particulates in the ocean but most of its food comes from the algae. When the ocean's temperature raises two degrees or more the coral becomes stressed and “spits” out the algae, losing its color and becoming “bleached”. While it may seem counter-intuitive to do so in the documentary they give a good analogy that helps explain it better. When you get a fever even if it’s just a few degrees above your body temperature you feel horrible and sometimes you don’t even eat, well the corals feel the same way when the ocean temperature rises. The main problem is that the corals can’t get back the algae once it “spits” it out so they usually die unless a significant amount of that algae happens to pass nearby when they have their tentacles out. We as a species do a lot of environmentally negative activities that we don’t consider as negative. This is mostly because a lot of the effects of these activities are not that actively reported. For example, in 2016 almost 29 percent of the Great Barrier reef was bleached because of a heat wave. When we consider that the Great Barrier reef is 1,600 miles long about 464 miles of corals have died, whole species could have gone extinct. Corals are very varied and different beings, while the word corals might seem to describe just a few species it actually describes a whole class. To put it into perspective the extinction of corals would be the taxonomical equivalent of the extinction of all mammals or all fish. However, the extinction of the corals would lead to fewer environments for young fish, more beach erosion and many other negative things that affect hundreds if not thousands of other species.

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The Dangers of Farmed Fish

One of the main sources of the methane that ends up in our atmosphere comes from cattle. This gas contributes to global warming and therefore the melting of the ice caps and many other negative events. Because of this many people have turned to fish as a protein alternative. However, humans are overfishing the ocean and fish might eventually run out. Because of this fish farms have been seen as a possible solution to satiate the demand while minimizing human impact. Nevertheless, current farmed fish is not the best alternative for healthy food or helping the environment. I recently watched a documentary called “Poisonous fish: The Big Health Lie” which exposes the harmful aspects of farmed fish. Most of the farmed fish are raised in Norway in relatively small cages for the amount of fish inside them. Since the fish are so close together they are extremely susceptible to bacteria and pests. Because of this the people that grow them put pesticides and antibiotics in the water. These antibiotics and pesticides are then integrated into the fats of the fish and eventually in our bodies when we consume them. This can be harmful as continued exposure to antibiotics can make so-called “superbugs” which cannot be treated. The fish that are farmed are also not moved around so all their waste just keeps accumulating in the same spot on the ocean floor increasing the number of diseases. While it may just seem harmful for the farmed fish, the fish farms are in open waters so wild populations of fish can swim close to the caged population and contract new and dangerous diseases that can possibly wipe out whole populations. The companies that breed these fish want to produce more fish and faster. Because of this the fish are usually cooped up and fed high-fat food with chemicals that result in bigger amounts of fatty fish. One such fish is the Panga which is farmed in Vietnam. Most of these fish are sick because they are farmed in waters that come from a contaminated river. To treat the fish the farms use dangerous amounts of antibiotics. In the documentary, a French scientist called Jérôme Ruzzin measured the amount of harmful pollutants in multiple food products including hamburgers the farmed fish had over five times more than any of the other products. While farmed fish might seem like the best choice when choosing a renewable alternative to beef meat it’s definitely not the healthiest nor eco-friendliest. The amount of damage these farms can do to wild populations of fish and the amount of contaminants they produce is not worth the low prices. A possible solution to the contamination is to make the farms able to move so the fish can get new water and so that the waste is not so concentrated or adding new fish to the market such as lionfish. I highly recommend you watch the documentary if you want to learn more in-depth about how current fish farms are dangerous and why you should avoid eating farmed fish.

Motion picture on Television. (2014). “Poisonous Fish: The Big Health Lie” Australia: Austrian national TV (ORF). Retrieved May 01, 2019, from https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lZCADC65Q4Q

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Part of the Great Pacific Garbage Patch which is about 1.6 square kilometers big and holds 80,000 metric tonnes of garbage.

