Yes, quite literally what the title says.

I was out biking the other day, figuring I should get some exercise, fresh air, and sunshine, instead of being cooped up in the house playing Harvest Moon: Tree of Tranquility all day long. (Though I have to admit I still long for the days when I played Toontown. I did broach the idea of a month's subscription to my mother, which she immediately struck down. I'm already computer-addicted enough as is, I suppose.) So I decided to stop by the nearby park.

A very pressing matter in the town I live in is the bird population. We have astounding numbers of ducks, seagulls, geese, and pigeons. There are now signs at various bodies of water, such as at the reservoir and at the park I just visited, telling visitors not to feed the birds so that they'll continue with their usual patterns of migration instead of staying here permanently to gorge on bread crusts.

In fact, they've gone so far as to provide brochures in three different languages - English, Chinese (Mandarin), and Spanish, to "educate" the citizens about why we shouldn't keep the birds around. Something about how the birds poop in the water, which in turn makes the water dirty and gets them sick. (But wait...If they don't want the birds around anymore, shouldn't they just let the birds get sick and then die of their own accord? Oh, right, they wouldn't want to spread bird flu or some other disease. Or tarnish their reputation with the blood of several thousand innocent birds. Reminds me of the passenger pigeons being driven extinct.)

I saw some of the Canadian geese who have taken up residence at the park, and notice that they'd had their children (they're called goslings, right?). I thought it'd be nice to get close and take some photos of them. Here's a few shots...Sorry that they're a bit on the blurry side. Aren't the goslings so fuzzy-looking?





But while the goslings went on eating the grass (that's what it looks like, though they're actually eating the bugs), one goose stood guard. He stood there looking around suspiciously. Whenever I made a move he opened his mouth and hissed, showing his tongue. One time I tried to approach quickly and he ran towards me, flapping his winds and hissing like crazy. I hastily retreated until I was far enough that he decided I wasn't dangerous. It was actually a little fun, in a twisted way, taunting the goose. I don't want to risk getting bitten, though. I've heard goose bites are quite painful. But it would be nice to have animals that don't run away, growl, or try to bite me when they see me and actually meet an animal that likes me for a change.

Labels: animals, bird, birds, canadian geese, disease, geese, goose, hygiene, migration, park, pollution, sickness, wild animals

It'd be more accurate to say cats, since there's many of them. Two of them I've never seen in person; I only know them from the "Lost Cat" signs that have been going up in my neighborhood.

I've seen other cats too recently, and one of the sightings was during PE class. I know that there's a cat who lives near my high school and the middle school that I went to, and I saw it from a distance when I was jogging alongside the fence. (Unfortunately, a few students were dashing towards the cat and scared it off.) The others were ones I saw while walking, in a car, or just standing outside my house - though of course all of them were scared off by cars or by my presence.

I've always wondered if I smell like dogs or something, because cats are almost always hostile toward me. The only time a cat ever kind of liked me was when I was petting one on my lap at Humane Society, and even then, in the beginning, it was trying to stick its claws into me until it finally relaxed and started to purr faintly. Actually, I can't remember whether I'd had an allergic reaction that time. Maybe I wasn't allergic to cats just yet. Or maybe there are certain kinds I'm not allergic to. I did read in an issue of Cat Fancy magazine that Siberian cats are hypoallergenic; let me know if you know other species of cats that people aren't allergic to.

The most recent cat sighting, anyhow, was at a place near where I live. I'm a member of the Photo Club at my school, and when they offered a short "field trip" to a local park (well, it's just a big amount of open land, has hiking trails and a farm and tennis courts, and people like to fly their remote-controlled helicopters), I figured I'd come along. I thought it was quite a nice outing, as I got to explore a part of the neighborhood that I haven't seen for many years (last time I saw the farm was back when I had a field trip in elementary school). Most interestingly, I saw wild birds, like California quails...and even turkeys.

