While we were at the playground, this little creature (thanks to Amanda @ MooreBlogLife, I now know this is a Woodland Skipper) landed right in front of one of my nephews. My nephew started to huff and puff at it, like the big bad wolf in the three little pigs. No, it didn’t make any attempt to fly away at all. What a fearless creature, standing up to a creature so many times its size! I just had to take a shot of it with my Sony Ericsson Cyber-shot camera phone.

There are some limitations in using a camera phone to take photo. Go over to Amanda’s site to see her shot of the Woodland Skipper, her shot is so much clearer and you can see much more details of it. The power of a proper camera is truly amazing. My shot is nothing close to her photo.

Pretty soon all the other children gathered around it. I was kind of worry with the fate of the little creature. Fortunately, it knew just when to take flight.

There are times in life when we have to stand up fearlessly to challenges, like the little creature, and yet know when to ‘take flight.’ The challenge is knowing when to do which. Some of us are ever ready to give up when we hit walls and yet others just do not want to let go and move on. When we take time out to reflect in the quietness, our inner voice will reach out to us. We have to learn to listen and to trust that inner voice.

You may be asking me what’s the big deal with the moon? Most probably you have seen it through documentaries in TV or from pictures in magazine. I thought nothing of the moon previously too; the moon was just a distant object in the sky orbiting around Earth.

But back in 1993-1994 when I was in the Astronomy Club in my Junior College, I was fortunate to be able to see the moon through the telescope in my school. I couldn’t remember if it was a Celestron but it was a pretty decent telescope. It was truly awesome seeing the moon through the scope. You could clearly see the craters and the terrains on the surface of the moon.

On full moon day, it will be so bright that we had to use a filter to view it through the telescope. And it was also through the scope that we got to see Jupiter and four of its biggest moons. It was amazing to see the moons of Jupiter always in different positions around it.

The most spectacular view I had was definitely that of Saturn and the rings around it. We even tried attaching a camera to the telescope to take some shots of the moon and Jupiter but it wasn’t successful. Hope I can dig out some shots and share it with all of you next time.

Courtesy from a friend who just came back from Bali luxury villas and resorts hopping. He sent me a picture zipped file of the resorts he visited in Bali and out of all the ones he had been to, Karma De Mare was the one that really got my attention. Just look at that view from the pool.

Would you dine with me after the swim? Probably you would but not with me.

“It isn’t enough to talk about peace, one must believe it. And it isn’t enough to to believe in it, one must work for it.” - Eleanor Roosevelt

I was at Labrador Park, Singapore, a few weeks ago. It was like taking a walk in history. I took these shots with the Sony Ericsson Cyber-shot camera phone with sepia effect, to give it a little historical feel. The first shot was that of a machine gun post set up to protect 12-pounder guns on the hill right above it and the second shot was that of a gun.

Reading the title of this post, what came into your mind? I must be kidding? How can Human be beast? From Charles Darwin’s Theory of Evolution, he theorized that humans were derived from apes. So that make us beast?

We have indeed come a long way. We have tried controlling our environment, which once (still is) fed and provided natural resources in abundance for us. We have created weapons capable of massive destruction. We have grown intellectually and yet emotionally ever ready to jump and to destroy each other at the slightest provocation.

Perhaps, all that wouldn’t justify us as beast? Recently, I picked up an interesting book ‘The World Without Us’ by Alan Weisman from the library. Alan questions: How would the world change if human beings vanished from the earth right now, for good? What would the planet be like in a day, a week, a month … a millennium?

In the book, it is mentioned that we genetically most resemble the chimpanzees. Dr. Michael Wilson who does field research at Gombe Stream, Tanzania, observed chimpanzees in wild tearing apart and devouring red colobus monkeys. They are superb hunter, about 80% of their attempts are successful kills. Comparing to lions, it is only about one out of 10 or 20.

Dr. Michael Wilson also observed something sad and kind of depressing. Chimpanzees were seen stealing into the territories of neighboring chimp groups, ambushed unwary lone males, and maul them to death.

In the book (observed by Dr. Michael Wilson), “… He watched chimps over months patiently pick off males of neighboring clans until the territory and the females are theirs. He also seen pitched chimpanzee combat, and blood battles within a group to determine who is the alpha male.” Do you see the resembles in human aggression and power struggles?

When I was reading that passage, I couldn’t help but felt deeply how human has acted in the same way. We may have evolved to become a superior primate but some of us may not have renounced ‘the beast’ within yet. Fortunately, I believe that majority of the people have not only evolved intellectually but also emotionally.