Sick

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Gross…

The annoying feeling of being icky and sick, it’s not comfortable. Having your immune system compromised- coughing, throwing up, and sneezing- makes you feel miserable.

Being sick during COVID- 19, is horrible. You do not know if you have corona, or if it’s just the common cold. It’s a scary feeling for both you and everyone around you. They wonder if you have Covid and you have to tell them that it’s just a frog in your throat. Being sick during Covid just makes everyone on edge.

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Speciality Medical Dialogues

I despise being sick, it is the worst feeling ever. I got so sick one time that I had to go to the ER. The ER is the one place where I would never ever want to go back to. Although it is very clean, it grosses me out and the ER causes me to have shivers down my spine. The feeling of being around other sick people worried me.

me and her or me… and her?

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Her Ivory skin was compelling

Eyes a sea of green that yearned for me

Caught in her rip current

Fighting temptation

Fighting to maintain the person I was once thought to be

But her eyes, green specked with hazel flakes

Like the falling leaves of autumn

Warm drinks by warm fires as the world swirled with cold

She was warm

All my problems settled next to the flame that she lit in me

Seeming to melt away

As passion and understanding burned my mind

It still left me wondering where I go from here

After she leaves who will I be

Was it a blip?

A bug in the “perfect” system?

Honestly i’m not sure.

Image found on Dreamstime.com

Camera Trapping

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One thing I have always been very interested in to improve my wildlife photography is wildlife camera trapping. With camera trapping, you set up a camera in a small box and place two movement sensors where you expect the wildlife that you want to capture to walk by. Once the animals walk through these sensors, the camera will take a picture. Sounds pretty easy but in reality, it is one of the hardest ways of taking pictures! But it is an extremely powerful tool in wildlife conservation. Through with camera trapping, you can get pictures of very shy animals that you usually would not be able to get close to. 

One photographer that does a lot of camera trapping is Steve Winter. He especially focuses on big cats. Through his camera trap images, he was able to capture never before seen behavior of snow leopards, clouded leopards, and even the rarest cat on our planet, the beautiful Amur leopard. 

I am planning on using camera trapping once I move up to Montana. A goal of mine has always been getting a image of a wild mountain lion. It is incredibly hard to see them in the wild as they are very shy, but camera trapping enables you to take images without you actually being there and without stressing the animal out 

https://www.naturettl.com/how-to-make-a-dslr-camera-trap-housing/

Love is a funny thing

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Isn’t is crazy, that one thing can give you so much happiness and life, but it can also completely destroy you. Love is a beautiful thing. It can make all the bad things in this world disappear. It can make you feel like you are flying and there is nothing that could take you down. But then, there is an ugly side to it. The side where it shoots you down on the ground and holds you there. You never believed that something this beautiful could cause you so much pain.

I was always scared of love. You hear a lot of horror stories from friends and social media. It almost scares you to even try and fall in love. But on the other hand, you want it. That feeling that makes you feel so special. You want someone to look you into the eyes, and you want to be their world. Good morning texts, goodnight texts, cuddles, just being there for each other.

But sometimes you grow out of love. And that, that is the hard part. I just wish it wouldn’t have ended this rough. We could’ve ended it in peace. And that’s what shatters me so much. Maybe it’s just time to go our own way and stay out of each other life’s. That would take so much pain away.

Up close with our cousins

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2 weeks ago I went on a journey back to Africa. But this time not to Kenya. We flew from Germany directly to Entebbe, Uganda. From there we drove all the way to the famous Bwindi Impenetrable National Park. This is the place which one of the most endangered animals of our planet calls home, the Mountain Gorilla. The first tracking started at 7 am. We had a short briefing with some rangers and then left right into the Jungle. There are no trails so the guides cut through the bushes with machetes. The mountain gorillas are named that for a reason, they live upon incredibly high mountains. So getting there was not only difficult because of the thick jungle, but also becauseof the elevation gain. The first day we climbed about 300 meters in altitude the second we climbed 450 meters in just 1 1/2 hours. It was definitely the most exhausting thing I have ever done in my life. But so worth it.

We started hearing the gorillas communicating from the distance. We made our way closer to them until I got my first glimpse at the huge silverback of the family. It was a group of 9 gorillas. One silverback, four females and all for females had a baby around the same age. Seeing how they interacted and communicated with each other was amazing. They were so incredibly human. We share about 96% of our DNA with them! The little ones were incredibly curious and came closer to check us out.

