Ostrich eggs

Visiting an ostrich farm today, we were greeted by these gigantic eggs.

A parade of ostrich eggs. .. and their shadows :)

Just lovely!

My good friend showing off how big  these eggs are.

Fragmented Friday

This is my first time to join this meme. I found its theme very interesting where we can document fragments of recent events in our lives ~ too short for a stand-alone post, but too good to discard. Hence my fragments for this week.

***I was so busy this past week with my experiments and at the same time pressured for my oncoming oral presentation where I'm not that prepared yet. I'm freaking out! Can't help blaming it to my late night experiment schedules that further exhaust and stressed me out. I know I had time management issues.

***I realized coffee is no longer effective for me. Drinking a cup still doesn't wake me up and more than a cup gives me palpitations. Crazy!

***I felt so bad my daughter had to endure staying with me in the lab till late night, sometimes until 3 ~ 5 AM the next morning. So terrible. To make up with her, we usually ate at nearest McDonald's that wee hour. But I managed to fix this by dropping her off to stay with some friends for the night.

***In spite all of the challenges rocking my week, I got many blessings to count and thank for too. I'm so grateful with Prof. H1, an expert to what I'm doing right now. Although he's not my adviser but he always find time to discuss with me regarding my research.

***I'm so thankful with Prof. H2, who without any questions entrusted me their lab keys and entitled me to use their laboratory and its equipment anytime. His PhD students are equally very helpful to my project, imparting their expertise and skills to the betterment of my experiments.

***Ah, Prof. S is the best. He is not my adviser and it's my first time to solicit his expertise, but he goes beyond from simply improving my protocols to actually performing my preliminary experiments as part of our class activities. He offered the experimental animals, the experimental area, the skills and the assistance of his research assistant and students. The bonus part, I got to learn a lot of experimental skills and have parts of my experiments done. How great can that be! Indeed, I'm beyond grateful.

***My daughter learns Math and Chinese mostly without my assistance. And she often gets 100 score which I buy for 3usd each, so to further encourage her. My hectic schedule plus my weakness in Chinese can't help her in any way but I thank God for heaven sent angels to assist her ~ her teachers and some of my friends. I'm so proud of her independence, smartness, diligence and for understanding our crazy situation.

***I'm so glad to have good friends around me. Their support and hugs are very much appreciated. I would have gone crazy had I didn't have them around. Truly they're my true friends. A Thanksgiving greetings and a chat with a good friend from Fiji last night was a nice surprise too.

***My husband's constant chat and text messages everyday, though he's a country away from me, strengthened my weakening perseverance and optimisms. My mom's text messages brightened up my days.

***Indeed, for this Thanksgiving Season (though we don't celebrate one in our country), I had so many things worth thanking for!

***This particular message caught my attention. So true and had me thinking and reevaluating my priorities in life.

Wishing you all a Happy Thanksgiving!!!

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Crafting a native costume

In time for our university's 92nd birthday, the foreign students were invited to join the event last Saturday, to be on our traditional clothes and represent our respective countries and flags. This year, only three students were from Philippines so I decided to let my daughter join the fun, who by the way loves joining events. Then I decided to let her wear our cultural local costume. The problem was, I only got the top/blouse so I needed to come up with a skirt and the accessories, which were not so easy to acquire being on a foreign land.

I just needed to remember the essential colors for our native costumes: red, yellow, black and white. Scouting nearby DIY shops, I bought necessary materials for her headdress and accessories (necklaces, bracelets, anklets and earrings). I know I'm not good at crafting but I took such task as a challenge.

beads: red, yellow, black, white,
other colors are optional; small
anklet bells, clasps,  nylon.

Wire sticks (I can't find black
though), yarns, steel wires.

Here's how I made our local headdress:

I arranged the wire sticks and tied them together with a thin steel wire.

Then added some layers of steel wires at the base.

And further added more layers of thicker steel wires on the top part.

However, due to my busy schedules at school, I finished the headdress just a night or actually a dawn before the event. I slept like 3 AM to finish everything. Hurrying up for the 8 AM event the next day, I forgot to take a photo of the final product but here's how the headdress looked like, as worn by my daughter. 

The last-minute made headdress. Basically, I just tied the yarns around the steel wires. Then I stitched a black garter to attach the headdress to her head and embellished it with few beads. 

