Day 25

The current state of Japan is really worrying me… especially because my friend Stephanie is still there. She was on the news in Connecticut though, here: http://www.wfsb.com/news/27163803/detail.html . I really hope she’s going to be okay with all of the nuclear reactor problems they have been having. It’s so sad that a country has been hit with earthquakes, a tsunami, and now the degradation of nuclear power plants all within such a short amount of time!

As for my life… zumba this morning was awesome! I love that I went with four friends and we actually all got up early. I think tomorrow night we’re going to go to the Abs, Buns, and Thighs workout class. I’d love to get into a habit of going to the gym!

A little bit about food… for dinner we had meatballs and parsnips (which are like white carrots, and just as hard) which was really strange. EVERYONE picked out the parsnips. I also tried something called a kumara, which is like a sweet potato. The dessert was the best part, which was sponge cake and custard, which was really really yummy!

I also had an Underwater Club meeting tonight, where Mandy Alves, the head of the Auckland branch of the Sea Shepherd, spoke! For more information about the Sea Shepherd, go here: http://www.seashepherd.org/ . It was so cool to hear someone that’s part of such a large organization speak out about why we need to speak up for the ocean. Things like longlining (miles of line with hooks every so often so there’s thousands of hooks stretched out) and using drift nets to catch fish over miles and miles of ocean, or cutting the fins off of sharks and throwing the rest of the shark back to suffer on the sea floor is absolutely horrible. Asian countries eat shark fin soup as a delicacy, and at weddings, and a pound of shark fin can get a fisherman over $200 per pound! Also horrible is whaling and capturing dolphins for use in aquariums like they do in Japan. The Sea Shepherd organization works actively to cut long lines, sink whaling vessels, and expose these horrible practices that go on around the world. They also try to stop illegal fishing in marine reserves around the world, and work to stop the Canadians from clubbing baby harp seals every spring. I’m thinking that maybe volunteering with them after I graduate would be an incredible opportunity, I could potentially be diving in the Mediterranean setting fish that have been caught on longlines free. I’m also honestly very sick of hearing about sharks, still alive, sitting like logs on the sea floor because they haven’t got any fins, and listening to stories of Spanish fishing fleets setting out nets and coming back two weeks later, where every hook has a fish but most of the fish are dead from sitting on a hook for so long. This is the reason why I’m so interested in the ocean- people are destroying it and something has to be done. Today I also learned that the world’s shark population is estimated to have declined 90%! I’m hesitant to eat New Zealand fish and chips now, too, because I heard that most of the time, they’re feeding you shark, and it really could be any kind of shark, but they would never tell you that.

Also, I’m thinking about possibly going to Fiji for 7 days over spring break, costing between $1500 and $2000 for flight and diving and accommodation and everything! Could be absolutely amazing!