The farm itself had various animals, like ducks, chickens, pigs (they were huge!), and allegedly horses (I didn't see them, but I heard something about horses being there). And there's a cat. I think she/he (still can't tell apart animal genders, haha) was a more popular attraction than the other animals, seeing as kids kept coming over to try and pet her/him. (The cat wasn't overly fond of socializing, though, and sometimes she/he got intimidated and ran into the barn, if that's what you call it) One of my friends, who was with me, wondered why the cat seemed relatively clean despite living on the farm with no apparent owner. I guess cats in the wild learn to take care of themselves pretty well. I do wonder what would happen if we did the same with children. Us humans are funny since we raise children for almost two decades; I've never heard of other animals sticking with their children for so long. Maybe we'd actually fare better if we had to grow up and learn to survive at an earlier age.

Labels: allergies, animals, birds, cat, cat fancy, cats, farm, neighborhood, people, survival, turkey

My neighborhood almost always appears to be a peaceful place. I've never heard gunshots, seen people beat each other up, or any of the stuff that I've seen in movies happen around here. But there's one crime in particular that happens often and goes unpunished: theft.

It's one type of thing that is very commonly stolen, and that would be fruit. I've known for a long time that the usual thieves are squirrels, birds, ants, and all the backyard fauna. Nothing I can do about that, since they have as much right to the land as I do...Well, my old afterschool/summer math teacher said you could hang up these spinning things that would scare away birds (it's hard to describe them...they sort of give you an optical illusion when the wind blows at them), though I have no idea if it's working anymore. Surely even with their bird brains they could figure out that the spinning things wouldn't really attack them. :p

Actually, though, I've seen people become poachers lately. There was one time on the weekend where I was taking a walk and I overheard the conversation of two people. A woman was sneakily taking a fruit (I believe it was an orange) from a plant growing out of someone's front yard. A man scolded her for taking it, but she insisted it was fair game because it was on the other side of the fence and technically no longer on the owner's property. (Well, I guess there's no harm done, I highly doubt the owner of the fruit tree would notice it missing.)

I'm pretty sure I saw someone else who took a fruit too, quite recently. He was walking with his arms behind his back, and I kept wondering why until I saw that he was holding an orange. He also had his hood covering his head, so I couldn't see his face unless I was facing the front of him. Very suspicious! I later saw another old man coming along from the other direction, his hands also behind his back, and once I passed him I whirled around to see if he was stealing fruit. (But that was just me being paranoid, the second old man was innocent. XD)

If you'd expected to hear about something more major, sorry to disappoint you. The more serious stuff that I've caught wind of is in the school environment, what with the copying of homework, ditching of class (though I'd only heard people consider it, I don't know if they actually have), and...smoking. I actually saw a couple of my fellow students smoking one day at lunch when I was walking off campus. They weren't really trying to hide it. It wouldn't trouble me too much except that I figure I'll end up dying of lung cancer while they go along their merry way...

I've always wondered what made people want to smoke. I'd heard that it was done to lose weight (since your sense of taste gets ruined and you won't want to eat as much), or to look cool (no idea if this is true, enlighten me?), or just a mistake - you try it once and get hooked. I have no experience in the matter nor do I intend to have any, but feel free to tell me why you smoke or why someone you know does, if you feel like it.

Well, this is unrelated, but I like to share pictures of similar-looking characters when I see them. I watched the Tales of the Abyss anime quite a while ago and had forgotten about it up until I saw some pictures a few days ago. Tear Grants always reminded me of a Vocaloid, Luka Megurine. (If I remember correctly, Tear sings too. Talk about a weird coincidence, unless it isn't one.) Their bangs and hair colors are different, and Luka's hair is generally wavier, but I thought their outfits were similar.

TEAR GRANTS
click or click


LUKA MEGURINE
click or click

Labels: birds, cigarette, crime, criminal, fruit, luka megurine, neighborhood, people, reasons, scare, smoking, squirrels, suspicious, tales of the abyss, tear grants, theft, thief, vocaloid

On Monday, I returned to school after having been away for several weeks. Winter break isn't all that long, but it seemed long to me because I didn't go anywhere this time. I usually travel somewhere during the breaks. Nowadays, I am concerned about saving money for retirement, and besides, I didn't want to have to adjust time zones, so I decided not to go on vacation over the winter break. Over the break, my father and I went exploring the neighborhood.

For quite a while, perhaps several years, a local place, which is called a farm (but has other things, for recreation, like a swimming pool and a golf course), had been under renovation. Sometime in 2009, the changes were done and it was reopened to the public. It was the first time I had seen the place since before it had closed for the renovating. In fact, I hadn't been there for many years, so it was like going there for the first time, practically.

