Golden Praying Mantis

One the the advantages of living in a jungle within a city state is I got visited by all sorts of rare animals .
In 2004, on separate occasions two of these never seen before golden praying mantises came to my house and created quite a sensation. My friend, a nature society education liaised with an insect scientist. To his knowledge, he had not seen a golden praying mantis and was very keen to study it. But not before I took it to schools to show this to my children and teachers.
All the kids, (local Singaporeon and Interntional ones enjoyed looking at them. The Scientist took the one we named Goldie and later conjectured that it was mutated from the ordinary praying machine. It adapted to the colour gold from the tree that bloomed golden blossoms just outside my balcony. Goldie was a girl.
After Goldie went to be a science candidate, the kids from the campus were disappointed. Not long after, another came. I fed it with cricket bought from the pet fish shop. The scientist had hope that Magdeline would attract a male and perhaps we could breed it. Sadly Magadeline didn't survive. I immoralised her in a setting agent. Unfortunately, the agent beached Magadeline of this gold colour.
I posted it to the Nanyangconnect website with scientific literature, but they no longer keep the postings on archive.
Subsequently, I had green praying mantises.
***Chrissy and Alicia admiring Goldie. This is an experience they would take home to Canada and America***

Last friday, a green baby praying mantis came to my teaching space window. I caught it and displayed it in a clear plastic cup. Kids love it.

Koru

On Labour day, my husband and I and our twelve year old son headed out west to Bethells beach. The drive is an hour and we had to drive through the windy road to the other side of the Waitakeres.

The sand is black because of the iron, and the surf is strong. The life guards have set out their tsunami equipment just in case the sea gets hungry and swallow up our home like it did to Sri Lanka and Thailand the Boxing day of 2005.

I saw silvery tiny Koru shells basking in the sun and pick them up as teaching aids for my lessons. I teach English to speakers of non English speaking children.

Together, we talked about the Koru. The most famous would be our Silver Fern, the national plant of New Zealand, and our formitable national net ball team.

I asked my kids what the Koru reminds them of, and here are some of the ideas.

The Koru reminds me of:

A graceful ice skater swirling on the spot on one leg.

A beautiful ballerina spinning a pirouette on one spot.

The unusual ethnic logo of a double koru on the an air New Zealand jumbo plane.

A caterpillar curving inside the chrysallis.

Fast whirling helicopter's propeller blades.

A slithery snake as it curls under a rock as it hybernates.

A mad ferocious gigantic tornado zooming across America.

A swishing old fashion washing machine going swish-swoosh.

Mr. Whippy's cold delicious mouth-watering yummy icecream.

A gianormous big black hole whirling in outer space.

A candy floss seller making delicious candy at the county fair.

An armadillo curling up as he hibernates in winter.

A zillion legged millipede after a thunder storm.

A pin-mill I just made, making a whirl whirl sound against the wind.



*Koru is a Maori word for the spiral shape.*