Second thoughts and looking within

I've just been thinking about how life has turned out to be.  So many good things right now- but there are so many possibly bad things, and truly bad things as well.  I think I am trying to not see the bad things or, at least, see the bad things in a light where they don't look all too bad.  Other people have it worse.  I have no right to complain. Having said that, I've come to the conclusion, for the upteenth time that my dad is, for lack of a better word, AWESOME. In so many ways I can't count.

My mom is too, by the way.  Now that I'm seeing my own sister as a wife and mother and my days as a single (free & happy) girl are nearly over, I've come to appreciate my mom more.  Through the years, we've hardly seen my mom's dad.  It was due to circumstances beyond our control- many complicated things I don't want to delve into.  Now that he is frail and may die any time, I see how sad my mom is to see him in the state he's in. It's made me sad for her, sad for him.

Several years ago, my dad, who's always been so strong in every respect, (I'm not exaggerating) was very sick.  So sick that everyday when I'd wake up I'd wonder, "Is he still here with us?  Has he left us behind?"  For some reason or other, and with many thanks to God, he didn't leave us.  But one day he will.  Seeing my mom sad for her dad makes me cringe and cry for her, and for me too. It's made me think much more.  I've been trying to put myself in other people's shoes and trying to see things as they do, and learn a thing or two from it.

In a few months I'll be married.  Moving on to another chapter in my life. I am sad thinking  I won't be around to help my parents very much anymore (if things turn out the way they seem to be setting up now).  I won't be here to do things they aren't able to do anymore because their bodies are aging.  I may not even be here, near them, when one or both of them die.  My sisters and I will be in totally different areas.  We won't have each other as closely and supportively as we've always had each other.  And so life goes on. It could be way worse, I know.  I have many things to be thankful for. The pain of tomorrow I don't know yet. Sometimes it's just better not to expect too much.

A vast body of water stays calm and serene, though thousands of little streams, and maybe some huge rivers flow into it incessantly.  The beauty of nature.  The calmness of nature.  Mother Earth rests in the hands of her creator, knowing full well He is holding her afloat.

Calm down.  Expect the worst and just hope and pray for the best.  Such is life. Go on.  Things are always coming in going.  People come and go.  One day everything will be finished.  Through this life and through the end of this life, I'll try to remember and follow Mother Nature's example, and rest in the hands of the Supreme Friend.

Falling behind

Sometimes I feel like I've been falling behind everyone else ever since I can remember. As a home-schooled grade schooler, my parents trusted me enough to do my school work on my own (as I did until I became a lazy pre-teenager).  I got away with that for quite some time. I terrorized enough teachers who were often to fearful to report to my parents (who both have very strong personalities) that I, one of their children, was a wayward, lazy, downright bad student.  Little did they know that my parents would have totally kicked my butt if they had told them the truth.  Eventually my parents did pick up on how slack I was, when I stayed in one grade all too long.  Luckily there were entrance exams to allow the schools to see what grade you can enter.  And even luckier, or by some magic of some sort, I managed to skip the grades I should have studied and was allowed to enter into the grade I would've been in.  I wish I could've said and done the same thing about college! But in the end, I am glad to say that although I did not finish college at the same time most people to, I've done a lot more cool stuff, learned a whole lot more, and achieved more than a lot of other people have in the same amount of time.  

(If that would only fully justify the way I see my own situation.. :()

I'm giving myself a pat on the back. Today I finally finished several things that have been on my Urgent!! To Do List for the past two months. Yay.  Now if only those guys would stop rolling their eyes...

The leaves of the trees have also been falling, falling behind, below, and all across the yard.  Like, literally ten minutes after raking 4 big basket-fulls of leaves, a beautiful cooling breeze comes blowing through and like some magic of some sort, the yard is full of leaves again. Thankfully most of the trees just have a few more dried leaves hanging here and there, and I can already spy the little green buds coming out of the knuckles of the trees.  Otherwise I'd have a garden full of tree skeletons.  They don't go too well with the usually-beautiful-lillies which had to be reduced to less than a foot tall because of the typhoon.  

