Sunscreen

Sunscreen. We've all heard the pitch 'You better put sunscreen on before you get sunburned!'. We hear it from our parents, doctors, and our teachers before we go on a field trip sometime in the late spring or early fall.

And how many of us actually pay attention? Not very many, obviously, because half of the class normally turns out looking like lobsters once you get back from that farm field trip, when it was 90 degrees out with no clouds in the sky.

Or, how about just a part of your body looking like a lobster body part? Your shoulders aren't so bad to have sunburn on, you can cover them up (though it hurts like a mo fo if you do). How about your nose?

Towards the end of last year, our half of the grade (because we had such a large class, we had to split the kids up and form halves of the grade, otherwise known as 'teams') studied fly fishing. It was fun enough, and I enjoyed it myself for the most part. At the end of the unit, we went to a local lake (for whatever THAT'S worth, it took an hour and a half to get there) to go fishing.

Of course, there were other stations as well, seeing as it was surrounded by forest. Fun fun. I'm not a big forest person, too many spiders and bugs, and you never really know what's watching you (and I did get turned around a few times, and two of my friends had to help me out).

But the fishing was fun, and it was nice out. The wind blowing off the lake was cool (even if it did smell a little fishy). I didn't catch a dang thing, but I did happen to see a fish eat half of my worm off when it swam by.

The first day we came back (it was a two day run), my nose was a little pink. I figured 'nah no big deal', so I went the next day again with no sunscreen. Stupid me, I probably should have put some sunscreen on my nose, or at least some of that SPF 15 moisturizer I normally use every morning.

Needless to say, after the second day of bright sun and no sunscreen, my nose looked suspiciously like Rudoph the Reindeer's. I was thankful for the three day weekend that week, even though my nose was still rather pink by the time that Monday rolled around.

To this day my nose is tanner than the rest of my body. Lesson? Use sunscreen. Not only will it prevent skin cancer, but it will keep embarrassing lobster (or Rudolph nose) colored skin at bay.

-Pein ~<3