I have a confession to make.

Rollercoasters!!! :D I love all coasters but I would never go on the slingshot ones. No way!

I have another confession. I'm trying to quit smoking once and for all (mostly due to sudden financial difficulties caused by school). :( It's hard.

One more. I hate hate hate hate Animation. As in, classes, not animated films/shows/shorts/etc, and I only went for Animation because my mother "knows what's best" even at 25 years of age. I just changed to Graphic Design today... I told her I was considering changing (which made her mad). I didn't tell her I already did it.

I hope you are able to reach your goal to quit smoking! I think i can speak for most if not all of us here when i say we're rooting for you! <3 <3 <3 and even though im only 13 i totally understand with the school financial difficulties. in my elementary, so many of my favorite teachers have been cut, they even cut out ART! Which to me is the worst thing to ever hear! (let me ramble for a second thank u :) ) it helped me become the artistic person i am today and if i wasnt artistic, i wouldnt be the really epic animator i've become! (and i hate classes too, i teach myself how to do this stuff, with a touch of help from YouTube lol!) and now theyre gonna cut of music too! really kinda pissed :( Luckily, not that im in middle school, were gonna be keeping the art courses and band for a while, BUT THE LITTLE ONES NEED TO BE INTRODUCED TO THE FINE ARTS EARLYYYYYYYY! Ok, im none now :3 and again, good luck with your quitting! <3 <O''

I didn't know you were quitting! :) Let me know if you need help or moral support....or hugs. That's a really hard thing to decide to give up!

And I think you will love graphic design. :) If my boss wasn't so awful at work, I would love my job to pieces....and that's my confession. I really want to deck my boss and then walk out of the office. And I have a great job, with great benefits, and all that.....but I'm so miserable because I have a bad boss. I'm literally one rough day away from quitting. Benefits and paycheck be damned!

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Poachers suck. And so do hunters

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Just want to point out they're not the same thing. My dad is a hunter, and he's the whole reason I respect the environment and animals. A huge majority of hunters also support conservation. Hunting is regulated- very much so for most animals and most places. I disagree with sport hunting/trophy hunting. But if my dad didn't hunt deer when I was a kid we'd have eaten very little. We were very poor. But even if someone is hunting and they aren't poor I dont look down on them for it. So long as their hunting is serving a purpose. It's the ridiculous "let's go to africa and shoot a ryno" that bothers me.

My confession?
I couldn't swim til I was a teenager. I'm also randomly scared of horses. No idea why- never had a bad experience. I respect the creatures, I like to watch them, even pet them. But riding them has been terrifying for me, and I get very nervous around them even when I try not to. I KNOW they aren't going to hurt me, it's some weird innate fear.

I hate trophy hunters.... And my confession? I am scared to DEATH of swimming in open water. The thought of swimming in the ocean terrifies me, but I still can't wait to do it. I'm the kind of person who confronts their fears and tries to over come them. Flying in planes combines my 2 worst fears, claustrophobia and heights, but I still do it. Being on a boat where I can't see the shoreline scares the crap out of me, but I still love going whale watching :)

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Originally Posted by AniaR

But if my dad didn't hunt deer when I was a kid we'd have eaten very little. We were very poor. But even if someone is hunting and they aren't poor I dont look down on them for it. So long as their hunting is serving a purpose.

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I grew up the same way Raina! :) Both of my parents hunted every season, and we always ate what we caught. I didn't experience beef or chicken until I was about 12 years old. We always ate deer or elk or pheasant or grouse or whatever we hunted. I even learned to shoot a bow and bugle in an elk as a kid. I agree that hunting just for sport and wasting the meat is wrong, but without hunting, I would have been one hungry kid growing up. :)

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Originally Posted by Mermaid Lei Loni

I didn't know you were quitting! :) Let me know if you need help or moral support....or hugs. That's a really hard thing to decide to give up!

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I just decided that last night when I was looking at my funds. I don't know if I am going to go cold turkey or ween off (which is really REALLY HARD) I could totally use moral support if you can cope with any withdrawl-induced stress I may have that causes me to be a bit testy!

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Originally Posted by Mermaid Lei Loni

I'm literally one rough day away from quitting. Benefits and paycheck be damned!

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If you do that, at least we would both have another activity to do together. Scouting for design jobs! I'll have to settle with what I can get til I take some of the essential classes, though.

Thank you guys for the quit-smoking support. I know it will help me with swimming too, so that is an extra motivator. Sorry to hear about all the teacher cutbacks, Kalani! That's terrible, especially the art teachers being downsized. :( I would be so very upset too. I would take matters into my own hands and take sketchbooks out. Gesture draw people in a cafe, go to the zoo and draw animals, etc. :)

I'll keep with the confessions. I am right there with you Lexia. I'm terrified to dive under the ocean. It's a fear of the unknown.
I'd like to do some scuba diving someday or just do some light freediving in somewhat clearer water so I can get over this intense fear and better learn what's under me. When I was little, I couldn't even swim in the pool without someone swimming with me or at least watching me (in which case I stuck to the shallows). I was afraid of being alone in deep water because I thought the invisible booga-booga was going to come up and get me.
Odd, considering I have always loved to dive down at the bottom of the pool.

Of course I'd be there for moral support and withdrawal-induced stress! :) And don't tempt me about job hunting! Oh boy......

Can I confess too that I've been so mad at work today that I have worked on my mermading page, my blog, and everything but work? Just please don't tell my boss! Tee hee!

