e s s a y

The Beauty in It

I can say that I’m now looking at the beauty of everything. That all things no matter how negative it seems was, it is on how we people looks for the beauty in it. Just like the seasons.

In spring, it is the dawn that is the most beautiful. Waiting to see the beauty as the light creeps over the hills, their outlines are dyed a faint red and wisp of purplish cloud trail over them. The sweet scent of nectar in the flower as it blooms. Everything is so lovely.

While in summer, it is the nights that fascinate me. Not only when the moon shines for the sky is clear and the clouds are wandering but also the dark nights that show the fireflies lit to and fro. While when it rains, frog ribbits will highlight the night.

In autumn what I love is the evenings. That mesmerizing moment when the glittering sun sinks close to the edge of the waters and the silhouette of the birds that flies in fours, then in threes, and in twos. It really makes me want to stop time to see every detail in it. When the sun has set, my heart beat together along by the sound of the wind and the hum of the insects.

And of course early mornings of winter captures me. It is beautiful indeed when snow has fallen during the night. It seems really romantic for me. A perfect picture when the ground is white with frost. But even there is no snow or frost, just simply the coldness and silence it brings was so wonderful.

Amazingly it’s Chocolates

It’s very irritating whenever I got a cough or a cold, and I bet that there are people like me who feel the same. When I got one, it lasted not just days but weeks and it’s not good for me. Maybe there are people who also taught by their parents or grandparents that during cough and cold days, sweets are totally banned.

Well, here's some news that might make you feel a bit better: Researchers in the U.K. found that chocolate may be a natural cough suppressant. 

After looking at 300 patients that had chronic coughs, scientists at the Hull Cough Clinic discovered that 60 percent of them stopped hacking when they were given theobromine, a substance that's found in cocoa. These findings fit with a recent study performed by London's National Heart and Lung Institute, which showed that theobromine is actually a more effective than codeine, the common ingredient in cough medicine.

According to the study, patients were given 1,000 mg of theobromine, which equals about two ounces of unsweetened dark chocolate (or 16 ounces of milk chocolate).

There's no word on whether or not eating chocolate (and not just having theobromine) can preventively stave off a cough, but I'd like to think that having a hunk or two-you know, just in case – can't hurt.

Lost Community and Neighbourhood

It is the 14^th day of December 2012 when a tragedy shocked the world. It is not unknown to us that 20 innocent children at a public elementary school in Connecticut suffered an injustice mass killing. In America, the tragedy has focused attention on the country’s lax gun laws. The gunman, Adam Lanza, was a 20-year-old reclusive man, who used three semiautomatic weapons, including an assault rifle, all licensed under his mother’s name. Before he went to the school that morning, he fired one of the guns at his mother while she was sleeping. Then he headed to Sandy Hook Elementary School which he had attended when he was a young boy. He killed every child in sight including six teachers from the school who had tried to cover the children. After which the gunman pointed the gun at his head and shot himself.

America is prepared to pass the necessary law that limits gun ownership and monitor the selling of the guns. But, it is always easier to propose solutions than to make sense on the larger context in which crimes of this kind occur. The investigators have found no meaningful leads that can somehow explain that action of the young gunman. Adam was a loner, he seldom left their house and not much is known about him. He shared a living with his divorced mother and older brother. He spent most of his time playing Internet games said the neighbours. As to what kind of games and what other things he did in cyberspace leaves no clue at all for he destroyed the hard disk of his computer. It is interesting how someone like Adam could connect to the anonymous players in the world while remaining physically isolated in the basement of their home.

It is a good time to reflect on the varied meanings that this unspeakable deed has summoned in every culture of all countries around the globe. Are we? The family itself which also known as the smallest unit of society effectively and responsibly doing our job? We have this job requiring us to supply primary connections in our very own families. It can be with our child, siblings, parents, and to our other relatives. It is because nowadays, children and also teens of my age were longing more for peer’s attention rather than to their parents or any other family member. Social Networking Sites like Facebook, Twitter, and a lot more if used wrongly can cause youth to be less productive in society because I know consuming hours in front of the computer feels like minutes. The problem reflects that there is the loss of community and neighbourhood.

One doesn’t have to live in America to prove this. We’ll find evidences if we observe. We Filipinos are known to have close-family-ties and famous with the saying “Blood is thicker than water”. But we also know that change is the only constant thing in this world. We may seem to cope well with our relatives, engage in long distance parenting yet we cannot help but to worry about the immeasurable emotional costs that the present generation of Filipino children may absorb.