Student Profiles - Trieste
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| Team members (l-r): Alina Duran, Veronica Duran, Sylvia Preciado and Greg Marshall. | Trieste |
My name is Silvia Preciado. I am the first in my family to go to college. I like sports and the sea that's way I am taking Marine biology. I want to learn more about the sea and the animals that live in it. I not sure jet what I want to major in but I am thinking in a major that have to do in marine biology. This is my first semester at City College. I have been out of school for about three years. I am also supporting myself. I work full time as a bartender. I never work more than seven hours a shift. I have 11 units this semester. I am trying to juggle work and school. I have to say it is tough. I've fallen behind. Which explains my tardiness. I know it is a challenge, but I know it can be done with a lot of hard work and prioritizing. Hobbies: I enjoy surfing and would like to learn more about the things that I've seen in the ocean. I am interested in this Marine Biology class because I am considering a career in this field. I moved out here to California from Tennessee to be closer to the water and become active in water quality control and monitering. Since I surf every chance I get this is very important to me. The main reason I've decided to become active in this field and try to make things better is from an experience I had on a return trip to the place where I spent my early childhood. From the ages of 5 thru 11 my brothers and I were blessed enough to live in Hawaii. My father was always taking us to the beaches to boogyboard, surf, snorkel, and enjoy the natural resources provided. Sometimes at Hanama Bay (a huge bay with a tremendous coral reef and thousands of tropical fish) he and I would sneak off and snorkel along the pipeline riding the rip tide to a spot far away from anyone else. This spot was special because there was a morey eel that lived there and we would float there fascinated and motionless observing his hypnotic swaying and hoping he would come out of his home just a little more.
I am 22 yrs. old. I have chosen art as my major. I figured I should follow my passions. I grew up by the ocean. Southern CA and The island of Oahu. I love being close to the ocean.
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Eventually we moved away to Tennessee, and only occassionaly got to return for vacations and to visit my mother. About four years ago I decided to spend a day snorkeling with my girlfriend and feeding fish instead of surfing. I had talked up Hanama Bay for the paradise it was and we were both very excited to get there. Upon arrival I could already tell things were not even remotely the same. At the lookout at the top of the bay were gates to go through for donations with huge signs begging people not to walk on the reef, exhibiting the destruction that just a few years of doing this did. Saddened and ashamed of what mankind did to the largest and most beautiful living organism I had ever seen, we trodded down the road trying to remain optimistic.
I was not prepared at all for the sight I was about to see. We strapped on our masks and fins and kicked out to the breakers where the reef
sits about 1-15 feet under the surface of the water. Of course there were dozens of haole's walking on the reef, making me want to drown them. They could not conceive of the majesty and beauty of what used to be under their rented fins. A section nearly the size of a football field closest to the shore was barren and dead. Where there used to be urchins, anemones, live coral of all colors there were now just ignorant tourists walking around and feeding the fish.
Shocked and depressed, I decided that one way or another, my future children and all future children will get to enjoy the same experiences I
did without the guilt of their parents follies haunting them.