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| As the scorching sun plunges behind the shadows of the forest, children are hurried back into their huts. It's been more than 5 months since the last rain and the forests' resources is exhausted. The closer trees now stand naked, with their bark ripped right to the roots. The traps now lay bare; the last rodent was caught by the Ngupoh family. Not a scrap of food is spare in hope to lure starving animals. The shrivelled up branches are gathered daily, to make fire in order to boil the bark. It's more filling that way and causes less stomacache from indigestion. Rivers that once flowed are now dried up, the only source of water is from a well that is almost dried up. The water that comes up has to be painstakingly separated with a shallow plate. It was initially white to help separation easier, now it's tinged a rusty brown from the soil. There's not enough water to rinse off the crusty dirt.
The senior members of the village were the first to perish. Infection swept through the village during the early months when the village waste could no longer be flush down river. In order to save water, water was kept in a family urn and hand washing water was later reused in washing dishes. The younger children became very sickly as well. Most of the families had no choice but to leave them behind in search for new food sources. Most of those who were left behind were usually never seen again, some do ocassionally appear, in the forms of dissembled body parts, placed in well hidden traps. Someone was out exploiting the losses of others.
After the 7th child went missing, the villages no longer left their children, no matter how sickly they were. They'd bury them if they died, but they also never went back to check whether the bodies were still there. They usually aren't. The children who made it are generally older, they weren't as affected and in time they were well enough to help forage again. No more children went missing after that. They always make sure they run back to their campsite by each nightfall. Food's forever low. Most of the tree roots which harvested grubs have been dug up, trees turned over. They were the last protein source. Most are exhausted from the futile forage. Some simply never make it back.
In the past few days, scorch marks have been spotted randomly in a thick forest half a day's way from the campsite. Most have been there for at least a couple of weeks, some however were fresh. The distinctive smell of burnt fat betrayed the purpose of the fire that was initially lit. Meat. There was meat around. But where? This forest is as barren as those 4 miles away. Not a cloud was spotted in the sky for weeks now, if there were any, they were mercilessly blown apart by the dusty wind. Scouts were sent out day after day to carpet search those grounds. Nothing. Only rocks, skeletons of the trees and dirt. The former moss covered rocks stood unsheltered, huddling together in hope to hide from the unrelenting sun. Then there it was. An unmatchingly smaller rock camouflaged amongst its grey-black counterparts. It was darker than most of the other ones. It was pitch black at its ends, but a hint of white peeked from the crevice of the adjacent rocks. Rocks don't get wedge in that form. Rocks are not long. With a bit of a tug, the rock came tumbling out. It was black at its ends as observed before it was pulled out, its end however was yellow. A tinge of maroon clung on despite the dryness. Blood. this was a bone. It wasn't that long, possibly an animal bone. But animals died out long ago. It can't be with its freshness. Human. It was a human bone.
Nobody has found those who never made it back to the camp. Nobody had the excess energy to find them. Come to think of it, nobody ever came across dried up remains during their food search. Only ragged pieces of clothing. Maybe the odd bag that was subsequently inherited by the founders. But not the bodies. Someone has vanished them. Were the now deceased dead before they were dragged off? Were they still alive? Over the past 3 weeks only 5 people never came back. Most were so frail by that stage it was almost a given that they'd never make it back. Except for one. Mena. She was the only survivor in her family from that dreadul illness. Since then she's never been able to travel far. She'd mostly dig for food around the campsite as most people would've travel further each day in hope for more food.
Vast amount of soil has been turned over surrounding the last camping ground. Jagged holes were dug, some shallow, some deep. Amongst the dead shrubs, there was evidence that someone has walked in. The brittle plants were repetitively crushed under the weight of the person. In the centre of the shrubs there was evidence of freshly dug up soil. It was a big hole, enough to house more than 3 urns of pickled vegetables back when the days were still prosprous. Someone went into alot of trouble to cover it up by dragging a dead shrub over it. The scouts began to excavate. The soil was very loose and the deeper it goes, the more moist it got. It didn't take long before they hit something solid. They proceeded onto using their hands to scrape out the rest of the dirt. There were three urns, the pickle urns. As the lid of the first urn was lifted, the smell of rotten flesh wharfed against the shocked onlookers' faces. Within the urn was dissembled parts of the missing villages and infants already shriveled up.
