"Are you settling in okay?"
For the past 6 weeks in Bangkok, everyone has been asking me this question. I always say, "Mmmmm, am getting there." In my heart I was saying, goodness, what is taking me so long? Yet today, I can say that I am two steps from definitely saying YES.
Moving overseas to work on mangroves has always appealed to me. I have decided long ago that I would go wherever mangroves would call me, and I have been faithful to that decision since completing my thesis in 2001. Almost ten years of mangrove chasing later, I find myself in the bustling city of Bangkok. I never thought I'd find the experience terrifying.
Bangkok is very interesting, and there is no shortage of things to do. Yet since moving here, I have been consumed by an overwhelming desire to have a clean apartment. This is part of my "nesting" experience; and so I have spent all my weekends looking for the perfect floor cleaner or dust remover, or the best toilet scrubber offered in all of Bangkok.
Frankly it's turning out to be a mission.
But today, I am finally able to say that my cleaning equipment is almost complete. I only need a proper dustpan and I'm all set to work on my apartment. Bangkok, get set: once my apartment is totally clean, I am coming for you!
My settling in process is taking time, yet I think I am truly getting there. True enough, because over the weekend I have already explored the Thong Lor night life. And today, I have been to IDEA--the closest thing I have to Ikea and Briscoes. I thought I died and went to interior design heaven!
So it was a lovely day. I am happy, because now that I am feeling the urge to go elsewhere beyond raiding supermarkets for cleaning ware, I know that I am truly on my way to settling in my new city.
NB: I'm seeing Calypso tonight. So there.
Sunday, November 28, 2010
Thursday, November 25, 2010
Lessons from the mangrove Buta-Buta (Excoecaria agallocha)
Its milky sap, which flows from any cut surface on the leaf, twig or trunk can cause skin irritation and alleged blindness, hence the local name buta-buta. The sap is used to treat toothache and ulcers, and as fish poison. (Primavera et al 2004)
There are three mangrove trees I hold in high regard: first, Avicennia marina (because of its natural pioneering and colonizing abilities); second, Xylocarpus granatum (because of its distinct ebony wood, anecdotally recorded as the wood of Malaysia's royal throne); and third, Exoecaria agallocha, the poison tree.
I remember Excoecaria mostly because during one of my field visits in the Philippines, the locals told me to stay away from the tree because it is dangerous. The sap can cause blindness, and is generally seen as a "bad" tree. I remember seeing a beautiful canopy with such welcome shades of green, so difficult to associate with poison or anything lethal. The locals generally stay away from it, but it is still allowed to grow along the dikes of ponds. Despite its reputation as a poison tree, though, the sap (which causes blindness) can also be used to treat toothache and ulcers. Such is the paradox of the Excoecaria tree: it is both bane and boon.
Normally in my life, I find Excoecaria tree moments everywhere. I make some bad moves and bad calls, and that results to irritation and temporary blindness (usually by rage or some bad negative emotion). I suffer from the "sap" of my Excoecaria tree moment; sometimes, the effect is pretty immediate (I break a nail!). Sometimes, the irritation is not apparent, but the effect is really horrific (feelings get hurt, friendships are ended). The sap temporarily blinds me too, and that usually means I act worse: I retaliate, speak out of pride, or show force that may be unfair or unjust to the unsuspecting irritant. The aftermath is not a pretty sight: regret sets in, despair takes over, and self-flagellation ensues.
I've had my share of Excoecaria moments. I've been struggling through some of them lately, and yes, it's difficult. Yet such is the nature of negative emotions: I get hurt, I hurt other people, other people hurt me back. And the process repeats itself viciously. Unless, I try to turn this negative emotion into something positive--especially for moments similar to those I have mishandled or mismanaged.
That is the lesson I learned from Excoecaria's poisonous attribute. Despite its lethal nature, the sap can still be used to treat toothaches and ulcers (two very apt metaphors for the most human of all hurts and pains). I imagine it won't be pleasant for the bearer, and most likely will be difficult to stomach, but the medicine has to go down. It must be applied. Similarly, the pain and hurt I have might be the same balm that could soothe my suffering...if only I accept it and move forward from it.
Who was it who said, "The wounds that she gave me, are the wounds that would heal me"? How appropriate that the artist's name is Sting.
My excoecaria moments are hard and unpleasant. I tend to beat myself about them sometimes. Yet one thing I learned I must do, especially since I am away from my loved ones, is to be brave about the choices I make--even if they appear to be wrong ones at the moment. For example: the way I say things can entail some sort of hurt or misunderstanding, because I never know how the receiver of my message will react. Sometimes they don't react the way I want (especially when I allow negative emotions to influence my words), and then everything just goes downhill from there. This will cause some hurt and bewilderment on my end, and the first reaction is to shed tears and cry. Yet, based on the Excoecaria poison tree analogy, this hurt and bewilderment can later treat the source of my negative emotions; thus avoiding a repeat of the act that caused the original hurt and bewilderment in the first place.
