Pictures of the Mulberry Tree

Mulberries: A life lesson in looking up

Yesterday I went out to the backyard to pluck flowers. When I reached a tree I looked up and saw a lot of mulberries on the branches of the tree. The ripe ones are a deep, dark shade. The unripe ones are green, pale green, cream and pale red. Some of the mulberries are so ripe that if you touch it, the juice comes on your hand and makes a bluish purple stain. The profusion of fruits on one tree was amazing. I started plucking the mulberries and eating them. In my grandfather's younger brother's home in Keechery there used to be one or two mulberry trees. When we go there we check out the tree. Unlike mangoes or jackfruit the mulberry is not plucked and brought into the house and eaten formally by placing on the dining table or kitchen etc. If you walk by the tree you pluck a berry and eat. Otherwise nobody notices the tree. But that is in Keechery where there are lots of trees. But here this is one of the few trees we have. The other trees we have are oak, apple tree, Christmas trees and flowering trees. The mulberries were juicy and sweet. I photographed the tree branches and the fruits. I think, I got beautiful pictures-- maybe not as beautiful as pictures by more talented photographers. But I am satisfied with the pics I took. But unlike in Keechery I plucked a few mulberries and put it in a dish and brought it inside. Seeing the bounty of nature yesterday in the abundance of mulberries made me feel as though all is well with my world. I saw the mulberries because I chose to look up. It was completely unexpectedly that I looked up. I was just going to gather flowers which were growing on plants much closer to the ground. This made me think about the concept of looking up. I have heard a lot about the idea of "looking up." Looking up is similar to reaching for the stars. Or filling your heart with hope instead of feeling dejected or discouraged. Thinking of positive happy ideas to make the world a better place is also the same as looking up. We can literally look up or figuratively look up. Figuratively speaking looking up means filling our heart with happy things. I was not figuratively looking up. I was literally looking up. My point is that looking up is good both literally and figuratively. So when I looked up to see the branches I saw the mulberries. If we look up we may see amazing things.

Gemstone Necklaces

I liked these gemstone necklaces also. These are from JC Penney.com too.

Pink Necklaces

I found these pink necklaces in JC Penney.com. I think these necklaces in varying shades of pink are so pretty.

Rings

I found these rings in JC Penney.com. These rings are so pretty.

Pillows

Here are some pillows from JC Penney.com HOME that I thought were nice. I found pillows for every style there.

Pink Bags

Here are a few bags from the brand ALDO that I found in Dillards.com. These sparkly and shimmery pink bags form part of ALDO's Barbie collection.

Hermia and Helena: A few initial observations

Characters of Helena and Hermia.

Helena and Hermia have a lot in common.

They are both devoted.

They are both faithful to the people they originally started liking.

Hermia toward Lysander and Helena toward Demetrius.

Hermia is very sure of her feelings toward Lysander.

Hermia's father wanted her to marry Demetrius and threatened to punish her with death but she still did not waver in her decision to like only Lysander.

Helena is more humble than Hermia.

Helena does not have a high self esteem.

She is convinced that Lysander and Demetrius are making fun of her when they start saying they like her.

She thinks Hermia is better looking and thinks Demetrius does not love her because she is not as beautiful as Hermia.

Because Demetrius loves Hermia Helena thinks Hermia is very beautiful. She yearns for the appearance and voice of Hermia.

Helena has an understanding of her own thoughts. She feels that everyone in Athens thinks she is as beautiful as Hermia. But what really matters is what Demetrius thinks of her beauty.

She wishes she could be as beautiful as Hermia in order to get the love of Demetrius.

Hermia is not as good of a girlfriend.

When she realizes that Lysander loves Helena she starts hating Helena and calls her a maypole.

Hermia also tries to run away from her father and Athens in order to marry Lysander.

Helena is a devoted girl friend too.

Speech about the G7

Today I presented a speech in Toastmasters Club about the G7. Here are some more facts from the speech. G7 members are advanced economies. G7 came into being from an ad hoc gathering of finance ministers in 1973. It has since become a formal, high profile venue for discussing and coordinating solutions to major global issues, especially in areas of trade, security, economics and climate change. Each member nation's head of state or government along with European Union officials meet annually at the G7 summit. Representatives of other states and international organizations are invited. The G7 is not based on a treaty and has no permanent secretariat or office. It is organised through a presidency that rotates annually among the member states with the presiding state setting the group's priorities and hosting the summit. Italy presides for 2024. The G7 countries together have a population of 780 million people or almost 10 percent of the world population and comprises around 50 percent of world wide nominal net worth. The G7 was founded primarily to facilitate shared macroeconomic initiatives in response to contemperory economic problems. In the 1970's it was the energy crisis. In the 1980's it broadened the areas of concentration to include issues of international security and human rights. It concerned itself with the ongoing Iran-Iraq war and the Soviet occupation of Afghanistan. In the 1990's it launched a debt relief program for 42 heavily indebted poor countries. At the 1999 summit the group helped launch the G20. The G20 consists of the G7, the European Union and 13 other emerging market economies and seeks to promote dialogue between the industrialised countries and emerging market economies. At the turn of the 21st century the G7 began engaging with the developing world focusing on debt reduction. In 2022 G7 leaders were invited to attend an extraordinary summit of NATO called in response to the 2022 invasion of Ukraine. In 2024 the G7 nations addressed issues of climate change and trade monopolies by China. The pope who attended the 2024 meeting gave a speech on the threat of AI on education and human decision making. In conclusion I would like to say the world has seen the emergence of a large number of regional associations or groups of countries such as G7. A few examples are: NAFTA: North American Free Trade Agreement NATO: North Atlantic Treaty Organisation United Nations. SAARC or South Asian Association of Regional Cooperation ASEAN Association of South East Asian Nations. These country groups represent special interests of the member countries within the umbrella of democratic ideals. They promote dialogue, exchange of ideas, responses to geo political issues, and the finding of solutions to challenges faced by the world.

