:)

I went paddleboarding today!

This is going to be my next big purchase. I bought a MacBook, I'm sure I can save up $800 or so to buy a used paddleboard... I hope! When I bought my ibook I was still living in my mommys house and I didn't have to pay rent...
Anyway, its an intense workout, and I could pretty much take it anywhere and use it anywhere in Miami.

A new study published in Environmental
Toxicology and Chemistry, has
found that fish are contaminated with a
chemical cocktail of prescription medications.
The researchers examined
fresh-water fish caught in a variety of
locations, testing them for residues of
pharmaceuticals. The results were
shocking. The fish were found to be
contaminated with seven different pharmaceuticals,
including cholesterol
drugs, blood pressure drugs, allergy
drugs and psychiatric medications used
to treat bipolar disorder and depression.
The researchers concluded that it is
clear from this research that pharmaceuticals
have become a widespread source
of chemical pollution that has permeated
delicate aquatic ecosystems and now
poses a serious threat to our environment.
Every pill of every pharmaceutical
that is manufactured eventually ends
up in the environment. Close to half are
simply flushed down the toilet or
washed down the drains, which remains
standard practice at hospitals.
To date, there have been no safety
tests conducted on the combinations of
pharmaceuticals that are being found in
public water supplies, waterways and
oceans. It is foolish to think that this is
safe since we know these chemicals are
designed to be biologically active drugs.
And of course, none of these toxic drugs
would be there if people weren’t foolish
enough to take them in the first place.
There is a safer, less expensive and more 

effective alternative to every prescription 

drug.

Lobsters and Sharks!

Yesterday I went scouting/diving (lobster mini season starts in two days) with Matty, Chris and Orlando.   We went right off the coast of Key Biscayne, starting by the lighthouse and working our way north.   There was a rope tied to he back of the boat and one person would drive with the rest would hold on.. then when we saw something of interest we would let go and the person on the boat would pull the rope back in.  The boys were looking for some good lobster spots to come back to on Wednesday night.  I saw a milliondy little lobsters and conchs and Matt found a nurse shark hiding under a ledge, super sweet!  I'd never seen a nurse shark before.   They're very gentle and the one we saw was sleeping.  

Heres some info on Nurse sharks courtesy of National Geographic:

The origin of the name "nurse shark" is unclear. It may come from the sucking sound they make when hunting for prey in the sand, which vaguely resembles that of a nursing baby. Or it may derive from an archaic word, nusse, meaning cat shark. The most likely theory though is that the name comes from the Old English word for sea-floor shark: hurse.

Nurse sharks are slow-moving bottom-dwellers and are, for the most part, harmless to humans. However, they can be huge—up to 14 feet (4.3 meters)—and have very strong jaws filled with thousands of tiny, serrated teeth, and will bite defensively if stepped on or bothered by divers who assume they’re docile.

They use their strong jaws to crush and eat shellfish and even coral, but prefer to dine on fish, shrimp, and squid. They are gray-brown and have distinctive tail fins that can be up to one-fourth their total length. Unlike most other sharks, nurses are smooth to the touch.

Nurse sharks are found in the warm, shallow waters of the western Atlantic and eastern Pacific oceans. They are abundant throughout their range and have no special conservation status, although the closeness of their habit to human activities is putting pressure on the species.

Hehee at one point there was also a little blue and purple striped fish following me around, no lie!  It was pretty awesome.  I named him flipper and he looked like this:

But thats not who he is.  Thats a freshwater fish.  Maybe my little fish was confused and decided to go on an ocean adventure?

Matt was so sweet, he kept showing me all these neat little things on the ocean floor. 

Then we made our way north up to South Beach and got caught in the rain... rain is cold in July when you're out on the boat!  Still fun though.

I wish I had my underwater camera, but my mom took it with her on her sailing trip!  Oh well!

What do I write today?

My blog is my exercise to clear thoughts from my mind in order to hopefully keep me from constantly  hopping around from one thing to another and driving everyone around me crazy.

I love dogs, all of them!  No matter how ridiculous they look!  I don't like to look at rat dogs though... mainly because it bothers me how people treat them as accessories instead of animals, and I try not to lavish attention on them in order to hopefully discourage this type of behavior from aspiring animals-as-accessory toters.  

But they're still so cute and I love them all!  I can't even choose which one is my favorite, because they are all so sweet!

Anyway, I am going to be dedicating my time to the betterment of myself.  I've given up on ridiculous habits such as reading perezhilton.com at work when I'm bored, instead I go to nationalgeographic.com, or I read the news.  I find I feel much better about myself when I do things this way.  I need to figure out what I'm going to do with the rest of my life.  I'm 24, but by the time I have kids I want them to grow up in a positive environment, where I am happy with what I'm doing (and I want to be doing something productive, not just to myself but to society) and I can set a good example for them.  Fuck this PR blah blah must make our client happy at all times bullshit, its fun for now, but there is no fucking way I can do this forever!