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The price we pay

The other day I was talking with a friend about movies when he mentioned the Deepwater Horizon film. I remember hearing about it when I was younger, the incident not the movie, so I decided to find out what had happened. Turns out that about 24 to 55 percent of the oil spilled in the event is unaccounted for to this day, keep in mind the spill happened in 2010. I kept reading and wondered how many oil spills happen that go unnoticed. In 2018 six oils spills occurred, three were big meaning that they spilled more than 700 tonnes of oil and the other three were medium meaning less than 700 tonnes but more than seven. None of these spills were televised or mentioned even though they spilled thousands of tonnes of oil in the ocean. Oil spills can have severe adverse effects on the environment. The crude oil can block the blowholes of whales asphyxiating them, mat the hair and feathers of birds and mammals reducing their insulating abilities and its generally toxic if large quantities are consumed. The main problem is the demand for oil. While most of these rigs that extract the oil from the ocean are very advanced, the companies who run them only care about how they can extract the most profit. The way these companies cut cost can be observed in an article called “I was a warehouse wage slave”. In this article, the writer worked in a shipping warehouse for a huge company and the way people were treated is not worth the pay they receive. However, these people don’t have any other choice and the companies take advantage of this to demand more than is humanly possible out of them. If a company could be that heartless towards a human being imagine how meaningless the environment would be to them. Most of the demand for crude oil comes from the petrol industry and the energy production industries. Both industries produce huge amounts of waste and with the added waste from the oil extraction process, massive amounts of waste are produced. However, it’s not necessary to utilize oil as an energy source, there are many other cleaner sources of energy. One example is collecting wave energy, this method produces energy by extracting it from the force of the waves and at the same time helps prevent erosion of coasts, which is another major problem. With this method and many others we can cover our energy cost with renewable resources that won’t harm the environment.

D'Angelo, C. (2016, December 19). “Products Used To Clean Up BP Oil Spill May Have Made Things Worse”. Retrieved May 01, 2019, from https://www.huffpost.com/entry/bp-gulf-oil-spill-cleanup_n_564a52f4e4b06037734a7558

Itopf. (2018). “Oil Tanker Spill Statistics 2018”. Retrieved May 01, 2019, from https://www.itopf.org/knowledge-resources/data-statistics/statistics/

McClelland, M. (2018, December 10). “I Was a Warehouse Wage Slave”. Retrieved May 01, 2019, from https://www.motherjones.com/politics/2012/02/mac-mcclelland-free-online-shipping-warehouses-labor/4/

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The Ethics of Cruise Ships

Cruise ships are often seen as a luxury, and while they are, a lot of facts are hidden away to ensure that the people traveling in them don’t have to worry about anything. However, they don’t even know the damage that cruise ships cause or that they even do cause damage. They cause this damage by looking for any loophole they can; from ignoring their workers claims of work-related pain because the doctors they pay say there is nothing wrong with the patient to registering the company in another country that has more lax laws. I was reading an article called “Below Deck” which exposes how Filipinos make up a large amount of the workers on a crew ship and how they don’t get paid nearly enough what they should get paid. I started to wonder what other ways cruise ships cut costs. Turns out cruise ships are permitted to dump all their waste into the ocean. A 3,000-person cruise ship generates about 150,000 gallons of sewage per week which adds up to one billion gallons of sewage a year that just gets dumped into the ocean. While some countries have laws against this they only apply to their waters, which is only three nautical miles from shore. Therefore, all the cruise ships have to do is wait until they are over international waters and they can dump all they want. However, this waste doesn’t stay in the same place, it gets swept all over the ocean by currents and could end up in the beaches we go to in the summer. Additionally, an average cruise ship burns about 66,000 gallons of fuel per day which equals the carbon dioxide emissions of 80,000 cars, the nitrous oxide emissions of 420,000 cars, and more alarmingly the sulfur dioxide emissions of 376 million cars. These gasses are all toxic to humans and also contribute to global warming as they are greenhouse gasses. There are many other ways to vacation that are more environmentally friendly than cruise ships and that can be more fun than cruise ships. However, if you are dead set on going on a cruise ship I urge you to research how they deal with their waste and how they treat their staff before you go.

Vidal, J. (2016, May 21). “The world's largest cruise ship and its supersized pollution problem”. The Guardian. Retrieved May 01, 2019, from https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2016/may/21/the-worlds-largest-cruise-ship-and-its-supersized-pollution-problem

Below Deck. (2017, March 21). “The California Sunday Magazine”. Retrieved May 01, 2019, from https://story.californiasunday.com/below-deck

