M's Dedication to this Kitty

M missed the bus in registering herself in Monyet King's Tiger Blogfest, which is still running now till April 23rd 2010. She requested me to publish her piece of art for this little Kitty.

Tiger!  Tiger!  What would you do!

There is no jungle, you're now in a zoo.

People walk by to look and stare.

You yawn and snooze because you don't care!

Man have guns and bullets and set traps.

With just bare hands, they would lose in a snap.

They don't fight fair in this killing game.

Instead of pride, they should be in shame!

Tiger!  Tiger!  You are strong!

We hope to get you back where you belong.

We'll keep trying though sometimes in vain.

We feel your plight, we feel your pain!

You want your jungle where you belong.

Where you can hunt and roam all night long!

What if you get hurt or even killed?

In a zoo, you are safe but so not thrilled.


What is life, if there is no strive
Here I wait to be fed
I wait to die
In the Jungle, to be wild and free
Tiger! Tiger! I can then be me!

~ written by M, 20 April 2010

Thank you M for this piece of "picture perfect" poem. Hmmm... I didn't know you can be so poetic. Ahem..hem... M is also my grammar checker service provider.

M owns a blog with her set of fantastic pictures ie Not Just Odonata

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Gift from Pandora

"So who am I? I'm a neighbor, a friend, the enemy. I am anonymous. I am invisible. I am everywhere. I shuffle past you in a dense crowd, shoulder to jammed shoulder, unwashed because of the water shortages, stinking and sickly-looking from the bankrupt diet of cheap carbohydrates and synthetic proteins that are all we have left. Like you, I'm trapped in a rat warren of dusty gray concrete; tracked by the omnivorous, all-powerful net; sucking in sulfurous air; badly outnumbered; mostly numbed. I'm scarred, scared, hunted, and all too human."

Picture taken from http://james-camerons-avatar.wikia.com/wiki/The_Hometree

Did you think it was me? Na... That was an extract from James Cameron's Avatar - An Activist Survival Guide book written by Maria Wilhelm and Dirk Mathison.

Strangely today, my colleague and I were talking about the Avatar movie and I mentioned how I was almost in tears when the Hometree was brought down by the homosapiens.  Later, I found a package in my office's pigeon hole. Guess what?

A James Cameron's Avatar - An Activist Survival Guide book all the way from London, UK. Thank you for the coolest gift, Mr and Mrs Martin Bromfield. Mr & Mrs Bromfield were my guests for one of my nature excursions. I was indeed fortunate to have met them and got to know that Mr Bromfield has a role in part of the production in this Movie of Year (voted by the Environmentalists and Tree Huggers of Planet Earth) - AVATAR.

To the fans of Avatar, this is a cool book. It tells you from A-Z about AVATAR from the air of Pandora right up to its flora and fauna. Having to have read some parts of the topics, the authors were actually warning us about what we are now doing to Mother Earth. Yes, us the homosapiens.

To my friends, if you want to have a look at this book, you got to be extra nice to me ;) As  what Gollum used to say, "My precious..."

To Mr & Mrs Bromfield, thank you very much once again. I didn't expect that you would remember this and it is an honour. As an appreciation, I will buy an original AVATAR DVD for myself when it is available in the market. That will be a small tiny weeny fraction to pay for your next vacation to Langkawi, ya?

Picture taken from http://james-camerons-avatar.wikia.com/wiki/James_Cameron's_Avatar:_An_Activist_Survival_Guide

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For My New Year 2010

Garden plants do not usually excite me until the more I have to learn about them, the more I slowly grew to appreciate them.

I saw the broken variegated Schefflera Arboricola stubs that were used for the new year's party decoration and I asked if I can have them. Then the kind landscape lady handed me two different plants in the poly bags. My new year gift in the morning at work!
Schefflera Arboricola or its common name, Dwarf Umbrella Tree,  is a flowering plant in the family Araliaceae and it is believed that this plant is native to Taiwan and Hainan.

It is great to know that this common houseplant is tolerant of neglect and poor growing condition. This is the plant that is most suitable for a "gardener" like me then. The most interesting fact about this plant is that it will produce aerial roots under the right condition. When the aerial roots reach the ground, they will become fully functional roots. Wow, like the mangroves Rhizophora family. 

The second plant from the lady is a Dracaena family. I'm guessing that this variety could be the "Indonesian Pinwheel" based on the darker green stripe in the center of the leaves and lighter green stripe at the sides. In Greek, Dracaena means "female dragon" and I am clueless why it is named as such.
To me, Schefflera Arboricola represents resilience and the Dracaena represents strength. In the hope that from this new year 2010 onwards, Langkawi will be blessed with ecosystem resilience and strength to ward off any further developments.
2009 is the year I started blogging out of encouragement from Dr Paul Saffo. Thank you, Dr Saffo. I wish to take this opportunity to thank these people for helping me  identify the species and generously sharing their wealth of knowledge:

Mandy of Not Just Ordonata blog for being my spelling and grammar checker

Dr Wee Yeow Chin of Bird Ecology Study Group, for helping me with garden plants

Chiew and Dr Ruth Kiew of FRIM, for helping me with forest plants

Ria of Wildshores of Singapore, for sharing the common interest of our shores

Ku Ismadi, for his pictures and identifying local plants

Azimi, for his turtles expertise

Nina and Seng (MNS Bird Group), for birds id

Aida of LangkawiNatureKakis blog for being a gig too

Also to my blog followers! If I had missed out any other names, please give me a shout

And of course, Wikipedia! I have done my tiny weeny part to prolong Wikipedia's life.

I look forward to your continuous support and checking in. Happy New Year to all Nature Lovers!

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