It turned out that two bocce ball courts and a volleyball court had been built. There was also a trail, leading to a place that actually was like a farm (there were farm animals, like goats, cows, and I believe I saw a pony). There was a swimming pool, but it was closed because it was wintertime. It was nice to see the creek with water in it...It's depressing in the summer since the creek tends to be dried out. One of the parks near my house doesn't have water in the ponds either. My dad says that the people of my town dried it out on purpose to try and drive the birds away.

Speaking of birds, the place where I live is really infested with them. My house has birds, which is nice (though some of them look just like the finches I saw at the petshop...). But the park has many Canadian geese, which should not be; the geese already ought to have migrated by now. There's also seagulls and a few crows. My school also has this problem, especially after it rains. I like the birds, except for one time when a seagull pooped on my math homework.

When my mom's friend's family came over to our house, on New Year's Day, the TV was turned on and I started flipping channels. (There seemed to be several Educational Programming channels...Hmm.) Eventually I reached a channel where exceptional moments in music were being played, and so my mom's friend's daughter said we might as well stop there. Some singer (I forgot her name, unfortunately) was singing when a bird flew by and pooped diagonally onto her mouth! It was disgusting. But that bird had good aim.

I was pretty freaked out because I saw a dead bird today. It was pretty well squashed, something disgusting on it as well as blood... It seems like another bad sign. But it could just be my imagination. There is a lot of roadkill nowadays.

Birds aren't the only animals all over the place, though. There are also plenty of squirrels. I have some in my backyard. My mom pointed one out to me, so I ran over to the window to see. It began digging up the grass and apparently found something to eat - perhaps a nut? Then it started eating, before holding it in its mouth and climbing up the tree. The squirrel looked pretty fat. It was a greyish one (maybe that's because of the winter, it could have actually been a squirrel with brown fur). I had seen a black squirrel earlier which was quite a bit skinnier than that one. It didn't find anything to eat in my backyard. I guess the early bird - or squirrel - doesn't always get the worm (nut).

That nut looked kind of like an acorn. Was that from my yard? Or a neighbor's place? Or somewhere far away, like near my school? There are plenty of acorns there. I've always thought acorns were cool nuts. I would like to make some acorn mush, or acorn pancakes, but I'm not sure how. And what would it taste like, anyways? D:

Labels: 2010, acorn, birds, blackberry farm, bocceball, break, creek, death, explore, food, neighborhood, nuts, poop, roadkill, seagull, singer, squirrels, television, water, winter

The building I am speaking of here is the California Academy of Sciences. It was completely only recently. It's located in Golden Gate Park, pretty close to the De Young Museum. I heard it had started being built ten years ago...Wow, that's a long time.

We arrived at the museum around maybe 11 am or so, I believe. I should've gotten up earlier (I woke up pretty early in the morning, but stayed in bed being lazy) but it's too late for that now. The line was really long...My family had thought that since it was Black Friday, a lot of people would be out shopping to get deals, but it turned out that wasn't true. There were a lot of people there. I guess it's because both the kids and the parents have the day off, so it was a good opportunity for them all to go to the museum. We had to wait for quite a while. Luckily, we made it inside before they started metering. (Metering is, supposedly, only letting people in when people leave the museum. I'm sure that must've been annoying for the people who wanted to go in.)

We started out by going to the rainforest. There is a four-story rainforest in the museum. Quite a few animals were there, such as macaws (which are a kind of bird, they look like parrots), frogs, lizards, butterflies, and other birds. I tried to take pictures of them, but there were kids shoving me, the glass on the cases (some of the animals are in display cases, but the birds fly free inside the rainforest building) was reflective, and besides, the birds and butterflies moved around too much. In fact, I think some of the animals in the museum were mocking me or something, because they would suddenly move when I pressed the button to take the picture. (I couldn't think of how to describe that...I think there was some other term for it, having to do with shutters or something)

Afterwards, we went down to the aquarium. Lots of fish there, some that really huge...My dad was commenting on how it would be tasty to have sushi made out of the huge fish, but my mom said that it wouldn't taste good and would be tough to eat. (Well, there was a term she used, but it was in Shanghainese, so I don't know how to translate it) There were some jellyfish, which I discovered come out nicely in photographs. I will probably upload them somewhere later on, once I get all the photos onto the computer.

