Fishy, fishy.

From first waking at 3:30am, to starting work at 7am (after a 50 minute commute), today was a full and fulfilling day.


The venue for work changed to the city's biggest fish-tank, the Melbourne Aquarium where my colleagues and I brainstormed ways to work smarter not harder. We live in a complicated and increasingly stressful environment, with more and more demands placed on our time and our resolves. I'm not alone in feeling overwhelmed and somewhat bleak about the future.


To help us along toward a clearer path, a facilitator led us through fun filled exercises, a team challenge that involved mixing it with the kids and elderly -- no points for emergency room victims -- and the ready extermination of many wads of sticky notes and butchers' paper.

One exercise involved each of us choosing the most appropriate words to describe our team members. No, it wasn't a free for all. *lol* We were given a half sheet of paper with a couple of dozen descriptive words, each word in either red, blue, green or yellow. We had to pick six words to describe a person, and then we had to deposit that in the respective person's envelope that we'd each been given at the beginning of the day. It was like mail-dropping, only more fun.


After morning break, with each of us having five or more completed sheets, we tallied up the number of words in each colour to achieve a high score in one of the four colours. I came up blue, with yellow second. That means that I'm amiable and analytical, basically I'm friendly and don't take well to abrasive communication and I have attention to detail which works well for the job that I do. It was also enlightening to find out what other people's preferences are, and for them to know mine. The exercise was accurate and useful.

After the day finished, we were allowed to either return to work (urgh, I started at 7am, I'm not crazy) or to meander the dark caves of the aquarium. I'd charged my camera the night before, no guesses for where I headed.

Here are my favourite shots of the day.

I captured a shot of this fish in mid stone splurt. It gathered small stones in its mouth before expunging them in a grainy rush, thus the specks in the photo.

But let's start from the beginning.

My day begins with a stunning sunrise from my office window.

At the Melbourne Aquarium, I visually gorged on sea jellies.

The Aquarium offers accompanied diving for those daring enough to swim with the sharks. The person experiencing this deep sea miracle seemed somewhat less than confident. He (I assume it was a he) smiled grimly at his snap-happy girlfriend and the many gawking tourists, while breathing with a snorkle in his mouth and the dive guide at his back, holding him up. I admire his bravado.

This fish came in as top contender for ugliest marine animal. The winning place though is reserved for an upcoming contestant. Stay tuned.

And no, this isn't a plastic frog. It breathed. Truly. I saw it.Long-necked turtles... babies. Guh! Adorable or what!? Their activity, small size and low light conditions made photography a little difficult, thus the fuzzy face. But still, adorable or what!?

Here's Nemo!

Sea horses! *high pitched girly squeal*

Well, technically it's a weedy or leafy sea dragon. Both, actually, in the same tank. I'm pleased to have finally captured a somewhat blurless shot of one of these amazing creatures. These babies come in a close second to my love of jellies. Now, how big of a fish tank would I need to fit these in.... *ponders*

Here's the finalist for ugliest marine creature. This sucker wins, hands down. I have no idea what it is. I grabbed the shot and bolted. Who wants to be around that!?

Another ugly (but cute) sea creature. This guy is a cuttlefish. You know, call me thick but I never realised that the brittle looking cuttlefish that washes up on the beach, and is given to cage birds to wear down their beaks, comes from this creature. I feel almost bad now. This is an amazing and graceful animal, too incredible for its body parts to be given to pet parrots.

It is weird, yes, but look at those eyes and the leathery fronds that are its mouth, legs, swimming apparatus... or something else that Google would explain for me if I were so inclined to investigate.From cuttlefish to penguins.

Trying to get a photo of rapidly swimming penguins reminded me of the river otters at the Kansas City Zoo.

When I'd had my fill of penguins, not literally because if it were literal I'd be in jail, or hospital. Hmmm.

I went in search of the exit which required me to walk almost the entire building again, up and down levels, only to find that Antarctica (aka penguins) is right near the main entrance/exit. Duh! But, that extra walking netted me this googly-eyed fish.

Bug eyes is out of focus, I know, but the other fifty shots are worse. ;-)

Stuffed in the corner of a tank was this critter. Can you guess what it is?

Here's a wider shot.

Figured it out yet? If not, keep thinking.

Outside I went, mildly surprised and generally pleased that the sun was setting and I had managed to occupy myself for over 2 hours with fishes, jellies, penguins, sharks, frogs, ugly indescribable critters and big bug eyes. *blissful sigh*

And the sun setting over the Yarra River wasn't so bad either.
And here ends my day.