This was how my daughter looked like in the event. I modified her wrap-around skirt. It was actually mine bought by my husband from Costa Rica 6 years ago. I decorated it with sheer red handkerchiefs on each side, and it fit her so well (my, she's really growing up fast). Then I made her simple necklaces and anklets out of the beads I bought. Back home, necklaces and bracelets are far thicker and grander. A good Filipina friend Cyd, helped me with the earrings and bracelets when she came to visit us one afternoon. I finished her look with a pair of Habagat slippers.

My own version of Kaamulan Festival costume yay! I say, not bad, right? (except for few falling yarns lol, which I managed to fix later on). 

Behold the pretty Filipinas on our traditional outfits. Both Cyd and my 9-yr old daughter were wearing our provincial native costumes, usually worn on our local celebration known as "Kaamulan Festival".

Us (me, 2nd from right, I wore our national costume) and some friends.

With some more friends...

and with more... My apologies! Just realized we might had handled our flags the wrong way, should not touch the ground right?  If so, this is out of pure ignorance... We will be mindful the next time...

Us on our flags.. 

My daughter was kind of enjoying the attention she's getting lol.

I really enjoyed crafting my daughter's attire. After all, such event only happen once in a blue moon. It's also a good way to bond with her. My daughter was so ecstatic and grateful about it.

So, what do you think of her costume? Do you like it?

Filipiniana

The cloth is made out of
pineapple leaf fiber
or piña fabric.

I, along with my daughter and other international students joined the celebration for our university's 92nd founding anniversary and then represented our respective countries. My daughter and Filipino friend wore our local traditional Kaamulan costumes while I wore a Filipiniana dress.

Me and my 9-year old daughter, on her traditional  Bukidnon attire. I made her costume by the way yay! Check it out here  :)

Joined by Cyd from Philippines wearing a Bukidnon dress (left), with Romanian friend (hmm not on her traditional get-up), and  from Honduras on her beautiful red Flamenco (right).

Joined by more friends from Japan and Nepal. 

Africa and USA (and he insisted he's wearing a traditional get-up, hmmm).

More from Asia, Europe, Africa, Central America.

With ladies from India. 

and more (daughter hid herself with our flag..)

 "Praying for Thailand", with Thai and Japanese students.

Overall, we had fun showing off our colorful and unique traditional costumes especially during the parade. Such activity gave us the opportunity to bond with other international students, who on ordinary days are invisible while immersed on their own busy academic worlds. That day, Thailand was in our thoughts and almost everybody donated for the flood-affected country.

Colorful Diwali Fest

The Indian international students held their annual Diwali Festival last year (end of October) in our university. Diwali Festival, also known as the "festival of lights" is an important event for our Indian friends. The lighting of small clay lamps filled with oil signifies the triumph of good over evil, of light over darkness, and of knowledge over ignorance.

Co-sponsored by our university, the Indian students performed a lot of cultural dances in their uniquely colorful clothes and upbeat music. They also invited some of their international student friends, thus I, my daughter and some friends joined the fun. I was privileged enough to join a Bollywood courtship dance to the tune of Bole Chudiyan and a Punjabi pop song to the tune of Tunak Tunak Tun (performed with my daughter). My then 8-year old daughter on the other hand joined a family dramatization with an Indian friend as her dad and an Indonesian friend as her mom. I was so proud of her acting skills and the fact that she memorized all her lines. Towards the end of the program, we then joined a fashion show that showcased various Indian traditional and colorful clothes. A scrumptious Indian dinner followed. 

Here are some of the colorful photos from that fun night:

This colorful flower on the floor greeted the guests. Guess what these colorful stuff made up of? Yes, colored salts. Ain't they resourceful!

My daughter Joey (leftmost) and her little Indian friends in their colorful dresses. 

Dancing Bollywood's Bole Chudiyan (I'm at the right side, front).

A fun dance for couples...

Now, this was me at the far left with our friends and kids dancing a really fast-paced dance. We ran out of breath afterwards lol.

On colorful get-ups. Ain't the kids the cutest! They had a blast!

Joey (leftmost) with her friends and the dancer/choreographer friend.

My daughter in a family funny short dramatization onstage.

 These are professional Taiwanese Bollywood dancers on their colorful dresses. Lovely!

Indian friends dancin' some funny cultural dance.

Colorful fashion show with India's famous hero Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi in the middle.


Me at the orange Punjabi dress.

With my gorgeous friends on our Indian outfits. Love the exotic feel!

That event was by far one of the most memorable one. We strengthened our friendship with our Indian colleagues and learned a lot about their colorful culture. Indeed, everybody had a blast!