Speaking of photos, I ran out of batteries on my camera...I think that my Panasonic Lumix seems to run out of batteries even quicker than my old Nikon Coolpix. I really miss using Nikon. This is a bit off topic, but I heard that Canon and Nikon are the two best brands of cameras...But more folks say that Canon is better. I don't remember whether I've used Canon cameras before or not. If you have a camera, what brand do you have? Does it work well?

Back to the topic...There were other things in the museum as well, like dead animals. I saw some jars with things in them; one jar had a fruit bat, another had a snake, and a third had black rats. The rats looked kind of nasty. You know, I once heard that although squirrels and rats are similar (can carry the same diseases, and both are rodents...or at least rodentish), people tend to dislike rats more than they dislike squirrels. Personally, I just think it's funny how when the squirrels run it looks kind of like a wave. (I mean waves in water, not a person waving their hand)

The museum also had some penguins. They're bigger than the penguins I saw in Australia, I think. When I was in Australia, we saw some dwarf penguins, which I believe are the smallest species. They live in the wild, I guess, but you do have to pay to go see them. It's actually quite interesting. It was nighttime when they were coming in from the ocean, so it was hard to see them at first. But then eventually I could make out groups of penguins swimming to shore. Sometimes, if they got scared (there were a lot of people watching, though from a distance, and besides, there were seagulls on the beach also staring at the penguins) they would run back into the water instead of crossing the beach. But once they thought the coast was clear, then they would all sort of line up, and then run like mad across the sand until they got into the safety of the bushes. It was really funny. I thought the penguins were quite amusing, but I had to leave because we were supposed to meet some other folks to eat dinner in a Chinese restaurant. Sigh.

Well, this post is getting really long and confusing, so I shall continue another time.

Labels: animals, aquarium, australia, batteries, beach, birds, butterfly, california academy of sciences, camera, fish, macaws, museum, penguins, preserved, rainforest, rats, running, squirrels, sushi

That would be my house. (Though maybe you think it's the last house on the street if you live farther down the street. But to me, it's the first house, because when you drive to the street where I live, my house is the first one on the right side.) Some mysterious happenings have been going on here lately, and the place that once seemed safe now feels dangerous.

Last night, I had a most unusual dream. Even though it is common for "kids" to get nightmares, when I was young, I never had any. But starting from this year I have started getting them. This was the most major nightmare I ever had. In my dream, I was woken up and was told by my mom that my dad had suffered a heart attack. I don't think I properly absorbed the news since I went numb and blank. Then finally I said, "He didn't have a pulse?" And my mom said, "No." I was in shock for a while. But then, later in the day, my dad walked down the hallway. I thought I was hallucinating. He was alive and didn't look unusual at all. He asked me what was wrong. Before I woke up for real, I was thinking, "But he was dead! My mom must've misjudged! People don't come back to life."

The other creepy thing that happened also had to do with death. Do you remember reading about the dead birds and other symbols that I was noticing/my mind was making up? (If not, refer to the posts ◆ something wicked this way comes, and ◆ the keys to the kingdom. They should be at the bottom of the September 2009 archive) Well, I hadn't seen any for a while since the two birds that had died, but in my backyard on the weekend, we found another one. There was a nice-looking bird on the ground, or at least, the bird used to look nice. Now it just looked gross because it was covered with ants and a few flies. It was really disturbing. My dad and I worked together to get rid of it. I used a big shovel to pick up the bird and dump it into the plastic bag my dad was holding. My dad tied up the bag and took it out to the trash.

Strangely, the dead bird with the ants swarming over it reminds me something my language arts teacher said. We were correcting a sample of a badly written memoir about a person and their dog. One of the sentences was something along the lines of "We where over my aunts house". Never mind the fact that it's the wrong word being used. Think about being over someone's house. Would that mean you're floating over it? Or on the roof? It should be "over at my aunt's house" or "at my aunt's house". My language arts teacher said that if you say "over my aunt's house" it seems like you are a bug or a pest running about the house. The thought of bugs reminded me of that dead bird with the bugs all over it.

