Staff members and teachers across San Marin’s campus lead interesting hidden lives while working at San Marin and some possess secret talents or hobbies, such as scuba diving, nail painting, and sailing.
AP Environmental Science and Marine Biology teacher Melissa Havel loves sailing. She started sailing at age 30, after she met her husband, Curtis. When they first started dating , he bought a 25-foot sailboat. She started sailing with him in the San Francisco Bay and loved it. Although Havel loved being out on the water, she did not know how to sail. She decided to take a week-long sailing course during her summer vacation.
“I loved being out on the water, but didn’t know what I was doing, so I went to Modern Sailing in Sausalito and took a one-week sailing course during my summer vacation,” Havel said. “Then, we sold that boat and bought a 38 foot sailboat that we spent two years preparing for our sailing trip to Mexico.”
Havel’s favorite place she has sailed to is a small island called Isla Isabel in Mexico. Her favorite part of the island was seeing nature, and swimming with whale sharks in the Sea of Cortez.
“[Isla Isabel] had so much incredible nature!” Havel said. “[There were] blue-footed boobies and frigate birds everywhere. The entire trip was amazing and [it is] the coolest thing I have ever done.”
Wellness Hub Specialist Caley Keene enjoys scuba diving in her free time. She started diving in 2017 while travelling in Cambodia.. Even through their horrible weather conditions, she felt at peace in the water. Out of all the places she has seen and dived at, her favorite is off the coast of California in the kelp forests.
Her second favorite place she has dived is in the cenotes in Mexico. The cenotes are natural sinkholes filled with brackish water formed when the limestone cave rocks fall, and are primarily found in the Yucatan Peninsula, in Mexico. She recalls one of her times diving in a cenote.
“There was this one cenote where I was down 100 ft into this hole and the water was a very intense blue color because of the sediment and out of the blinding blue, a petrified tree appeared,” Keene said. “It was stunning.”
While diving, Keene has seen fascinating marine life in the waters. She has seen sharks and fish, but her favorite animal she has seen is the seal. They will sometimes imitate movements of the divers, and they remind her of water puppies.
“One time I had a seal following me and my buddy for our whole dive and it kept bringing different friends over to meet us,” Keene said. “We were all doing flips together and stuff, they’re very sweet.”
Algebra 2, AP Calculus, and Pre-Calculus teacher Kimberly Laabs finds joy in painting her nails.
“I blame Mrs. Davis for my nail polish obsession,” Laabs said. “Years ago [she] showed me these nail polish strips that were really easy to use and made nails look great. I had trouble growing my nails for years for a variety of reasons, but mostly as a kid I was a terrible nail biter. I started using the nail polish strips and they were loads of fun, with many cute designs and nail art. I found that using them helped my nails grow a little bit longer.”
She researched different types of nail polish, and found her love in the art. She owns over 600 bottles of nail polish and especially enjoys holographic polishes. Laabs likes small Etsy businesses for limited edition nail polishes. She owns polishes from multiple countries, such as Thailand, Australia, Canada, Taiwan, and several more. She loves this hobby because not only does she get to have cute nails, and the process of creating, but also the ability to focus solely on her nails, disconnecting from reality in a calming way.
“What I get out of it is not just having colorful nails and the artistry of how these beautiful pigments can be captured in a small bottle, but the soothing process of focusing only on my nails for a time, and truly disconnect from the world and all the stresses and just exist within the beauty of the colors,” Laabs said.
Many teachers and admin have special talents and cool hobbies around campus, and picking one up is beneficial to mental health and overall cognitive function.
