Penguins

Went to Phillip Island with Sulina, her mum, Sister Theresa and Sister Catherine yesterday.
Fantastic place :D
Suddenly all the snapshots of it I had in my head from the last time I went there (5 years ago) all fell into place.

The journey there was long... there were so many cars on the freeway...
And it didn't help that the sun was scorching...
Think we took a little over 3 hours to get there.

But it was worth it!

Had dinner at Phillip Island.
Sister lovingly packed us all our own bag of healthy wholemeal bread yummy egg sandwiches (understand?).
It had a muesli bar in it as well!
And Sister Catherine brought a whole selection of other yummy stuff...
Dinner was altogether yummy.

Went to sit and wait for the penguins.
ARGH...
It was a long cold wait.
I sat so much till my butt bone was pressing right into my butt flesh.
I have to admit the view of the horizon, cliff, sea and beach was beautiful in the light of the setting sun...
It's amazing how many colours could be seen in the sky.

Fr Johnson once said, 'if there's something God can't do, it's Mathematics.'
I noted yesterday that if there's something God can do, it's paint.

What really struck me was the parallels of the penguins and us humans-

1. They mate, and have chicks. (FYI, they have a divorce rate of 17 percent) We get married and have children.

2. The parents take turns to incubate the eggs till they hatch. (that is, one goes out to sea for the entire day and the other stays to keep the eggs warm... and the next day they switch) As an infant, my mum, and most of our mums, stayed home to take care of me(us) while our dad went out to get money for food.

3. When the chicks hatch, they stay in the burrow while their parents go out to look for food. When I grew a little older, I went to preschool while my parents worked (okay so I wasn't all alone, but I was away from my parents...)

4. When it gets dark and the penguins make their ways home from sea, the chicks come out of the burrows to meet their parents. I would like to think that I eagerly looked forward to my parents picking me up from school or from grandma's house after work.

5. The grown up penguins are so tired after a whole day of swimming, and they have to walk from shore all the way back to their burrows, which can be really far away. They do anyway - because they have chicks in the burrows waiting for them... They don't just burrow off near the beach - because they have chicks to feed. Our parents don't abandon us...

6. The parent penguins feed their chicks regurgitated food. Our parents give us whatever they have. They'd give us their share of food and starve, if they had to.

7. When parent penguins go out, they are at risk of being eaten by sharks and others... That's the world outside the comforts of our houses.

8. Penguins cross the beach in large groups. I guess it's for comfort and security. It's always nice to have friends around you. And even nicer to have a person walk home with you in the middle of the night when the streets can get dodgy. Or any time of the day, for that matter...

Okay Ireally am sucker for parent child relationships aren't I?

The photos of my CNY and Phillip Island are up.
Go check em out yeah!

+ Flisha spoke @ 10:09 pm

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