The Device Has Been Modified.

First three terms of college are done. Not a great start, but I'm still trying to get into the swing of things.

Anyhow, Oregon is trying to drown us again, and we only get a day or two of decent weather in between weeks of rain, rain, rain. Nevertheless, I have had some interesting days so far this summer, and my shoreline ecology class starts in about 20 days.

Now that I've changed my prospective major, I should be able to care more about my classes, and as a result, get better grades. That's what I'm hoping for, at least.

Beach trip and/or racing tomorrow, I'd best be off to bed... after playing some more Portal 2 of course.

Good night all!

~Marina

The Town of Bayocean.

A few miles north of Oceanside, my favorite beach, lies the town of Bayocean. One day, on a whim, Jay and I drove up to the Tillamook Spit to see the town, only to find a long gravel road ending at a narrow field. We turned around, confused, and never thought much of it.

A month ago, during an ecology lecture, Dr. Knight asked if anyone had heard of the town of Bayocean. I was the only one of 75 people to raise my hand. He then told us a brief history.

Bayocean was, in its time, a thriving resort town. Entering Tillamook Bay from the ocean, though, was difficult and dangerous, so the town asked the Army to build them a jetty. The Army engineers suggested that they build two jetties, at a cost of $2.2 million. The town settled on only one jetty, which vastly improved the ease of travel. However, the redirected seawater began to erode away the beaches. Before long, the entire town fell into the sea. All that remains is the sign at the southern city limits, and a recreational area full of broken, exposed pipes.

I feel a kinship with the story of this town. I feel as if I'm slowly slipping away from my friends, that nobody really listens to me (with the exception of my family and a few very close friends), and that someday I'll be so withdrawn that nobody will remember me. Maybe if I make some changes, I'll turn this feeling around...

Anyways, the cool sea air was definitely what I needed to clear my mind, and it was a beautiful day.

~Marina

Open Water.

This weekend was one of the best weekends of my life.

Open water dive weekend.

It took us nearly 5 hours to get to Mike's Beach Resort, about 10 minutes north of Hoodsport, Washington. There was a ridiculous number of bunk beds, enough for every person to have at least two beds to themselves.

Saturday morning, we wake up at 7:30 when Norm comes in and starts singing 'uppy, uppy, little guppies!' We scarf down pancakes, bacon, and eggs, and drag our dive bags to the staging area just above the beach. 30 minutes later, we've struggled into our wetsuits, jackets, hoods, gloves, and boots, and gotten our BCDs set up and tested. The water, according to the divemasters, is 'warm' that day, at about 50 degrees. We slip on masks, BCDs and fins and wade in.
That first dive is both terrifying and exhilarating. Our plan was to go down as a group, 8 students and 4 divemasters, and take a quick tour around the dive site. Once we dropped down to 20 feet, though, there was so much dust and debris kicked up that the visibility dropped to under a foot. If I hadn't latched onto Dan, I would have been fumbling around alone. We lost the group and my dive buddy, but Dan decides we'll tour around anyways. Once we get down to about 50 feet the water cleared up, and I saw all sorts of rockfish, sculpins, and massive anemones and sun stars.
We regrouped at the surface 30 minutes later, and everyone was in stitches about how difficult it was to stick to the plan. We get out, switch tanks, stand around during our surface interval, then go back in.
We started out with surface skills for the second dive, but after we're done, Dan takes us for an actual dive. Carl swims off by himself (which became a regular occurence) but I follow Dan. We come across a sunken boat, and I sit on top of it while Dan swims around with his light. He motions for me to come look at something. Under the boat was a massive 8 1/2 foot Pacific octopus and her eggs. She was magnificent. We go back up and tell the other divers about her, and they are shocked that we saw an octopus on our second dive.
We get out again, swap tanks, and go inside. Everyone is desperate to wash the salt off their skin. I took, by far, the best shower I have ever taken.
After dinner, we went back out for our third dive and did more surface skills. Our plan then is to go as a group to see the octopus. We really should have learned the first time. The minute we dropped down, the dust kicked up and I lost sight of everyone except Norm, our instructor. I followed him around as he tried to round up the others, but we couldn't find anyone, so we surfaced. Lo and behold, everyone had surfaced immediately after they went down. We went the difficult way, surface swimming to the approximate location then dropping down to the boat. Everyone kept as still as possible and we packed ourselves in around the boat to see the octopus. Once people had their fill, we dragged ourselves out of the water once again.
We all shower off again and collapse into chairs and onto beds. The owner of the resort lets us know that he will be playing Resident Evil: Afterlife in the cinema downstairs. I watched most of it, taking a break in the middle to celebrate Norm's birthday with cake and ice cream. At 10, I am completely wiped out and I crash.
Sunday, 7 AM, we all get up and start cleaning up trash and putting our clothes and towels in our bags. We have one more dive, and only one skill - underwater navigation. I take a bearing on the beach and we head out one last time. The visibility is great this time, since we only go in groups of three. Carl disappeared for a while but we settled into a simple formation after a while. We hover around the 'appliance reef', and pull kelp crabs out of the tires. Once our time is nearly up, we use our compasses to find our way back. During our safety stop, I see a blur of pink a short distance away, and I swim over to find a massive five-armed sea star, 4 feet across.
We get out of the water as newly certified open-water divers. Kelly takes a graduation picture of us as we throw our snorkels in the air. We grab breakfast and pack up, and drive 4 hours home.

