Phillip recounts his experience being studied from an egg under a microscope by Taylor and Alicia. He grows quickly from stage 12 to stage 35 over nine days, feeling increasingly claustrophobic in the small egg. On the evening of day nine, Phillip shakes and stretches, hatching from the egg. While Taylor and Alicia are surprised and take more pictures, Phillip is relieved to swim freely. He is eventually placed in a larger tank with other fish but still wonders about his origins and purpose for being studied.

1. Phillip’s Story : Where Am I? A medaka project by Alicia Switlick

2. The beginning. So you want to know my story do you? My name is Phillip, and my life in the beginning was a big blur. I don’t really know where or who my mother was, I don’t know where I was taken to but I can tell you what I remember about my “transformation”. Date and time weren’t really big factors when I was laid, but according to these…”creatures” they were a HUGE part of my hatching, which was spent being poked and flipped and pictured under a hot light and two big eyeballs.

3. Day One / Stage 12 The creatures put me on a glass plate and placed me under a giant light. After looking around all I could see was a giant eyeball above me. What was so interesting about me? I only had my oil globule, cytoplasm and part of my spinal cord. See? I did hear them saying something about stage 12 but I didn’t understand it.

4. Day Two / Stage 26 Their looks of awe the second day had me kind of scared. I mean I thought I was just a normal fish… Was I wrong? I was growing at a very quick speed. By now I had a heartbeat, they could see me looking at them, I started to get a little hairy around my shell and was starting to twitch. What did they expect for a young medaka fish?

5. Day Four / Stage ? The creatures left me alone for one whole day (without changing my water like they had been)… big mistake. By now I had started to get scarred. What if I never got out of here and died alone? What if I never got to see a world outside of this petri dish? What if I never found my soul mate? All these questions began bouncing around in my head, making my heart beat pick up and led to more spastic twitching, man this egg was getting small.

6. Day Five / Stage 31 The creatures finally returned after two days. They were sharing stories of their weekend, whatever that was, and who is Taylor and Alicia? Either way the creatures were amazed at how big my eyes were, and how fast my heart was beating, up to 150 beats per minute.. But I did get them back for capturing me. The brunet creature jumped when I squirmed a little bit. He he, that’ll teach you to leave me for two whole days!

7. Day Six / Stage 33 Life inside this egg sure is boring, not much to do. I am getting used to these daily visits. Hey maybe I’ll be tan when their done with this big light. Any way I did realize that the creatures names are actually Taylor and Alicia, that makes more sense now. But I‘m still getting a little claustrophobic inside here. My heart keeps going faster and faster I’m up to 170 beats per minute now, and Alicia keeps saying something about brown spots on me? I see them but I think they are supposed to be there, but I’m not so sure about this bump on my back, its kind of weird.

8. Day Seven / Stage 34 Yup, I’m still growing like a champ. Got some jaw movement and a little color to me, but really if I don’t get out of this egg soon I am going to die, I mean 200 beats per minute that’s really fast. This whole claustrophobic thing is really getting to me.

9. Day Eight / Stage 35 I guess they’ve stopped caring by now. They didn’t take my heart beat today. But they mentioned something about seeing my spleen and how red it was. And honestly I didn’t mean to scare Taylor this time. This egg is really to small I need a way out and my little spastic movement is the only way that I can look for or try to make a crack. They were also complaining on how they couldn’t get a good picture of me... Maybe that’s a sign that they shouldn’t be holding me hostage here under this microscope.

10. Day Nine / Stage 35..still I CAN’T TAKE IT IN HERE ANYMORE!! Its way to squished I’m going to suffocate or break in half or something. They said they couldn’t really see a difference from yesterday to today, but I can definitely feel one I need out! I did hear them yelling at me to stay still so they could get a picture. But it is so hard when this egg is so small for me.

11. The evening of day nine. This was it. I knew Taylor and Alicia would be mad but I needed out now. I started really shaking and stretching. I HAD DONE IT! I got out of that wretched egg. Too bad they didn’t get to document exactly how I got out. I was pretty cool if I do say so myself, but man does swimming feel great or what?!

12. Day 10 / HATCHED! They were so excited to see I had hatched when they came back. But they still put me on that microscope to take a few last pictures, but I didn’t want to stop swimming for Taylor to take one. They were surprised how quickly and well I had grown up. Did this mean they would set me free?

13. Answer, no. They did not set me free. They placed me in a bigger tank with a ton of other fish exactly like me, and they don’t come to visit me anymore ( can’t say that I miss the microscope). There is so much room to swim, but I still long for a taste of freedom and answers to my earlier questions, like why’d I get studied, and what did they gain from watching me grow up?

14. FIN Thank you for listening to Phillip’s story. The main resource used for this project was the Medaka fish booklet in side of the classroom. Picture credit goes to Taylor Newcome and Alicia Switlick.