World Oceans Day is only 10 days away!

So, what will you be doing on June 8th? It's a Wednesday Friday (got June mixed w/ July!), so a lot of people will probably be working, other in school, some at home... I'll be teaching a couple of classes. But before and during and after all that, I'll be hosting the 3rd Oceanic Blog-A-Thon!!!

Why?

Well because,

JUNE 8 IS WORLD OCEANS DAY!!!

I hope you hadn't forgotten the big event? Nah... I'm sure you didn't! I'm sure you've been thinking of nothing else since I announced this year's Blog-A-Thon back in April. You've probably already come up with several wonderful ideas for an Oceanic blog post and have been have a really hard time choosing the one you want to share with the world... well why limit yourself to one? The past couple of years I've written a couple of entries for the Blog-A-Thon! :p

What's that?...

                           You forgot?!?!?!

*stunned silence*

My bad... I should have done a better job of reminding you regularly... the past month hasn't been a brilliant blogging period for me... ;o(

Well, you've still got 10 days!!! Remember, all you have to do to participate in the Blog-A-Thon is write a post about the seas or oceans next week and send me the link either by leaving a comment on this blog or e-mailing it to me at crazycrisb AT ymail DOT com. I'll write up an introductory sentence to each post and link them up in one big Oceanic Blog-A-Thon post (which will be active June 7-8) so all the participants (and anyone else who happens by) can go browsing through our marine adventures at will (cf 2009, 2010 editions)!

What kind of post? Anything salty that tickles your fancy! A childhood memory, a great holiday, your favourite beach, your favourite marine plant/animal/ecosystem, photos, a whole biology/oceanography/history lesson, a scuba diving experience, a review of an oceanic book or movie, the music of the waves... through poetry, photography, painting... the Oceans have inspired humanity since we first set our eyes on that vast expanse, and continue to do so to this day. How do they inspire YOU?

If you want you can think of something along the theme of this year's World Oceans Day: "Youth: the Next Wave for Change".

Perhaps you could look around and see if there are any events being organised close to you for World Oceans Day and decide to join in! Or maybe even organise one of your own? I'll be orienting all my classes that week towards oceanic subjects, see if I can't stir a bit of salty passion in my young students! ;o) Fellow blogger Shellbelle will be hosting a Beach Party at the Tikki Hut that weekend, with a possibility to win a give away for the participants! 

What plans do you have? If you're in the US perhaps you could plan on enjoying one of the many Marine Protected Areas in the country that previous or following weekends:

In any case, start planning your Oceanic Blog-A-Thon post and remember to Wear Blue and Tell Two! ;o)

And here's to wishing there were more people like the Kiwis (New Zealanders) whom surveys show wish more of their oceans were protected:

Earth calling CrazyCris... you still on the moon???

Dang... almost a month without posting?!?!?! How'd that happen??? Funny thing is, I don't know!!! I had plenty of ideas, posts half-written stuck in my brain at random hours of the day, took my daily photos for project 365... I don't get it!

And it's not like nothing's been going on. I've done some travelling (a week in France with a friend, weekend in Barcelona with other friends). I wanted to write about Pope John Paul II when the beatification was going on in Rome. I was going to write a "one month to go" reminder for World Oceans Day (I did find the time however to translate their website into Spanish for them!). I wanted to mention the floods in the midwest US (I hope none of my regular readers or your families got flooded out!). Then there was the earthquake here in Spain, in Lorca, not too far from Alicante (we didn't feel anything, but the town is a MESS! a friend of mine got lucky her apartment's ok although her building is damaged). And now there's the "Spanish Revolution", the "15 de Mayo" movement camping out downtown in cities all around Spain to protest the political system (and I'm going own to check out the excitement and add my two grains of salt as soon as I finish writing this).

*sigh*

I guess being gone for 10 days without internet really screws up my blogging habit. It takes me a while to get back on track... Hopefully I'm there now! I'll back-post my project 365 photos posting several days at a time. And I'm almost done with the World Oceans Day reminder. I've got a new blog series I'm about to start, Page vs Screen, contrasting books with the films/series made from them. I've got several book reports also mostly finished. And I'm almost done with my Easter Sunday procession post for Cris Crossing the Globe (need to finish editing some videos). Dunno how much I'll get done this weekend though since my sis is flying in from London for a birthday weekend (hers is today, my dad's on Sun).

Hope everyone out there is busy and happy!

Perhaps this peacock (in a botanical garden in S France) will add some more smiles... he's trying to show another guy who's the boss:

Damn!!! What's with the changes on Blogger??? I couldn't upload the video... its status wasn't showing up anywhere! Had to do it via YouTube first... waste of time...

Movie Madness: Thor - Popcorn Season begins!

ARRRGH!!! I had the bulk of this post written and ready to post for April 30th... just needed to add in a short review on Thor and find some pics to illustrate it... but the movie left me feeling so blah I couldn't bring myself to write it and instead packed my bags for a trip... and then was gone without internet for 10 days and then and then... dammit time sure flies!!! So just ignore the fact that this says April... I was mostly written on April 29th except for the Thor part.

-  *  -  *  -  *  -  *  -

And so it begins... with Norse God Thor blasting his way into the cinemas this weekend (in Spain we got it a week before the US!), the cinematic summer is now upon us! To think, it's still April! May Asgard find us prepared. :p

"What's this?! You haven't written a word about movies in months, and you're starting up again with a popcorn flic?!?!?!" Not only have I been mum on the subject of the silver screen for far too long, I haven't even been to the movies in a month! scandalous! :D A mix of fatigue, un-interest in what was playing on the screens (the cinematic doldrums between Oscar season and summer are depressing...), oh, and a little incident on a bike that kept me immobile for a while. I'm going to try to bring back my movie-going standards of old, and take advantage of the draft posting option and write my mini-reviews for Monthly Movies as soon as I get back from the film (instead of leaving it to do them all at once when I can't remember as much and laziness kicks in at the idea of having to prepare a long post with reviews, posters and links).

Project 365 - 124

Scuba-Cris

Project 365 - 123

excitement of discovering Collioure, an old French town

Project 365 - 122

contemplating the white caps on a Mediterranean beach

Project 365 - 121

Enjoying a relaxing walk through a botanical garden

Project 365 - 120

Auto-portrait week! I'm going to try and sneak my way into each of this week's photos...

me and a green French bug!