I have a fear of swimming in water where I cannot see the bottom and a fear of massive amounts of seaweed. I don't know why, but I panic in both situations if I try to dive down to far or if I'm surrounded by seaweed.

Watching video's of people swimming in the springs and ultra clear water makes me so happy and sad. I wish I was there with them! The water here is so murky!

I feel like this is our... church of mers, and we have confession booths...

Mers, I have a confession.
I love my boyfriend, and I think he is drop dead gorgeous. But, I can't help but shamelessly admire a young professor at my college who runs the general education branch and teaches many english classes. What's wrong with me?

Nothing is wrong with you! It's perfectly normal to have a crush on someone whislt dating. Just as long as you don't cheat on your boyfriend! :P
I have a confession, I am terrified of swimming in water over 12 feet deep, mostly when I can't see the bottom, and the worst one of all, I went to seaworld last summer with my dad, his girlfriend and my brother, yes my family paid money to watch poor animals dance around in fishbowls!! >.< (I felt so horrible but it was amazing to see them up close, later I saw humpback whales, sea turtles and spinner dolphins in the wild in Hawaii and orcas up in Washington. They were so much more amazing in the wild.) I talked to one of the trainers that the tanks were too small and the whales were going to jump out of the tank one day and they told me that would never happen and that I was being silly. and that the whales were happy.... >.<

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Originally Posted by Mermaid Madeleine

yes my family paid money to watch poor animals dance around in fishbowls!! >.< (I felt so horrible but it was amazing to see them up close) I talked to one of the trainers that the tanks were too small and the whales were going to jump out of the tank one day and they told me that would never happen and that I was being silly. and that the whales were happy.... >.<

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I know how you feel about the "whales in fish bowls". You were brave to confront someone, but i am sorry that called you "silly" :(

Well, as long as admiring is "normal" and "okay" then I will just sit back and admire, not taking action of course.

It seems a lot of us are afraid of deep, unclear water! Perhaps we all need to experience it at one point and face the fear. :D

I don't think the whales are truly happy. A human can NOT speak for them, just put words in their mouths. I think they accept their fate and get lazy. Yes, lazy. Sad to say, I know. Their dorsals droop from lack of proper swimming. The currents in the ocean help exercise their dorsal, but they only get to swim in circles and perform tricks like.. dogs. :( Their food is given to them, instead of hunting. They are exposed to chemicals and stuff that they don't swim in, in the ocean. If that is "happy" then sure, you are "silly," and not them. (That's sarcasm right there, by the way.)

NOW I feel bad cause I've not only been to Seaworld but also Underwater World while living in Australia (both are located in Queensland, Australia - near Brisbane). Never once did it enter my mind "these poor animals" - tho they only have a few dolphins at that Seaworld (no orcas). I'm honestly not sure how Australia's animal handling rules vary from America's, but I felt like all their specimen had ample space - especially at Underwater World - that place is SO cool.

Some other confessions: I have a irrational fear of depths, but I am slowly working on that. And also I cannot do a flip in the pool, due to another irrational fear... I hate being disoriented, and getting water up my nose. I plan to work on overcoming these fears and not letting them hold me back.

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Originally Posted by MermanJesse

My confession is that I am afraid to fly.

What's crazy about it is that I am a pure adrenaline junkie, i.e. roller coasters, human sling shot, stuff like that.

I really want to sky dive, but can't bring myself to get on the plane in the first place.

When roller coasters are concerned, I have driven half way across the country to ride them. I have been on some of the biggest in the US. I have Kings Island 20 minutes from me, Cedar Point 6 hours north of me, Busch Gardens VA 8 hours to the east, etc.

There is one roller coaster that I have counted every single time I have ridden it. It is the Diamondback roller coaster at Kings Island. I ride 20 to 50 times in one day! I am up to 1,035 rides on Diamondback, and I can say that even though it is the same exact ride, the experience is always different.

I went to Chicago earlier this year to ride a new coaster. I planned my day to make sure this coaster was my 100th steel coaster, and at the same time being my 125 coaster, period. My track count at this time is 101 steel, 27 wood.

My all time favorite roller coaster is KUMBA at Busch Gardens Tampa. Here is a pic that I took when I was there this past July:
Attachment 6821

Then, attached are Diamondback and X Flight.

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Oh god, nononono.
I'm so afraid of rollercoasters. I'd never be able to get on one.
Some kid offered me 30 dollars in summercamp when I was a kid and I still wouldn't get on it.
One of the reasons I'm afraid of them, besides the terror, is I'm afraid of someone vomiting at the top of the loop and it coming down on my head.
I've seen it happen once. I'm also emitophobic. If someone throws up around me I'll start crying and shaking and having a panic attack.

As far as everyone else's water fears go, I completely understand that. I, too, have a definite fear of water. Well.... maybe its just the sharks I havent quite figured it out yet. But I'm sososos scared of sharks. TERRIFIED. I won't go out farther than my neck in the water usually and I don't like swimming unless there's people. And the water has to be completely clear. I love FL and all but I wish it was like HAWAII clear, then I'd feel better. If the water is thirty feet deep and I can see ALL the way down and see detail then I feel like I'd be fine. It's the fear of the unknown that I have.

... that image of Ariel is AWESOME.

I'm ridiculously scared of snakes. I can't be in the same room as them.
I also eat a lot of meat (from fish through to bambi), and it all tastes really good. Sorry :(

I love sushi to bits, loved it since I was little XD I am crazy about horses and mermaids but the weird thing is I've never ridden a horse or swam in the ocean. What an embarrassing thing it is :p