Before My End

go out with a bang.
cease to be broken.
upset the forecast.
clear my head.
find meaning.
appreciate anything.
close the gap.
venture beyond possibility.
make it right.
live up to me?

Before I die I want to:

1. Meet Julie Taymor
2. Design costumes for a musical my sister will be in
3. Show my mom that I will be a costume designer instead of a veterinarian
4. Break 6 minutes at the mile
5. Get on the varsity cross country team for High School
6. Train a wild animal
7. Write a musical
8. Write a book
9. Become 1st chair viola in High School
10. Sing in the Lion King broadway

What: Swim with wild Manta Rays.

Why: Because I think they are amazingly beautiful, graceful, mystical creatures. There is something so enchanting about their massive size with passive, curious nature. I have never seen a Manta in the flesh because they have not been kept sucessfully in aquariums anywhere in the world (the longest any lived was 3 weeks).

Other information: Manta Rays are found in all tropical waters, particularly around coral reefs. The largest recorded specimin was 7.6 m (25 ft) across, weighing 2,300 kg (5,000lb). They are also known as Atlantic manta, Pacific manta, devilfish or cheap manta.

Mantas are filter feeders; feeding on plankton, fish larvae etc. They have the largest brain-to-body ratio of the sharks and rays.

Mantas can often be seen at reef cleaning stations where some small fish swim inside the manta's gills and all over its skin to feed, in the process cleaning it of parasites, like many sharks are known to.

A Manta's predators are large sharks, but orcas have also been observed preying on them.

Mantas are extremely curious around humans, and are fond of swimming with scuba divers. But caution should be taken - not because the animal is dangerous, but because if the mucus membrane is removed on their skin is rubbed away, they can get grazes on their skin and therefore infections.

My List
In not too much of an order..



1. Visit the Giant's Causeway in Northern Ireland
2. Scuba dive
3. Swim with wild Manta Rays
4. Visit Stonehenge at sunrise
5. Build a well or other needed facility for a community
6. Smash a window
7. Visit Cyprus again
8. Get arrested for campaigning for something I believe in
9. Take a silly/rude picture with a 'living statue'
10. Be present at a birth

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