Haaay, kung minsan kailangan lang akong matuto the hard way; there is no hard and fast rule how to make the "right" choices. Only "touch and go", trial and error. Kaya masakit. Kasi sa simula akala at pakiramdam ko, tama at may katwiran ang sinasabi ko; pero sa totoo lang, malabo pala ang labas ko. Nag-away na tuloy kami nung kausap ko. Hindi nakatulong sa kahit sino.
Tangent lesson from the Excoe tree? Treatment should always be targetted. Otherwise, if you try to use the sap to treat one discomfort wrongly, it might make things worse in the end.
Hayan. At least I turned today's very negative Excoecaria moment into something positive: an entry for my blog.
Oh and while I was ruminating on these thoughts, my mom rang me up. It was a good call, and I shared her my Excoecaria moment today. She listened patiently, and later said, "Perhaps you are an Excoecaria tree too; you are poison for some, but healing to others."
Mothers know best talaga.
There are three mangrove trees I hold in high regard: first, Avicennia marina (because of its natural pioneering and colonizing abilities); second, Xylocarpus granatum (because of its distinct ebony wood, anecdotally recorded as the wood of Malaysia's royal throne); and third, Exoecaria agallocha, the poison tree.
I remember Excoecaria mostly because during one of my field visits in the Philippines, the locals told me to stay away from the tree because it is dangerous. The sap can cause blindness, and is generally seen as a "bad" tree. I remember seeing a beautiful canopy with such welcome shades of green, so difficult to associate with poison or anything lethal. The locals generally stay away from it, but it is still allowed to grow along the dikes of ponds. Despite its reputation as a poison tree, though, the sap (which causes blindness) can also be used to treat toothache and ulcers. Such is the paradox of the Excoecaria tree: it is both bane and boon.
Normally in my life, I find Excoecaria tree moments everywhere. I make some bad moves and bad calls, and that results to irritation and temporary blindness (usually by rage or some bad negative emotion). I suffer from the "sap" of my Excoecaria tree moment; sometimes, the effect is pretty immediate (I break a nail!). Sometimes, the irritation is not apparent, but the effect is really horrific (feelings get hurt, friendships are ended). The sap temporarily blinds me too, and that usually means I act worse: I retaliate, speak out of pride, or show force that may be unfair or unjust to the unsuspecting irritant. The aftermath is not a pretty sight: regret sets in, despair takes over, and self-flagellation ensues.
I've had my share of Excoecaria moments. I've been struggling through some of them lately, and yes, it's difficult. Yet such is the nature of negative emotions: I get hurt, I hurt other people, other people hurt me back. And the process repeats itself viciously. Unless, I try to turn this negative emotion into something positive--especially for moments similar to those I have mishandled or mismanaged.
That is the lesson I learned from Excoecaria's poisonous attribute. Despite its lethal nature, the sap can still be used to treat toothaches and ulcers (two very apt metaphors for the most human of all hurts and pains). I imagine it won't be pleasant for the bearer, and most likely will be difficult to stomach, but the medicine has to go down. It must be applied. Similarly, the pain and hurt I have might be the same balm that could soothe my suffering...if only I accept it and move forward from it.
Who was it who said, "The wounds that she gave me, are the wounds that would heal me"? How appropriate that the artist's name is Sting.
My excoecaria moments are hard and unpleasant. I tend to beat myself about them sometimes. Yet one thing I learned I must do, especially since I am away from my loved ones, is to be brave about the choices I make--even if they appear to be wrong ones at the moment. For example: the way I say things can entail some sort of hurt or misunderstanding, because I never know how the receiver of my message will react. Sometimes they don't react the way I want (especially when I allow negative emotions to influence my words), and then everything just goes downhill from there. This will cause some hurt and bewilderment on my end, and the first reaction is to shed tears and cry. Yet, based on the Excoecaria poison tree analogy, this hurt and bewilderment can later treat the source of my negative emotions; thus avoiding a repeat of the act that caused the original hurt and bewilderment in the first place.
Haaay, kung minsan kailangan lang akong matuto the hard way; there is no hard and fast rule how to make the "right" choices. Only "touch and go", trial and error. Kaya masakit. Kasi sa simula akala at pakiramdam ko, tama at may katwiran ang sinasabi ko; pero sa totoo lang, malabo pala ang labas ko. Nag-away na tuloy kami nung kausap ko. Hindi nakatulong sa kahit sino.
Tangent lesson from the Excoe tree? Treatment should always be targetted. Otherwise, if you try to use the sap to treat one discomfort wrongly, it might make things worse in the end.