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A New Old Place

Recently I visited one of the most popular beaches in Puerto Rico, Isla Verde Beach. Being a resident of Puerto Rico, going to the beach isn’t a rare occurrence; however, it had been over ten years since I had been to this beach. I’ve visited all sorts of beaches in Puerto Rico, rocky beaches, sandy beaches, beaches with tides pools, and many others, but Isla Verde Beach is emotionally important to me. When I was younger and my grandparents were also younger and could do more physical activities, we would go every summer to this beach with the extended family and enjoy ourselves. My uncle would bring his barbecue, my mother the ice and beverages and my other aunt would split the food costs with her cousins. The smell of the barbecue and salty breeze bring back great memories. However, one year my grandparents had a health scare and we didn’t go that summer or any other after that. Isla Verde is one of the most visited beaches in Puerto Rico because of its sandy beaches and nice water. Since it is so closely located to the airport with the most traffic in Puerto Rico and because of its close location to many of the hotels that tourist stay at it has become very important for the local tourism economy. Therefore, many companies whose main purpose is entertainment such as jet skiing, surfing, and paddle boarding are littered throughout the beach. As one of the most beautiful beaches in Puerto Rico, it would be very bad for the economy, since it depends so much on tourism, if it were to be closed off to the tourist or even the public. For my literature class, I had to visit a place and write about it, what better place than Isla Verde and see how it's changed after all these years. I planned a trip with a couple of friends so we could go check it out and enjoy ourselves. As mentioned previously Isla Verde has always been an important location for the tourism economy of Puerto Rico so it should come as no surprise that it was full of tourists. It was extremely different from what I remembered, it didn’t even feel like the same beach, maybe it was because I was with my friends instead of my family but I doubt it. When I came over ten years ago the main population on the beach were Puerto Ricans. Throughout the beach, you could see the clusters of families, sharing food, playing soccer, volleyball or even football. The ocean was full of parent sipping on their canned beers in small koozies while kids jumped on and off them to avoid getting swept by the waves. The beach had a few umbrellas littered around with different colors ranging from yellow to dark green, some even had a different color per segment. The sound of kids playing around, running, and having fun would welcome you to want to do the same, maybe even join some of them. You could smell the salty breeze and got a slight smoky meat smell from the barbeques. It was a homey and kind atmosphere, once you got there you didn’t want the day to end, even if the sand was blowing all your stuff over. I was hoping it would be just like I remembered when I went this time and I could imagine how it could have possibly changed. Once I got there I found myself face to face with a rude awakening. All the parts of the beach except the parts where the waves could reach were covered with pool chairs and large beach umbrellas. When I say all part I mean it, it looks more like a place to store chairs and umbrellas than a beach. The beach is right next to the hotels, so close that you could enter them from the beach. These umbrellas and chairs are supplied by the hotels so they have their brands and everything. The part that most shocked me was how perfectly all umbrellas were placed and you could identify where one hotel ended and another started base on the color. It was like they were marking their territory even though the beaches are public property. It was very hard to find an area to stay at since we couldn’t just grab the chairs and stay there. Once we got situated I noticed another thing: there were almost no other Puerto Ricans where we were. All the people around were tourists. Additionally, there was nobody in the ocean, which is good for the reefs because it avoids toxins from non-environmentally safe sunblock but it’s kind of the main purpose of going to the beach. However, there were much more jet skis and boats which cause relatively more damage to the reefs that are near the beach. When I was at the beach I started to think of an article I read called the Ethics of Sightseeing by MacCannell. In the article, MacCannell said “Painful memory is not just poorly marked. Often it is unintentionally marked. When this happens, there is no standard message tourists carry away from their visits. Such sites place all or almost all of the responsibility for their interpretation on the tourist”. This is where I agree with MacCannell, the people that are tourist don’t know the emotional importance that this place holds for Puerto Ricans and how them being in the beach makes the tourism agencies advertise the beaches thereby limiting the amount of Puerto Ricans able to go to them. There are so many places to visit in Puerto Rico, nature reserves, many indigenous sites which are there to remember and honor the Taíno people, the Arecibo radio telescope, and many others. While, as far as I know, there hasn’t been a big tragic moment in Isla Verde I did feel a nostalgic and sad feeling knowing that it would probably never go back to the way it was. Ever since Puerto Rico was changed from Spanish domain to United States domain we haven’t been seen as equal citizens, we’ve been seen as a place to go to travel because it’s always warm and it has a lot of beaches. The same could be said of Hawaii. While on the trip all I could think about was this and how much the beach had changed in a matter of a decade. It’s all a sort of gentrification where the island is no longer of Puerto Ricans for Puerto Ricans, it is now for tourists and their needs. The main focus of the government is increasing tourism by any means necessary but it doesn’t include conscientious tourism. I imagine that most tourists don’t mean to impose, however that doesn’t mean that they shouldn’t be knowledgeable of the history of the place and the impact they cause. There are many other beaches and places that Puerto Ricans go to with friends and family to hang out and enjoy weekends. Since the main places that get advertised are the places close to the main airport and Rincon there are many areas that don’t have tourists that you could enjoy. However, since only those few areas get advertised they get abused and exhausted and lots of areas that do deserve to be enjoyed don’t. I hope these places don’t change much and aren’t super commercialized but at the same time, I would like them to get a bit more traffic so they would get maintained more frequently. While I am quite sad that the beach changed so much I am still happy I went. While I experienced melancholic feeling when I went I still had the opportunities to create new memories with my friends that will not replace the memories with my family it helps to alleviate the huge changes. It definitely shocked me when I saw the transformation from a family oriented environment to a tourist-oriented environment. The biggest change that I initially didn’t even notice was the mood. The atmosphere wasn’t one that screamed fun or entertainment; it was more of a relaxing atmosphere. It was impressive how much of the beach was taken up by the hotel's property even though they don’t own it. I hope there will eventually be a push towards more conscientious tourism so that the beaches and their resources can last. Maybe one day I could take my grandchildren to a beach like my grandparent did and I would hope they could eventually do the same.

