i am become a couch slug, and i blame canada
Seriously, for the first time since I was like 12, I'm super addicted to the Olympics. I don't even have time to be super addicted to the Olympics, but still, I'm suddenly enthralled with a bunch of sports I know fuck all about. Oh, and figure skating. The men's free skate is going to be insane!
I haven't even watched 'Lost' yet. I feel oddly disconnected. I'm not writing lately, either, but it feels like a good thing, like instead of being a sign that I'm depressed or blocked, it's simply a sign that I don't have anything to say right now. What I do need to do is get back on the fanfic reading...
If only there wasn't a second graduate degree program to apply to and a dissertation prospectus to write. Anyway, in case you wondered why I've been AWOL the last week or so, all this is why.
And now, since I'm random girl today, I'll tell you a little bit about my valentines day, when
Not that I care about Valentines Day. He does, so we find a happy medium: he does something nice for me that isn't traditional and sappy. This is much like how he got me a cutting board for Christmas two years ago, and I loved it, because it showed he knew what I needed and wanted.
Anyway, we'd been to the Chattanooga (Tennessee) aquarium before, and we found that the two are pretty different. The Chattanooga aquarium has very little ocean stuff, notably an open tank to pet rays and some really cool exhibits on jellyfish and sea dragons. Its real draw is the freshwater building, with much of the fish included in full exhibits with appropriate plant life, amphibians, turtles, snakes, etc. There's so much to see, you could spend several hours there.
It took us less than two hours to go through the Atlanta aquarium, but I wouldn't say it was a waste of money. They just definitely chose quality over quantity. That's not to say the Chattanooga aquarium wasn't quality, but this was nice on a whole different scale -- much of it in the building itself, not just in the fish displays. It's definitely a destination, an impressive facility including a cafeteria and a place for kids to play. In fact, the whole thing struck me as distinctly kid-oriented or maybe just exploration-oriented, with relatively simple, sometimes exclusively pictorial signs explaining what was in each tank. In a few places, you could crawl into small compartments beside or under the tanks to get a closer look. There were also a couple of open tanks where you could touch things like starfish, anemones, urchins, and small rays.
It was split up into five areas (freshwater, tropical, etc.), each one designed to make you feel like you're meandering ahead with plenty to look at on your way, like peepholes into larger tanks or tanks over your head. It doesn't feel institutional, like you're in an assembly line, just waiting to shuffle up to the next thing to see. To accomplish that, the areas are busy and winding and a bit cluttered, honestly, but it kept me from getting impatient and bored, so it seemed like an effective design.
(What did make me a bit impatient: the crowd on a Saturday. It was so prohibitively huge as to drive me a little batty. If crowds or lots of small children drive you insane, be prepared for the worst on a weekend.)
The big con for me was the almost exclusive focus on fish. They have otters and penguins, and they're getting dolphins later this year, but they're mostly uninterested in turtles and frogs and all the other critters that usually go along with water habitats. Of course, this might not be a concern of most aquarium goers, just me.
The big pro is definitely the oceanarium. Not only is it huge, but it's set up so that you have plenty and diverse ways to see what's in it, from small port holes to large glass observation walls (one with seating in front, so you can hang out) to a glass tunnel through it, where you can watch schools of fish and various rays and small sharks swim beside you and over your head. I'm not normally all that interested in ocean displays, but this one totally won me over.
Anyway, I'm trying to make more of an effort to talk about my world in this journal, so I thought I'd share my experience this weekend. I'd highly recommend both aquariums -- just know that you're paying more for the awesomeness at Atlanta, whereas you're paying for a whole afternoon's occupation at Chattanooga.
I haven't even watched 'Lost' yet. I feel oddly disconnected. I'm not writing lately, either, but it feels like a good thing, like instead of being a sign that I'm depressed or blocked, it's simply a sign that I don't have anything to say right now. What I do need to do is get back on the fanfic reading...
If only there wasn't a second graduate degree program to apply to and a dissertation prospectus to write. Anyway, in case you wondered why I've been AWOL the last week or so, all this is why.
And now, since I'm random girl today, I'll tell you a little bit about my valentines day, when
Not that I care about Valentines Day. He does, so we find a happy medium: he does something nice for me that isn't traditional and sappy. This is much like how he got me a cutting board for Christmas two years ago, and I loved it, because it showed he knew what I needed and wanted.
Anyway, we'd been to the Chattanooga (Tennessee) aquarium before, and we found that the two are pretty different. The Chattanooga aquarium has very little ocean stuff, notably an open tank to pet rays and some really cool exhibits on jellyfish and sea dragons. Its real draw is the freshwater building, with much of the fish included in full exhibits with appropriate plant life, amphibians, turtles, snakes, etc. There's so much to see, you could spend several hours there.
It took us less than two hours to go through the Atlanta aquarium, but I wouldn't say it was a waste of money. They just definitely chose quality over quantity. That's not to say the Chattanooga aquarium wasn't quality, but this was nice on a whole different scale -- much of it in the building itself, not just in the fish displays. It's definitely a destination, an impressive facility including a cafeteria and a place for kids to play. In fact, the whole thing struck me as distinctly kid-oriented or maybe just exploration-oriented, with relatively simple, sometimes exclusively pictorial signs explaining what was in each tank. In a few places, you could crawl into small compartments beside or under the tanks to get a closer look. There were also a couple of open tanks where you could touch things like starfish, anemones, urchins, and small rays.
It was split up into five areas (freshwater, tropical, etc.), each one designed to make you feel like you're meandering ahead with plenty to look at on your way, like peepholes into larger tanks or tanks over your head. It doesn't feel institutional, like you're in an assembly line, just waiting to shuffle up to the next thing to see. To accomplish that, the areas are busy and winding and a bit cluttered, honestly, but it kept me from getting impatient and bored, so it seemed like an effective design.
(What did make me a bit impatient: the crowd on a Saturday. It was so prohibitively huge as to drive me a little batty. If crowds or lots of small children drive you insane, be prepared for the worst on a weekend.)
The big con for me was the almost exclusive focus on fish. They have otters and penguins, and they're getting dolphins later this year, but they're mostly uninterested in turtles and frogs and all the other critters that usually go along with water habitats. Of course, this might not be a concern of most aquarium goers, just me.
The big pro is definitely the oceanarium. Not only is it huge, but it's set up so that you have plenty and diverse ways to see what's in it, from small port holes to large glass observation walls (one with seating in front, so you can hang out) to a glass tunnel through it, where you can watch schools of fish and various rays and small sharks swim beside you and over your head. I'm not normally all that interested in ocean displays, but this one totally won me over.
Anyway, I'm trying to make more of an effort to talk about my world in this journal, so I thought I'd share my experience this weekend. I'd highly recommend both aquariums -- just know that you're paying more for the awesomeness at Atlanta, whereas you're paying for a whole afternoon's occupation at Chattanooga.