Overall, it was a wonderful experience and I cannot wait to go diving again.

~Marina

Addition: List of injuries acquired.
Sprained both ankles
Blisters from wetsuit seams
Abrasions on hands from neoprene
Sunburn
Sore, knotted muscles everywhere
Bruise on wrist
Bruises on hips from weight belt
Assorted scratches and bruises

Want You Gone.

I really don't think I'm cut out for this...

~Marina

"Under the circumstances, I've been shockingly nice."

This Post is Full of Win.

See? I told you! What could better represent win than the noble, gleaming cranium of Captain Picard?

You know, I went back in the archives of my blog today and read every post. It made me realize just how much I've grown up over the past few years.

Sometimes I just feel like I'm getting old already, as in geriatric old.

I might as well forgo my first car and get a motorized scooter instead.

Maybe I'm just incredibly tired.

College can seem ridiculously overwhelming, especially when you cover an entire sheet of notebook paper with your list of assignments and exam dates and pin it to the wall next to your pillow. It seems even more overwhelming when you can't go to sleep without first reciting the items and their respective dates over and over.

However, I can look at the bright side. Portal 2 was just released two hours ago, and I hope to venture back into the Enrichment Center very soon!

~Marina

Welcome to Mystery.

"This is a time without history
Welcome to mystery."

- "Welcome to Mystery" - Plain White T's

Another valid lyric...

"I wanna see your face and know I made it home
If nothing is true
What more can I do?
I am still painting flowers for you"

- "Painting Flowers" - All Time Low

Both of these songs are a little sad, and that's how I'm feeling.

I've lost a good friend because his girlfriend doesn't like me. That's that, I suppose. I shouldn't dwell on it, it will only cause me pain.

Other than that, I'm buried under a mountain of homework that I have to finish by Friday, so I should get on that.

Hoping for sunnier skies and better moods in the coming days.

~Marina

A Story of Lost Love.

Once upon a time, there was a boy with red hair and blue-green eyes. He grew up to be a strong young man. The young man had a dream: to fight in a war and serve his country. He joined the military.
Before he left for his training, though, the young man's life changed; he met a girl that captured his heart. She seemed perfectly average; average height, average weight, plain brown hair and blue eyes. But her laugh was infectious, her wit like a razor, and most of all, she was gentle, selfless, and accepting of the young man's ways.
They were good friends right away, and they fell swiftly and completely for each other shortly thereafter.
The young man left for another country, but he gave the girl a token to remember him: his first set of dogtags from basic training. She wore them every day and rarely took them off. Every few days, they would email each other, and the girl was always elated to hear from him. They talked about love, vacations they would take when he came home, and even marriage after a while. As the long months wore on, the girl's love for her young man only grew stronger.
But one day she recieved a phone call from him. She was immediately worried about the pained tone in his voice. He told her that he had been injured when his vehicle drove over an explosive. He was okay, he told her, but his injuries were pretty severe. They talked a bit more, then they parted once more with their customary "I love you"s and "I'll talk to you soon"s.
The young man was finally sent home after a year overseas. They had a fight shortly before he arrived in town, but he still agreed to come over for Christmas dinner with her family. Everyone was thrilled to see him. There was a horribly awkward space between the girl and the young man, and she worried that it would be the last time they would see each other. After dinner, he invited her to talk outside. She stood on the porch, shivering in the cold December air, as he broodingly smoked a cigarette. The young man finally turned to her and apologized for the argument, and she too apologized. They held each other close, and all was forgiven. He went back across the country for another few months.
But not even two months later, only a few days after Valentine's Day, the young man called the girl. He was now angry at her, and she didn't know why. They fought for a while, and he ended the call after breaking up with her.
The girl was heartbroken. She cried softly in her room for a while, then for the first time in over a year, she took the young man's dogtags from around her neck, and placed them gently in a drawer.
Many months later, the young man called her again. He apologized, and they talked for a while, but there was no sign of the loving closeness of their old conversations. The girl had become a young woman, and had moved on and fallen in love with another man. The young man had married a woman across the country, and divorced her shortly after.
They still talk, but their conversations are those of long-lost lovers quietly remembering what they let go so long ago.

