I sit here today contemplating the uncertainty of life.

I have been many places in my life. Known many people. Experienced many amazing, eye-opening, challenging, and rewarding things. From being born and raised in Berkeley California (Albany if you’re from the East Bay), to attending the University of California Santa Barbara, to studying in Japan. From language school and trips to visit my sister in Guatemala, to going with my friends to stay with their family in Mexico (shout-out to G and Phoen, San MDA). And now starting a new chapter of my life in Philadelphia.

Transitions have never been easy for me. They’re an uncomfortable reminder that life has a way of constantly throwing curve balls. That you never know what to expect. The ease in which one can remove oneself from the familiar, and once again become the foreign forces us to reflect on the significance of individuality.

The only constant in life is change. This is true. But it is also painful. What is most painful, however, is when something happens that shakes the foundation of your beliefs, destabilizes the core of your knowledge base, and makes you question everything you took for granted.

This has occurred to me twice recently. Both times it was in the wakes of the tragic losses of figures that shaped my childhood. Figures that I looked at as distinguished representatives of their respective fields. Figures that inspired my imagination to reach for the stars, and look beyond the present.

I sit here today, writing to honor the memory and status of those that science took from us. But especially of two. Pluto and Triceratops. You will be missed, and I will never forget. Although Scientists may have revoked your status as a planet and a dinosaur, I still love you. I don’t care if you’re a dwarf planet, a juvenile Torosaurus, or a figment of my imagination. You both are key reasons I became interested in science.

Let us all learn from the fates of these two courageous icons. In their time they inspired people of all ages to dream and imagine. But as we must come to terms with the uncertainty of life, we must all accept the ever-changing world of science.

Science Giveth… and in the case of Pluto and the Triceratops…. Science Taketh Away.

Missing You

R.I.P. -jets.