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| So why haven't I even blogged once since..... umm.. last time? First of all, my attempt to recall my new password has yet again proved my goldfish memory. I've tried almost everything and by the 5th time I was almost getting warnings of my stupidities. So naturally, after failing after the 10th time, you'd reluctantly press on the "I'm-so-stupid-I-forgot-the-password-so-please-send-an-e-mail-to-me-to-tell-me-what -my-genius- mind- came- up-with-last-time" link. So there. I admitted to my stupidity. To humiliate myself further, the e-mail I typed in supposedly wasn't on their account. Well, you know how you get a new e-mail whenever you sign up for, apparently I signed up for this e-mail that I can no longer remember. But luckily.. haha, my passwords are usually rather dim witted so after a few days, I finally figured it out. I'm such a genius. So what has been happening lately? Alot of study for a start. We get 4 days of pracs literally but the amount of study we have to cram is to the point of brain explosion. I really dont' like surgery. Well, I guess I do like surgery, just not orthopaedics- just don't think it's gratifying enough. Plus, I'm super bad with maths and to know what angle the pins much go into and the whole wagon of physics that goes along with it.. nah, totally not worth it. I partially did vet in hope of getting rid of maths for the rest of my life. Seems like it'll never happen somehow. Just when I have time and want to type something a bit longer and more decent, the not so hot librarian's trying to kick us out. My hottie librarian moved to the SSH library... Now biol library's just full of super nicely upgraded facilities without the actual eye candies... what's the point. *sigh*. Plus, there's literally no space for you to study in this library... what are libraries for again? Didn't they just forget the most crucial part of the building for nerds? Far out. Anyway, my cat's calling. Haven't seen him in a night.. weather's warming up so I'm not as attractive at night anymore. *sigh*. Mena | | |
| This was unexpected. I knew it was coming but never did I once thought I'd feel this way towards something again. We met on the first day of uni, in building 69-110. I had mixed feelings when everything started but within seconds he blew me away.He showed me the world. He showed me horizons beyond our shorelines. There, that's it. I was persuaded. Whatever he said afterwards just flew by me coz my concentration wasn't on what he was saying anymore. My eyes were glued to the photos of every edible fish around the pacific ocean- heaven. Fisheries, my new love. Ok, that was an extremely inaccurate description of how I truely felt. The love for fishes has been unrealistically magnified to the power of gazillions. As the lecturer dished out slide after slide of aquaculture power points my brain did an immediate shut down. The trigger factor was probably the 21 pages of notes per lecture that contained no colour nor pictures. Ever had 21 pages full of words per lecture? good luck to me studying. The first week has just passed and I already feel like doing them a favour of overfishing the entire ocean so they'll be left with no seed stock to replenish those brain blasting operations. As attractive as fish slime can be to a fish farmer, I simply don't find the same loving scent out of them. I have an indescribable dislike for fishes. What did they do to me you ask? They were the ones that stripped my confidence. Of all days, they had to do it on my mother's birthday. My sister and I prepared our first dinner ever. Pan fried fishes are suppose to be golden. Got that. They're suppose to be the best dish on earth after you drizzle a bit of sweet soyasuace on them. How did ours turn like? They're wolves under sheep skin. It was transparent on the inside! Assholes. Mum refused to touch it at all. Fenella and I felt absolutely pissed off and to show mum that we won't get food poisoning, we took... one bite. And spat it back out. Second time- we made sure that it was dead 5 times over in that steamer of ours... Sure it was dead, it was chalk white from the inside. Its abdominal muscles flipped out to see us. For sure it's done this time. Fenella and I took one bite after sawing it off its skeletal body... The soy sauce tasted the best. since we couldn't chew threw the rest of that piece of junk that was all that we managed to swallow. Damn it. so yes, this semester's full of aquaculture lectures. It's going to be awesome. Can't wait til I start to smell and taste like them. We're the very few vet schools internationally that learns about aquaculture. Ok, it's not that bad. Other than dissecting a fish. It does get interesting and providing I can get my mathematic skills up to scratch over the span of this semester, I might actually do some fishery things down the track. Good luck mena. Anyway, back to study... orthopaedic notes. Yay. Mena.. | | |