Hayan. At least I turned today's very negative Excoecaria moment into something positive: an entry for my blog.
Oh and while I was ruminating on these thoughts, my mom rang me up. It was a good call, and I shared her my Excoecaria moment today. She listened patiently, and later said, "Perhaps you are an Excoecaria tree too; you are poison for some, but healing to others."
Mothers know best talaga.
Tuesday, November 23, 2010
Some like it mud
There is a reason why Rhizophoras love mud.
In my undergraduate thesis, we found out that most of the Rhizophoras in our project site at Polillo Island grew best in silty loam to silty clay soil. The literature says that silty clay is the best place to find cations and all those good nutrients that Rhizos love; and to determine if our Polillo Rhizons did grow in silty loam to clay, I volunteered to do the soil fractionation analysis in the ES Department's bat cave. I felt like a real scientist pipetting those mud solutions over the Christmas holidays. I distinctly remember feeling a tiny Eureka! erupt in my heart when I finally fractionized our soil samples from the field. All that hard work to find out later that the soil analysis I did was not relevant to the other variables. Ah well, at least I felt like a scientist once in my life. It was well worth it.
This is exactly how I feel now that I finished sorting through my predescessor's paper files and magazine racks. I mined through several layers of Mangroves for the Future (MFF) history (and found some really great fashion magazines, by the way), only to realize that much of what I found was obsolete. History is good, but at one point, the historian must choose which is relevant for the present time.
So, wallowing in the MFF mud may have some advantage afterall. It just takes time, but soon, the Rhizo in me will get the nutrients needed to work well in this new post assigned to me.
Clear as mud, I say.
In my undergraduate thesis, we found out that most of the Rhizophoras in our project site at Polillo Island grew best in silty loam to silty clay soil. The literature says that silty clay is the best place to find cations and all those good nutrients that Rhizos love; and to determine if our Polillo Rhizons did grow in silty loam to clay, I volunteered to do the soil fractionation analysis in the ES Department's bat cave. I felt like a real scientist pipetting those mud solutions over the Christmas holidays. I distinctly remember feeling a tiny Eureka! erupt in my heart when I finally fractionized our soil samples from the field. All that hard work to find out later that the soil analysis I did was not relevant to the other variables. Ah well, at least I felt like a scientist once in my life. It was well worth it.
This is exactly how I feel now that I finished sorting through my predescessor's paper files and magazine racks. I mined through several layers of Mangroves for the Future (MFF) history (and found some really great fashion magazines, by the way), only to realize that much of what I found was obsolete. History is good, but at one point, the historian must choose which is relevant for the present time.
So, wallowing in the MFF mud may have some advantage afterall. It just takes time, but soon, the Rhizo in me will get the nutrients needed to work well in this new post assigned to me.
Clear as mud, I say.
Monday, November 22, 2010
Captain's Log: The Maiden Voyage
I begin this blog in a land away from my native home, and in a language not originally my first.
This is a recognition of a call I have been ignoring for so long, isang pagkilala sa katotohanan na ang siyang dapat isulat ay dapat nang isulat.
Since the language of my heart is Filipino Tagalog, I shall occassionally write in Tagalog (there are some things best expressed in Tagalog). Yet since the language of my mind is Filipino English, majority of what I write shall be in English. My basic education was greatly carried out in American English; so while I am in great awe of British English, most of my writing will reflect my schooling.
I am thankful to those who encouraged me in beginning a "blog". I am thankful to those who shall take the time reading entries. I am normally averse to anything beyond the comforts of pen gliding across paper, but in the 21st century, one must be a continuously evolving knowledge worker. Hence my openness to starting this "blog".
Mabuhay ka, Kaibigan, kung sino ka man. Umaasa akong sasamahan mo ako sa paglalakbay na ito.
Tara, biyahe tayo.
This is a recognition of a call I have been ignoring for so long, isang pagkilala sa katotohanan na ang siyang dapat isulat ay dapat nang isulat.
Since the language of my heart is Filipino Tagalog, I shall occassionally write in Tagalog (there are some things best expressed in Tagalog). Yet since the language of my mind is Filipino English, majority of what I write shall be in English. My basic education was greatly carried out in American English; so while I am in great awe of British English, most of my writing will reflect my schooling.
I am thankful to those who encouraged me in beginning a "blog". I am thankful to those who shall take the time reading entries. I am normally averse to anything beyond the comforts of pen gliding across paper, but in the 21st century, one must be a continuously evolving knowledge worker. Hence my openness to starting this "blog".
Mabuhay ka, Kaibigan, kung sino ka man. Umaasa akong sasamahan mo ako sa paglalakbay na ito.
Tara, biyahe tayo.
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