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Seeing Through Whose Eyes? an Auto-ethnography

I’ve never been one to talk about myself, mostly about who I am. Partly because I’ve never had the necessity or want to really have an introspective search towards who I am. Currently I am in university and it has really expanded how many people I know which has really changed me as a person. I hope that with this essay prompt I’ll be able to discover my perspective towards the world as well as my own. I guess we could start with how I see myself. While I don’t really want to present myself as boastful I feel like I am good at retaining information which helps me a lot when it comes to classes. However, I’m not very good when it comes to organizing myself and planning a schedule, I’m more of a live in the moment kind of person. Socially I consider myself mostly extroverted however I do enjoy having moments to myself when I can just relax and watch some Netflix. I like to consider myself a good friend. I’m good at keeping friends’ secrets, at helping them out when they need it and most importantly they enjoy hanging out with me and I with them. My life upbringing was what I consider normal, my parents have always been there supporting me every step of the way and my brother as well. Since I grew up in Puerto Rico where basically everybody has a little bit of everything I’ve never felt rejected because of my skin colour. However once when I was visiting family in northern Florida I was shopping in a supermarket when some white old lady gave us a cold-stare which made me realize that there are people out in the worlds that have to constantly deal with things like this. Later in my life I traveled to Canada, specifically Quebec city, and while there I met a lot of different people from a lot of different cultures. It was the first time that the fact that there are seven billion people in the planet all with their different perspectives, needs, dreams and aspirations really set in. Many of which need help and are treated unfairly on a daily basis. Helping other people has been one of my goals since I was little, helping classmates out with homework, helping them study I’ve always enjoyed the appreciation people have when you help them. This is one of the reasons I decided I wanted to study medicine, specifically trauma surgery. Additionally, I decided I wanted to study this because in the island I live there is a population of approximately 3.5 million people however there are only 7 trauma surgeons (and two of them aren’t even full time). While I may not be helping to end world hunger or eliminate human trafficking I feel I will be able to add my grain of sand if I become a trauma surgeon and help out my island and its people. I believe there are limits to how far you can take care of other people before you need to stop for a moment and take care of yourself. Being able to love who you are and accommodate for yourself are extremely important parts of life. If you don’t take care of yourself how can you expect to be able to take care of others. Taking some time for yourself and being able to reach out, seek help, and not being a recluse or stubborn are very important parts of mental health. Once I have taken care of myself I find that I can give others better advice and help them with a clearer mind. While I want to study medicine, which is more on the science and technology side of life I quite enjoy being outdoors and in nature, it’s sort of the place I go to clear my mind. I especially enjoy the ocean. However, the oceans and their flora and fauna are dying. Without a healthy ocean, we wouldn’t be able to enjoy going to the beach to hang out with friends and family or go snorkeling to see beautiful fish and corals. It’s a great resource to just relax and can be used as a way to better your mental health. I can guarantee most people would feel better going to the beach and enjoying nature than staying in the city every day with nowhere to go. This is one of the main reasons I started my blog, I even wanted to be a marine biologist before I decided I wanted to be a doctor. The innocence of nature and the beauty that comes from it are things that I value immensely and part of what makes me, me. University is an aspect of my life which has greatly affected my ideas, thoughts and how I perceive the world. While taking my Social Sciences classes I discovered quite a lot about culture and how many different kinds there are. I also learned more in depth of the struggles a lot of people go through throughout their lives and how even if you may be rejected in your current society as a fool or punished for your ideas (Galileo) you always have value and someone will appreciate it. In my Biology classes I learned a lot about myself, specifically my appreciation for life. While doing the labs we had to dissect quite a few animals and I felt pity for quite a few of them, once I even felt pity for cells that were extracted even though they feel no pain. I remember when I was younger and everything was black and white, there were no preoccupations, no stigmas, the only preoccupation was whether 1+1=2 or 3. However, as I’ve grown I’ve learned all about prejudice, injustice, and lots of other unfair things, but I believe this knowledge has changed me for the better. I don’t like thinking about what other people may think of me, ignorance is bliss after all, however sometimes it’s important to do so because it can help get another perspective in life and you don’t really know what other people have gone through. While some experiences in my life may not have been nice or be nice I wouldn’t trade them for the world because these experiences, and the many other positive ones, are what made me who I am today.