| So the new show "RSPCA Rescue" finally aired THE OTHER DAY (I initially had the word "today" but I never quite got to finish the blog til a few days later). I was more than disappointed when I found out it was only a half an hour show with15 mins of ads in between. I know it's not the best thing to have so many cruelty cases filmed but it happens so often. Paralysis ticks... yeah, we deal with plenty of that. Fractured jaws... poor puppy... but labradors are usually very cheerful and nothing stops them from eating. As for the sheep..... mwahahhahahahahah I couldn't help but laugh. Now the public knows precisely how hard those damn carpets are to catch. The documentary didn't give a full appreciation as to how hard those bags of wool need to be flipped. Normal sheep dont' have wool that heavy so they usually can scramble back up and stress so badly that you feel guilty yourself. It's back breaking work guys. Trust me. It's comparable to sumo wrestling but with less fat and more wool. Stinks I stell you. My last attempt at shearing almost skinned the animal as well. Wait, I did skin the animals.... Those blades are crazy sharp so please people, appreciate your wooly jumpers coz they're full of sweat (shearers') and blood (sheep). Those guys did a great job with not so much cuts considering how crazy the wool got. Without that back support that man must've been suffering horrific back pain after 2 hours worth of shearing. Those sheep were fat though. Definitely some of the best fed sheep around during this drought time (too bad it must've been filmed quite a while ago) since it's no longer warm enough to wear short sleeves anymore. So I've been thinking. Maybe I want to work at the RSPCA or something first. Wage definitely won't be brilliant but I think treating animals like those are far more rewarding than telling a client that their dog's fat. If you just open your eyes and have a look around, most vets have the fattest, outdated vaccinated animals. So yeah, will consider working at fairfield.. wait, they're moving that RSPCA to IPSWICH OMG.... So much for having a dream. I think my cat's hot. After seeing all the animals that come in, mine's definitely the cream of the crop? Why? You're hearing this from a person who is toally unbiased. The fact taht every blog included bert is not evidence of favourtism btw... *cough cough* | | |
| Bert had his vaccination yesterday and it ended up being a bit of a nasty experience for him. He got snatched from his bed at 2:30am coz his ill-lucked owner had to go in to work by 3am coz the ICU was packed. He had no idea what was going on and before he knew it, he got dumped into his carry case and was literally caught. He wasn't impressed. Weighed him coz it should be done routinely to check for any hint of systemic illness and to just get a general slap of reality as to how fat our kitties are. My babe's lost weight! All those weight diet really worked! I mean, he lost a magnificent 0.01kg over the past 12 months!!!!! Wooo hoo.... money going down the drain coz my push over mother can't say no to Bert's begging puttie cat eyes. God damn it!!!! He was such a good boy in the consult room when my classmates and I did a clinical exam of him. He behaved in a way where animals shouldn't behave in a vet clinic. That dim witted of a cat almost fell asleep when KK was holding him after she gave him a thorough prod around. But as soon as the vet stepped in, he was freaked out as hell. Animals can tell I guess and we had a great time trying to catch him and hold him down long enough so that the vet can get a proper feel of anything. KK's always been great with cats though, that's probably why. Nothing's wrong with my babe so just the vaccination. As soon as we were back home he was instantly relaxed but then he didn't run for the food bowl. Waited for 10 mins and he still didn't do it. Not once has he missed a single meal for the past 3 years and yesterday he only managed to down a couple of kibbles before he comatosed on my bed. Usually he'd hate having too much blankets covering him. Yes, yesterday was a bit cold but he really didn't need to have my super warm jacket + blanket + doonas to keep him warm. My poor little boy was pyrexic for most of the night and couldn't keep his eyes open for more than 2 seconds at a time. As a first time "mother" I totally freaked out (despite knowing precisely that mild vaccination complications are quite common). I ran around like a mad woman in my house literally grabbing the collar of mum's coat and shaking her around telling her that if anything happens to Bert I don't nkow what to do with myself. Major drama queen there. After being shaken violently for half a minute or so mum told me, "You're a vet-to-be aren't you? You're pathetic" (quote)... OMG!!!!!!!! Had to leave for work at 3am this morning so it got me extra worried coz I wasn't there to keep an eye on my little fur ball. Not saying that I would've done a good job anyway sleeping at home way past the time I'd finish work. By the time I got back Bert was awake on the corner of my bed, dodging the pile of blankets + jackets that he was under just that morning. Good sign. checked food bowl and litter tray- ate everything and did a pee! YES YES YES YES YES. Not once did I think that it'd mean so much to me but I guess every drop of pee counts. Mwahahahah. Ok, enough of my sad ass experience. My babe's all good now other than the fact that he smells like pee and poop. For the first time ever I took him in his new carry case (one of those IAMS ones that has netting and is soft so that you can carry it like a bag) and walked him down the street. He was fascinated by everything and didn't whine for one second.... til we got to the gate where the border collie puppy was and then everything started..... he cried and he peed himself. I'm so sorry, didn't realise they got a new puppy. The puppy didn't bark though but my little boy's never been brave. Ok, it's about Bert all over again. Little update on me:
Been working this week just like usual and I love just being there again and get into routine again. And the best part of work (or any job is) to fill in my time sheet and then sit on my ass to get paid. YAY!!!! I love it. Not going to have prac work til heaps later but next week will be a good time to finish off my bloody assignment and actually hand it in. Study and revision again... damni t. | | |
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