I think being an environmental engineer would be super sweet.  I'd have to go back to school for forever, but once I graduated I'd be able to contribute to society and the environment, PLUS I'd be making some nice cash.  Like it or not, corporations are going to have to find another way to make money other than by exploiting natural resources.  They are rapidly being depleted, and its just not doing anyone any good.  Plus this whole "green" and "eco-friendly" movement has become quite the trend lately, whose to say it wont be a full-blown lifestyle in a few years?  Thats the idea anyway.... there must be a million ways a corporation can capitalize on being green.  

Oh, I've also decided to not say bad things about people anymore... If I can't say anything nice, then I just wont say anything at all.  This is much harder than it sounds.  

There's quite a few other things I need to work on, such as my temper for one, plus things relating to my sensitivity... no one likes a crybaby (which I don't think I am... but there's always room for improvement, right?!)

I'm trying to eat better, but I gotten a little sidetracked ever since I've been doing my own grocery shopping.  Slowly but surely I'll get back on track.

Next week I'm going to buy art supplies so I can start drawing again!  I left all my stuff at my moms house, but lately I've been wanting to use those super cool markers they sell at art stores.  They're expensive though, so I'm going to practice with cheaper ones first.

Oh!  And I'm going to buy plants!  I'm going to make a garden on my balcony!  I want flowers and vegetables.  I don't know what kind yet.  Maybe carrots, then maybe I could get a rabbit too! But I want purple flowers and red flowers.  

Oh, and I also decided that when I get married Im going to have super cool and colorful bridesmaids dresses.  Just to liven things up and give people something to look at during the ceremony.  Everyone knows that people just go to weddings for the free booze anyway!  (I got this idea from a movie I saw today, but I can't say which one because it's a SUPER chick flick and I'm totally embarassed)

Ok I think thats enough jibber-jabber for now.  Miami is pretty and unique.

Ta-ta!

Under the sea!

Link ↓

Under the sea

We got no troubles, life is the bubbles, under the sea!!!

This is the first

I am listening to the Postal Service and I like it, I haven't listened to them in quite some time. 

Blogging is strange to me because I don't really want just anyone to read it.  I just want to write things for myself and have certain other people read them, but not everyone.  Some people can never know what I think because I feel they just wouldn't be able to handle the complexities of my mind.  Someone once told me that I'm so weird, there's really no other option for me in life than to devise a plan to hit it big off of my craziness.  Something like that.  It sounded better when they told me.  

I like their lyrics, they're so strange and random but appropriate at the same time... is the song "The District Sleeps Tonight" referring to Washington D.C.?  I've always wondered that.  I do like D.C., its a nice mix.  Plus they have a river and anyone who knows me worth a damn knows I must have access to some sort of body of water at all times... otherwise I'll just be forced to mope, and thats just no good.

Now its Serani... why does my itunes do that?  I set it up to shuffle... but I really only want the songs in the album that I selected to shuffle.. but instead itunes thinks its supposed to shuffle from genre to genre!  I'm going to have to look into that.  Oh and Belen, I know you're reading this.  I suggest you listen to P.S. if you haven't ever done so, but I'm sure you have.  Hehe today you told me I'm always trying to one-up you, and I think in a way I kind of always am!  But we are even... when we are 50 years old we are going to look at our lives, and they are going to be like rollercoasters.  Ohhhh you should also watch Vicky Cristina Barcelona, we are like real versions of Vicky and Cristina and Maria Elena, except a little bit of each of them, and not as intense.. its weird, you'll see what I mean.  But Cristina is a little too free-spirited to be either one of us, Maria Elena is just insane, and Vicky is the most normal... but too normal to be either of us.  You'll see what I mean.

Anyhow, here are things that I would like to do with my life.

-Marine Biologist

-Writer

-Journalist

-Actor on SNL

-Boutique owner on an island... preferably the VI or Puerto Rico, but somewhere on the west coast where its cool, not in the big cities.  The US jurisdiction is always nice to have, you know. 

But I'd like to own a cute little surf shop-esque type of establishment.. not because I surf, really, but I think I'd have a fun sort of clientele, and then I wouldn't have to solely rely on tourism as my main source of income.  But thats all later.  Plus I could sell really cute bikinis that I could bring in from all over the world, specifically South America.  

Wow, this is a long post, I feel bad for whoever decides to read it all!  Matt says I always ramble, so true.  

Life is so far, so good.