Mr. Madame Butterfly

A butterfly, mounted on a glass panel. I took this photo during a recent visit with my family to the Simply Butterflies Conservation Center in the town of Bilar in Bohol. The butterfly farm is among the growing number of butterfly sanctuaries dotting the island of Bohol, and is among the stops when you go on one of those regular day tours to the island-province's top tourist attractions. The farm keeps just a modest collection of both live and mounted butterflies, but is staffed by incredibly knowledgeable tour personnel who, during our visit, succeeded in making us realize how ignorant we were of many things about these amazing creatures.

Did you know that assymetrical patterns on a butterfly's wings signify its sex is neither male nor female but, well, somewhere in between?

Book Dance

Young students convey their love for books and reading in a Dance Move contest during the 6th Book Lovers Convention held over the weekend in Koronadal City, South Cotabato.

The convention, held yearly in time with the annual National Book Week celebration, gathered more than 260 participants from 4 colleges/universities, 8 high schools, and 4 elementary schools of the SOCSKSARGEN region, and from one college/university of Davao City. This year's was hosted by the Federation of Book Lovers Club-Socsksargen and the Notre Dame of Marbel University-IBED. Participants went through 2 days and a night of educational and fun-filled activities (library tour, story-telling, and book sharing activities; spelling bee, read-a-thon, dance move and poetry in motion contests, etc.) all aimed at instilling and spreading the love for books and reading and in fostering camaraderie among book lovers and reading advocates. The convention carried the theme of this year's (76th) National Book Week celebration: Global Linkages through Books and Information Communication Technology.

The Dance Move contestants executed their routines to the tune of Gotta Keep Reading [The Black-Eyed Peas; Nasrallah-Berg, Ocoee Middle School]

Father, son, and horse

Ever heard of the parable of The Man, The Boy, and The Donkey? Well, there are no donkeys in these parts so most often we were told of the story of The Father, His Son, and (no, not The Pedicab, but) Their Horse. There must be as many versions of the story as there are many cultures around the world. But they all basically tell of how people would tend to traverse the extremes just to please everyone; and point to the moral that "no matter what you do, you just cannot please everybody."