"It seems a cold world without something... more."

"On the contrary," said Oromis, "it is a better world. A place where we are responsible for our own actions, where we can be kind to one another because we want to and because it is the right thing to do instead of being frightened into behaving by the threat of divine punishment..."

-Eldest by Chris Paolini, pg. 544


"For what is time? Who could find any quick or easy answer to that? Who could even grasp it in his thought clearly enough to put the matter into words? Yet is there anything to which we refer in conversation with more familiarity, any matter of more common experience, than time? And we know perfectly well what we mean when we speak of it, and understand just as well when we hear someone else refer to it. What, then, is time? If no one asks me, I know; if I want to explain it to someone who asks me, I do not know... Now, what about these two times, past and future: in what sense do they have real being, if the past no longer exists and the future does not exist yet?"

-(14, 17) of Confessions, book 11, by St. Augustine.


"As for me, all I know is that I know nothing."

- Socrates

These three quotes reflect three views I have in life. Thanks to my philosophy class (which is a lot more difficult than I had initially expected) I have begun to question what I do and do not know, which, according to Socrates, is nothing.

But you know what? I think I'm fine with that.

Sure, it may seem a bit dreadful to think about. Everyone wants to believe they know something. But in the overall scheme of things, it's impossible to really know anything, no matter how basic. And understanding that you do not know anything, in this instance, can be comforting.

Augustine's approach to what time is, initially, was baffling on two accounts. The first is that philosophy, in and of itself, is farily difficult to read. The second is that it's such a valid way to frame time. We all know what we're talking about when we talk about time, but to accurately describe it is another thing entirely. To say that time is hours, minutes, and seconds, is a start, but it only describes how we measure time's passage and not the concepts of it. And to think of the past is to recall images that we have stored due to our sensory input, but this is not to say that the past still exists. This brings thoughts to my mind that are bittersweet. We can let go of painful instances in the past, as the past no longer exists. We shouldn't dread the future for what it may hold that is painful, because not only does it not exist yet, but it will pass into the present and shortly thereafter, to the past.

The first quote (and I realize that I have just addressed the quotes in reverse order, it was not intentional but it is amusing to some degree) is not philosophic in origin but it rings of a philosophical statement, though crude. Perhaps I'm just used to philosophy being posed in the diction of the ancient Greeks. This quote is far into the story of Eragon, the newest Dragon Rider, when he is asking his instructor, Oromis, about the religion of the elves. When Oromis answers that the elves do not worship any sort of higher power, Eragon is startled, and says, "it seems a cold world without something more." What Oromis says in response struck a chord in me, as I have been through many phases in my quest for beliefs that religion has yet to satisfy. I was baptized a Roman Catholic, studied Buddhism, delved into Wicca, and finally settled on holding no strong religious ties. The world of science seems more reasonable to me than the world of theology. Each person must find their own way through life, and though others choose an omnicient being, I choose logic and reason. This is not to say, however, that the followers of religion are wrong, as many people feel that I am wrong for 'not believing in anything.' I simply differ in the way that I believe that I am capable of making decisions based on what I have learned and what I expect, nothing more, nothing less. How you choose to be a good person is up to you and you alone.

I feel that I've exhausted my current thoughts, as well as my word choice. Though some of my grammar may be incorrect, I enjoy stretching my vocabulary and making everything fit, and it's never a crime to be well-spoken.

As spoken by many a wise soul...
Atra esterni ono thelduin, mor'ranr lifa unin hjarta onr, un du evarinya ono varda.

~Marina

To Those Who Lost Their Lives in Japan This Week.