Oh the wonder of nature. Yesterday I visited one of my friends who has a lot of mulberry trees in her yard.  They all lost their leaves from the salty, strong winds typhoon Megi brought. About a week after, her mulberry trees are full of green and white whorls of little leaves, and flowers (which, in a few weeks = mulberries)! 

I have to get back to work now.  I leave you with a photo of this funny little goat I saw, who nearly poked itself on the bum. 

Baa

Till next time...

-Nature's Cottage

Storming

It's been a really fun and happy three weeks for my whole family.  Now things are back to the normal routine minus the damage of typhoon Megi. I'll post some of the photos I got from the long road trip we had today on our way back home to the north.  We encountered a lot of floods, broken trees, leaves and plants withered by the wind.  Even the plants and trees here in our house are all withered away.  Dry and black like a heat wave came over them.  Luckily (or not) the rain was not too strong in our little town so the farmers will be spared.  I did some cleaning and got bitten by those angry inch long fire ants who love umbrella trees.
We have a lot more cleaning to do tomorrow.

The waves are ridiculously huge they're literally right outside our gate right now.  There was a huge rumor going around that there was a tsunami heading our way and I did some research and apparently they meant storm surge.  I did even more research and apparently we are already in storm surge levels now.  Seeing the size of those monsters out there, I'm not surprised.

Things change so quickly and consistently.  A few days ago our garden was beautiful- nice and neat, everything growing just right. My basil seedlings were all nicely settled in the new beds I dug for them, and my bok choy were all growing.  We had lots of flowers and lots of shady spots in the garden.  Now our garden is a huge mess.  I'm not complaining at all though. I feel terribly sorry for all the people who lost loved ones, their homes, crops, and pretty much everything else they have.  I have it all good- and that's why I can't sit around too long- my friends and I are doing our usual post-typhoon community relief work.

That's it for now.  See you around soon.

-Nature's Cottage

Lessons

There are so many things to be learned in life that learning should never end. No matter how old you've gotten physically- there's so much to learn and keep learning.  A few days ago while giving a class I was trying to explain to some of my older students (I've been teaching them for several years now) that through the years that they are trained, much more is expected from them.  They shouldn't expect to be treated as the same pre-teen that they were several years ago. 

Like I said before, I only became a better student when I became a teacher.  Now I regret taking so lightly so many opportunities I had in learning. I hardly remember anything now- and it's all because I was not appreciating what I had.  It was because of my stupidity and silliness thinking that I was already good, I didn't have to pay extra careful attention to what was being taught.  And so now, one of the things I'm thankful for is learning the value of time and opportunities.  Now I can only just feel sorry for the things I've missed out on, done, said, etc in the past and look forward, remembering always what I've learned.

Great news on the rescue of the Chilean Miners. I hope and pray that the whole rescue operation continues to move smoothly and that everyone will be rescued safely.  It is refreshing to see how they value the lives of people.

Surprises

I've had many pleasant surprises during the past few weeks.  One of my sisters- who we haven't seen for a few years in person (usually we just talk on Skype) pleasantly surprised us with a visit.  She gave birth 7 months ago to a healthy baby girl we've been wanting to meet ever since- and now we finally have.  It's great to have them both here.  Our big family's littlest person is really pleasant and patient.  We are all looking forward and interested to see what she'll be like as she gets older.  She's a little ball of energy and is constantly trying to crawl around.

On another note- Sam gave me a call today and said that he just got himself a ticket back here and got it 1/3 of the usual price.  (Thanks to Jetstar's sales which ended yesterday!) When he comes, it'll have been exactly 872 days since we had last seen each other in real life- minus a few skype video calls.  I can probably count the number of times we had video calls to each other on one hand, so it's been just talking on Skype, cell phones, chats and emails.  We're on the last leg of our long-distance relationship.  Honestly, it's been real quick.  I We had a few arguments and nearly called off the whole thing a few times. Honestly though, right now I'm just happy.  Happy that he finally has a ticket back.  Happy that we've already gone this far even if we've really only just begun.

PS.