It was by far the most magical experience of my life!

picture by author

The five boys

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As already written in many of my past blog posts, I have spent a lot of time traveling through Africa, documenting my travels with my photography. My favorite place to visit is the Masai Mara in Kenya. It borders right in Tanzania and is part of the incredible Serengeti. When on safari you get the chance to observe some incredible behavior that can only be seen in the Masai Mara. The Mara is famous for a group of 5 cheetahs, the fast five or also known as the taco Bora. They are a coalition of 5 male cheetahs that hunt and care for each other. I have already written a blog post about them. This time I am writing about a coalition of 5 powerful male lions, “The five boys”. They come from the black rock pride and have been chased out. Male lions get chased away from the pride when they reach a certain age because they will get tendencies to take over the pride.

Once chased off, they either go off solo but most of the time they will get together with other nomads. These groups can become very powerful and are very threatening to lion prides around as they are looking to take over a pride for themselves. I have had the chance to follow the five boys for many days and observe them while playing, cleaning, and hunting. We spent three 13 hour days with them. They had found a huge herd of cape buffalo. Buffalo are one of the most dangerous animals in Africa and they oppose a very big danger to lions as well. They can seriously injure or even kill a lion. The five boys feed 90% on buffalo and they have created a strategy that works every time. Once they find a herd they will follow it for a few days and test it several times throughout the day. That means that they will charge it and try to pick out young, old, or weak individuals that will be easy to take down. Once they get the chance they will single a buffalo out and take it down together.

Being able to observe them for days at a time is something I will never forget. Truly incredibly.

Three of the five males

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Pressure of Life

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Life is hard. Life is not fair. Life has many ups and downs, especially growing up.

Once you reach a certain age, responsibilities pile up and you are expected to become more self-reliant. The teenage years are rough- balancing school, friendships, and family life. Then add the prospects of mental health and relationships.

Mental health is really important and life could take a toll on one’s mental health. Anxiety due to school and other things. Depression or sadness due to life and the tolls that life brings onto someone.

photo credit: Medical News Today

Relationships, friendships, and romantic relationships are really hard to navigate during the teenage years. Finding a connection that works is hard, and is really important to keep one sane.

School is very stressful. Teachers and parents put pressure on students and kids to do well in school, so they can do well in life. Students and kids also put pressure on themselves to get into great colleges.

Life is full of ups and downs, full of scary and fun moments.

Short Lived

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A moment in time that we will never get back

The pure freedom is only a memory

The painted skies have begun to fade.

Our house has a new family 

Me vs you turned to us vs them

Turned into me

And then you

Early morning runs to late night games

We came from sea to shining sea

Just to see what it was like 

Spending the nights in the outdoors

Finding hidden beauty

But who knew 

That 

A moment in time we will never forget

We wish we could go back

Like a sun setting on the ocean

It goes from beautiful to darkness in a short second

The Chimp wants to be a Chemist

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Have you ever met someone with an abundance of dreams and ambitions, with a passion to make a change and to make something out of themselves? Someone who wishes, and knows they can live outside of the box and innovate what they think to be a world in need of innovation? The next question, do you know someone who has these ambitions but is not given the means to complete their goals, or they get trapped in the everything-sucking whirlpool of society. So instead they have to sit at a desk, working a normal person job, stewing in their ideas.

I know someone like this, I live with someone like this. Although it makes for interesting conversation, these kind of people feel like they did not get to reach their full potential. And as time ticks away so does their opportunity to make something great out of themselves. This leaves them feeling angry, feeling like the world is pinned against them, and quite helpless all at the same time. But these people have responsibilities. And even though they feel all these feelings they have to repress them so that they can provide, in my case, for their family. The product is an incomplete and unsatisfied person.


I have been affected by this incompleteness because they have, unintentionally, pushed their need for greatness onto me. All the opportunities they did not take, they require I take. In hopes to save me from a “normal life”. All the ideas they have that have never taken off, they expect me to make them into a reality.

Well, that’s my experience!

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Spring

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Each year, spring seems to be the most overwhelming season. School begins to speed up as we are faced with tasks each day.

Now that the pandemic is slowly returning to normalcy as more students come onto campus, we are catching up on what we missed. This, however, results in the cramming of a years’ worth of experience into a single month. It is enjoyable in its little moments, though when I look at my planner, the words begin to blend into each other as the pages are smeared with hastily placed pencil marks. I return to my planner hourly, adding both academic assignments and extracurricular events. It is covered with reminders, such as bring my costume for the musical, or drop off a scholarship application.

I enjoy each day thoroughly, though looking ahead can be overwhelming. The tasks for one day are manageable, though skimming the multiple notes and plans for the week can feel as though it all must be done that day.

Perspective is vital to managing a planner. I always note that I am living in only one of the days on the page, and it is not yet time to manage the others. This spring may be busy, though it is my last opportunity to experience high school. I plan to enjoy every day, as they are my final moments on this campus.

Spring
Image Credit: Alina Demidenko – iStock