Godspeed to you.

~Marina

Workin' For The Weekend

I am convinced that without weekends, we'd all go mad.

Thankfully, Saturdays (in particular) are the perfect days to be as lazy as possible.



This may be an obvious statement, but the point is that we NEED relaxation. There is too much stress in our lives, and if we don't give ourselves time to rest and reflect, we tend to be a lot more unhappy.

So take a few minutes today and just be lazy. Think about somewhere you'd like to go. Make yourself a tasty snack. Give yourself a break from a hectic life. You deserve it.

You'll thank yourself for it, I promise.

~Marina

(Watermelon photo from weheartit.com, cat photo taken by me.)

Solar Sailor

When you are constantly tired, time loses its normal structure. You find that the enjoyable parts of your day become something like a dream. The less enjoyable parts drag on and on, and you note each second that passes.

Pink Floyd, as usual, describes it perfectly.

"And you run, and you run
To catch up with the sun
But it's sinking
And racing around
To come up behind you again"

"Every year is getting shorter
Never seem to find the time"

It occured to me that not only was New Year's Eve two months ago, but I'm rapidly approaching my 19th birthday.

Some days, I spend hours thinking about making the most of my life, and I cannot fathom why I feel like I'm in such a rut.

I think the problem is the same that I face this time of year. It's March, there are a few weeks until break, and then a few months until summer. It's the second semester quagmire. I'm on autopilot. My sole purpose is to go to class and stay awake long enough to take adequate notes.

I get my mental clarity back after 11 PM or so, when I can lounge on my bedroom floor for a while and listen to music, and REALLY get into it. I can turn up the volume all the way and nobody complains about hearing it from my headphones. There's nothing to write down, nothing I'm obligated to do, and I can just enjoy myself.

It's my favorite time of day.

And I think my summery music is keeping me sane. I miss the sun.

~Marina

Little Fluffy Clouds

Yeah, I'm awake at 3 AM, despite my lack of sleep in the last week. This is, of course, after I fell asleep four hours ago.

Happy 10-month anniversary to me.
A whole day of classes on a few hours of sleep, then another few hours of sleep.

The reason I'm up is that horrible, ridiculous, cramping, burning pain I'm all too familiar with.

Yeah... I've gone and landed myself with another freaking UTI.

This is not an uncommon thing, but it has moved on to my kidneys before, and I sure as hell don't want that to happen again.

The dilemma - try to go back to sleep? Or stay up all night and drink water, writhing in oh-so-obvious pain?

Tough decision, eh? I just don't want to have to go back to the doctor... But at the same time, I don't want to have my day off ruined because I feel too awful to enjoy anything.

Doesn't help anything that my phone is pulling its typical hijinks.
Phone: Oh, guess what?
Me: What?
Phone: I'm going to frustrate you to death with my 'cellular data off' message every time you try to text!
Me: WHYYY?
Phone: Oh! And guess what else!
Me: WHAT ELSE?
Phone: I'm going to let you charge my battery completely, then proceed to die in a few hours without you having done anything! Hahaha, aren't I fun?
Me: GODDAMNIT YOU WILL DO WHAT I ASK AND LIKE IT!
-restores iPhone software-
HaHA! Who's laughing now?
Phone: -reduces battery power by half- Haha! Meeee!

I don't know WHY it believes this is fun, but if it happens again, I'm switching back to my Tilt, because an iPhone is just not worth the hassle.

~Marina

Stay

I long for summer. I miss the open blue sky, spending all day in the sun, having nothing to do but relax and enjoy three months of rest.

Getting away from the college stress sounds really good right now.

Most of all, I love being outdoors. Walking around in the nature preserve, or taking a trip to Oceanside or Pacific City, getting a coffee at Brewin' in the Wind or some clam chowder and an oyster shooter at Mo's.

It's the time of year I feel most alive.

~Marina

Sometimes, you need to just find a moment of beauty in a hectic day.

Finally Moving

I have now gone without gluten or dairy for a month, and the effects are rather astounding.

Since being home, but mostly in the last month, I have lost 20 pounds. My skin is much clearer, with fewer breakouts. I feel healthier, albeit a bit hungry, and it has made an impact on my family and Jay.

I'm fairly certain that it must be irritating, having two children in the house that are on very strict diets. (Rachel is a vegetarian, I'm no dairy or gluten.)

Anyhow, I'm really impressed with the diet.

~Marina