A good friend of mine is a researcher on Breast Cancer and never fails to send me tips on how to prevent or at least lower one's chances of getting the disease.  Two of the latest tips she gave me was:

• Don't stay up later than 10:30 pm
• Avoid all plastic containers for anything which has to do with cooking and eating- be it storing food in plastics, or having a plastic water bottle. Instead, opt for glass or stainless containers (be sure you don't get aluminium containers).

Bees

A couple days ago I discovered a hive of Apis Dorsata bees hidden in the skirt of one of a trio of our trees.

 
(Sorry I just have a low-class, ancient camera) I took this shot while squatting on the ground.  It actually isn't that high. I'm about 5'2 and the swarm is about level with my head. If I walked under the tree I'd get bees (and stings!) on my head.

Here's a closer look :



Nature's Cottage Apis Dorsata

 
While the swarm looks relatively small, it's actually quite a nice sized swarm.  It's about 2.5 feet wide and about 2 feet long. 

I've been watching them every chance I get.  They're beautiful insects.  I grew up with bees (melliferas) and through the years of caring for them and watching them, I have so much more to learn and am constantly amazed by the bees. I've noticed that most of these bees have just been clinging onto each other and clinging onto the branch. Almost unmoving except for the lower portion of the swarm, where a bunch of the worker bees fly in, do their bee dance, bring in pollen and nectar (there's a lot now), then fly off again.  I've been watching and hoping to get a glimpse of a drone of theirs- or, even better, their elusive queen.  They allow me to stand about a foot away from them and don't get irritated by my presence. 

All the Dorsatas I've seen here are black and white, unlike the ones in other Asian countries.  As far as  know, as of year 2005 or so - no one has ever seen the queen bee of the Apis Dorsata because they're quite hard to study.

Here's a photo of my apis mellifera's:

I took this photo at noon time.  They were feeling rather hot and decided to move out of the house for a while.  It's a first time for me to be taking care of bees in the heat.  I'm used to caring for them in much cooler weather. There's a few things to get used to but generally it's not all that different after all. 

On a side note, it's raining right now, and this is just what I've been praying for.  We haven't had rain for about two weeks now and everything's gotten so dry.  I just helped my friend prep her garden this afternoon for planting tomorrow- so here's to hoping that it will rain again soon! Nice to "smell rain" again.

Get activated

There are many things I'd like to write about. I have to write about the lessons from ants-how it's all been, and well- just everything.  But I'll start off with my week.  What a week it's been!

I did two trainings at Red Cross this week- BLS-CPR for Healthcare providers, and Standard First Aid. It was all good fun. We just finished today. My co-teachers and I (we're all good friends) took the courses together since it was mandatory for us to become certified first aiders for the yoga asana course... and as teachers, parents, friends or citizens, it's always good to be prepared.

We had a full day of tests- CPR stuff, bandaging, carries, etcetera.  Then as part of our final exam- there was a simulated disaster. I ended up being a victim- a corpse actually. I had some big rocks near my head (which had apparently hit my head and caused my death) and lots of "blood" was poured all over me.  We had our training near the beach so there I was, face on the sand, pretending to be dead.

It was a rather hilarious scene in a sense that my team mates- i.e. the other people who took the course, were totally panicking.  They kept coming up to me and shaking me and asking if I was alive or not.  Of course I was instructed to play dead so I was just lying there for the longest time.  I was the last one to be taken up since I was the "dead" victim.  But for a real life scenario, I know I would be totally rattled myself.

It's definitely a huge responsibility and challenge to be any sort of rescuer or anything of the sort.  More often than not, life plays out worse scenarios than we can possilby think of as possible until they happen.  When they happen, there are those of us who either crumble under the pressure and intensity of the event, or - who are able to react and move with clarity of mind and perspective and do whatever we have to do without losing the plot.  I salute those people who are able to do this.  Thank you for what you do!

Anyhow... so here I am, finally re-trained with the updated CPR and first aid techniques. I'm planning to sign up as a part time volunteer at Red Cross.  They're a great organization to work with.  Gotta love the selfless spirit in the service they offer to anyone in need.