I shall try to speak of something positive so the post will end on a good note and won't have you shuddering. It seems that my running seems to have improved (only on the warmup run, but better than nothing!). I used to always pull my PE shorts high up, sort of onto my stomach. Now I let them down a little more, so that it still is covering me adequately (no worries, I'm not going to try and "sag" like some people) but it is more at my waist than covering my stomach. It seems to help a lot with running. I can't believe I didn't figure this out sooner. XD

Labels: ant, birds, bugs, death, down, dream, family, father, flies, heart attack, house, life, mother, nightmare, over my aunt's house, reincarnation, running, shorts, strange

I have not read the book, because, by the way, there is a book with the same name. I thought it would be a good title today because it seems like there some bad signs. In fact, the two signs came in the way of birds.

The first of the signs was the two dead birds I saw. There were two dead birds. The first of them I came across when I was walking home just yesterday. A small brownish bird was on the sidewalk. I wasn't sure whether it was too injured to move or make noise, or if it was dead, so I picked up a fallen pine needle from a tree and poked the bird. It didn't move. I figured it was dead and decided to take a photo of it, because I didn't expect to come across another dead bird anytime soon. Anyhow, as I was going to walk home to get my camera and take a better picture, another person walked by, but he didn't notice the bird - or maybe he did and didn't care, because he stepped on it. I could hardly keep from gasping. Such ill treatment of the dead! I doubt anyone will appreciate being treated like that when they're dead.

And then I saw another bird. When I was going to my classroom I heard some students mention a dead bird. I looked around until I saw it...Another brown bird, but a bigger one than the one I saw before, was lying on the blacktop. I was starting to get spooked. I mean, it's not everyday that you see two dead birds in a row. I walked home today and saw that the first dead bird was still there. It had gotten kicked into the bushes at the side of the sidewalk by some careless pedestrian. I hope that when I'm dead no one will simply leave me half-buried in dirt to rot.

Looking at the pavilion, a place at my school which contains classrooms on the outside and a tall structure (built for shade, I guess?) in the inside, I noticed there were many crows there. It's not unusual to see crows or seagulls, but it is unusual to see many at the same place. There were maybe eight of them there. This is a confusing sign because eight crows means heaven. Maybe I didn't see some of them or I was just counting in a rush. I keep wondering if something bad is going to happen what with all these weird signs. (Perhaps they're just coincidences, but it's much more interesting to dramatize it...) Wait! This means someone is going to die soon and go to heaven! Oh no! (I mean, it's good for you to go to heaven, but it's bad to die, at least in my opinion. Unless you've lived a long and fulfilling life and you have decided you can leave peacefully.)

Because crows and ravens have some similarities, I would often get them mixed up. I remember I have heard a prophecy about the Tower of London in England. If the ravens leave the tower, then London will fall, or something like that. Anyhow, no ravens = bad things happen, to say it more simply. That's why they clip the wings of the ravens, so they can't fly. Anyhow, seeing those crows reminded me of the ravens since I imagined that maybe the ravens escaped and came to my school. (But that's really far-fetched, what with how far England is from California.)

Labels: bad news, birds, crows, death, england, heaven, omen, ravens, rudeness, something wicked this way comes, superstition, tower of london

I was planning to put up a post yesterday, but I failed to. My parents wanted us to all get a flu shot. I never liked shots, even though they are not a fear of mine. It really felt bad last night, like I had pulled my muscle. But this morning the pain is all numb. I hope I don't get sick because of the shot. It's my first flu shot ever, I think.

I walk home on Tuesdays and Fridays, and carpool the other days. So every time I walk home, there is this small house at a corner. And above it are many electric wires. On this wires perch so many pigeons there are probably dozens, maybe even hundreds! They sit on the wires crammed side by side, and their tail feathers wag up and down, almost like a see-saw. Really weird.

On the other hand, my school also has a bird infestation. Crows. I always wondered if it had anything to do with the fact that one of the school counselors is called "Ms. Crowe". We had a seagull problem last year, but now it's crows instead.

Labels: birds, carpool, counselor, crows, flu, pigeons, seagull, see-saw, shot, tail, walk, wires

Top ↑