Friday, June 29, 2007
The Chronicles of Gabel...
Once upon a time, in the deep blue ocean, there lived a little turtle named Gabel. Now Gabel the turtle was a capable turtle… or so he thought. Turtles like to catch jellyfish (well take it that it makes sense), jellyfish was the main source of food and jellyfish catching was very much a survival skill and a recreational activity for turtles. Our protagonist, Gabel the turtle certainly had to acquire this essential skill, so at a tender age, he was enrolled into the Turtlet Elementary School for Jellyfish Catching. The school introduced them to the rudiments of jellyfish catching. It seemed that Gabel the turtle was a rather promising turtle in this field, showing decent results in catching tiny jellyfishes of varying species and origin. Gabel the turtle could not understand why other turtles just could not catch anything because he felt that as long as someone put in effort, there would be some form of result. So all the way through elementary school he was hailed as one of the best jellyfish catchers.Then he progressed to a reputable high school for jellyfish catching, which admitted only the best catchers. The aim was to train them to be the crème de la crème. In this school, apart from hard skills in catching jellyfish, they have to learn more theoretical stuff to deal with larger, more poisonous and crafty jellyfishes. Anatomy was important as they needed to know more about the poisonous tentacles and the entire composition of a jellyfish. Physics was important as they needed to calculate the trajectory of the jellyfishes with respect to the currents in the sea. Jellyfish psychology was imperative as well so that they could anticipate and figure out how jellyfishes would react to attacks and set traps accordingly. Well, those were just the tip of the iceberg, there were so much more stuff to learn. Gabel the turtle might not be the best student, but he was definitely one of the better ones. All along, he had a rather high self esteem and full confidence of his abilities which was backed up by his academic results and jellyfish catching track record. Now, after high school, it was time to progress into university.
As expected, he was admitted into the best university in his portion of the sea, The Oceanic University of Jellyfish Entrapment. He decided to major in the art of using sound waves to entice jellyfish. It was a rather new area of interest but it created a sensation in the turtle world due to it novelty. Rather difficult to get in but Gabel the turtle got in anyway. After taking some lessons, he realized that it was not what he expected it to be. While it was an interesting course, he realized that this was such a new area that he needed more knowledge and higher studies if he wanted to excel in it. Headache…Moreover, he did not do as well in university. Of course, while he was troubled over these issues, his friends in other courses were doing much better studying the more conventional courses like catching jellyfish with a net or catching jellyfish with a rod. Now Gabel the turtle was thinking if he made a wrong choice. While his other friends were getting a good head start in their career of jellyfish catching, he was worried if he could have a good future with the bare minimal knowledge and the mediocre results. His confidence level faltered. His other turtle friends all had plans for the future or a predefined career path. He was confused, no plans no future, nothing… He started to wonder if studying so much in the past was worth it. He felt that he was only a mirage, not worth a farthing and all the results in the past was nothing much to boost about. He wanted to just hide in his shell and never come out again.
Gabel the turtle was lost… in the truest meaning of the word.
