Today I posted a shark poem, but thought my actions aren’t really worth talking about. I’m so consumed with other work, I managed to just sign and share a petition against OCEARCH, a very “fishy” if you will great white shark tagging operation that claims to serve science, but is probably more about tracking great whites for the benefits of fishermen.

Then I remembered that this morning in my class at Sci-Arc, which is made up of international students, someone asked completely out of the blue (we were discussing the role of the architect and society), “What’s Shark Week? Why is it such a big deal here?”

My students don’ t know about my obsession, and suddenly in this architecture/ESL class, I was talking about sharks. I took the opportunity to give the grim statistics and balance the sensationalism of Shark Week with the reality of shark slaughter. It was a small moment. But I suppose that’s what this year is: 365 small moments linked together, some bigger and more important than others, but each of them some sort of step towards…what? Will I move beyond simply “raising awareness”? How can I inspire action and change?

I realize too that I like writing here every day. Even if it’s nothing more than a fragment. There is something about the “every day-ness” of it that I’ve come to rely on.