Higo Blog

I am sometimes astounded by where my mind wanders when it is disengaged from the body.

I have a deep abrasion that is taking a long time to heal (since I'm in the water 5/7 days a week), on the back of my right hand, and so my father gave me a special oil to apply to it to speed up the healing process. I dreamed that I put it on, and right away, the surrounding skin rose as the scab sunk into the tissue, first forming a volcano-like cone, and then the surrounding tissue folded around the scab, making a pod. It didn't heal completely, but seemed like it was healing. In the light of the morning, the scab kind of looks like it did in the dream: it's sunken into my hand, without the pod.

Another dream had a movie-like quality. I was being introduced to some children in Thailand, and ushered onto a bus by the principal, who told me that we were going to a very bad school. Many kids had crazy colored hair, some curly, some straight, and they were being pretty rambunctious. We ended up going to a graduation ceremony, and as the principal was giving a speech, my view floated above the crowd to the very back of the field where a boy took a sheet off a balloon.

The giant balloon rose, pushing a kite that fell off at about 100 feet, and caught the wind, and the attention of the crowd. An irate principal jumped off the stage and started to chase the kid. The kid almost made it to the gate in the back to safety, but the principal caught him and threw him fifty feet in the air on top of a pole.

The kid jumped off the pole, and it looked like he was going to die, but the principal caught him, and tried to throw him up the pole again, but his aim was way off and he ended up in the pond across from the gate and splashed down on a couple of ducks who were eating a wet salad with forks off of a plate. The male duck contemplated his splashed salad before jumping in to save the kid.

And then, just as things were getting really strange, the alarm went off, and now I have to go to work.

I can't wait to have strange dreams like this again...

For a few month, I will be teaching kids (8-13) to surface SCUBA dive in the Monterey Bay Aquarium's Great Tide Pool, through the Underwater Explorers program.

Of all of the positions I've held at the Aquarium, this one is by far the most fun, flexible, and provides the best opportunity to get young people interested in learning more about nature and the ocean, and ultimately to be the next generation of scientists, policy makers, educators, and stewards of our natural resources.

The program is pretty amazing in that it allows kids to bypass lengthy training courses, and to get in the Bay immediately. They get a short orientation talk, put a $2k dry suit right on top of their street clothes, don hoods, gloves, booties, masks, and SCUBA equipment, and start exploring in under 30 minutes from the start of the program.

Many kids are nervous when they first step into the water, but once they start seeing the fish, sea stars, anemonies, chitons, crabs, algae, and other organisms, most of them become fearless. It usually only takes a few minutes of coaching until the kids are able to balance in the water and get into the swing of swimming with all of the gear on.

I try to get my students to experience as much stuff as possible. I have them feel the rough-velvety mantle of a gumboot chiton on their face, eat some giant kelp (and explain that algin and keragenin are common emulsifiers that they can find in many foods and toothpastes), to feel gently prod an anemone, to catch crabs, to feed monkeyface eels, and to explore all of the things in the Great Tide Pool. By connecting these things to their everyday lives and experiences, we are helping these kids to understand and ultimately fall in love with the ocean and with nature at large.

It's awesome to hear a kid say that they want to become a marine biologist, that they now want to go SCUBA diving as soon as they are old enough, that they can't wait to learn more about the oceans, that they want to stay in the water forever, and that they're no longer scared of the water or the things that lay in them.

In 30 minutes, you can accomplish a lot. It's not just the students that benefit from the program, it's also the parents. They are so happy to see their kids learning, having fun, conquering their fears, and doing what they love to do, or in many cases doing what they wish they could have done when they were kids (or just something they wish they could do period). I can see the instructors growing as well, as students, as educators, and as individuals. Everyone wins in the end.

We send them home with a log book in which they record the conditions of the GTP, mark off what animals they saw, and recall other things that they experienced. In addition, all participants get a cup of hot cocoa. The program is simply a win-win experience for everyone involved.