G7

Tomorrow I may say a speech on G7. I read in the newspaper that G7 member countries just concluded a meeting in Italy. This inspired me to speak about this topic. In the process I found more info about this group. Here are some facts that I plan to include in the speech. The Group of Seven (G7) is an intergovernmental political and economic forum consisting of Canada, France, Germany, Italy, Japan, UK and US. The EU is a non-enumerated member. It is organized around shared values of plularism, liberal democracy and representative government. G7 members are advanced economies. Note on Plularism: Cultural pluralism is a term used when smaller groups within a larger society maintain their unique cultural identities, whereby their values, and practices are accepted by the dominant culture provided such are consistent with the laws and values of the larger society.

Father's Day Celebration Cupcakes

I baked these cupcakes today. I am grateful that I am blessed with a lovely and wonderful family.

Descriptive Writing and two Paintings

My father likes me to write descriptively and also to paint. Here are two paragraphs of descriptive writing and two paintings that I wrote and painted earlier this year. ---------------A slight pleasant chill is seeping in through the gaps between the door and the wall. To experience such a pleasant coldness at the end of spring is so wonderful. At the end of spring the days can get a bit too warm and uncomfortable. So to sit in a recliner and feel a cool air drifting in from a green backyard where everything is green early in the morning makes me feel as though I am in a resort or a hill station like ooty or kodaikanal. It feels like when you open the freezer and hoary fumes waft out of the freezer and it refreshes you. The breeze from the backyard felt like that. In school in biology we had a biology diagram book. We had to draw plants, leaves, roots, stems even frogs and human brain. All the girls in my class worked very hard on our biology diagrams. We innovated techniques to make our drawings look exactly like in our biology text book. One technique was to take a small piece of paper and just make a dark splotch on it with regular pencil. Then rub the paper on your diagram book to get the effect of shading. To get a really dark and thin line you have to sharpen your pencil to a very thin point and place a protractor or any glass piece under your page and draw on it then it comes out very dark and thin. If our teacher gave us biology diagram home work then when we come from home even before class starts and we would show each other our diagram books and admire each other's drawings. The girls in my class taught me the shading technique and the technique to get a thin dark line.

I have not posted the writing before but I posted these paintings before.

The Alluring world of Fairies

These words are spoken by a character called Fairy in the play by Shakespeare titled A Midsummer Night's Dream. In this play Shakespeare draws the picture of an ethereal world. The play is also the tale of human lives intertwined with enchanting beings of the nature/ spirit world. This particular fairy talks about wandering over hills, dales, bushes, and briers. The fairy is in a hurry because the fairy has to fulfill certain responsibilities. The fairy's responsibility is to place dew on fairy rings which are similar to celestial orbs. A beautiful description of a flower called Cowslip is given. The spots in the yellow flower are compared to rubies. They are also compared to freckles. The other responsibility is to hang a pearl in every cowslip's ear. The fairy also has to look for dewdrops.

This is a picture of the Cowslip from Wikipedia.

Books from the library

I borrowed these books from the library yesterday. I will most probably be starting with A Midsummer Night's Dream, a play I had to study in school. I am looking forward to reading The Humorous Verse of Lewis Carroll. I hope I will get a lot of reading done this Summer.

Measure for Measure: Claudio's Words

"I stagger in - but this new governor

Awakes me all the enrolled penalties

Which have like unscoured armor, hung by the wall

So long that nineteen zodiacs have gone round

And none of them been worn; and for a name

Now puts the drowsy and neglected act

Freshly on me. Tis surely for a name."

These words are spoken by Claudio, an important character in the play, Measure for Measure in Act 1: Scene 2. Claudio is engaged to be married to Juliet. But Juliet becomes pregnant before the marriage. For this Angelo the king who is taking the place of the Duke punishes Claudio with imprisonment and death.

It is in this backdrop that these words are spoken by Claudio to Lucio, his friend. He says that the new governor has revived in the case of Claudio old laws which were not enforced earlier.

Claudio compares the punishment meted out by Angelo for him for wrongdoing to be like unscoured armor.

Claudio says that nineteen years have gone by but the armor has not been worn.

For nineteen years Claudio has not been punished if wearing the armor is punishment.

Yet now because the new governor wants to prove his competence he chooses to punish him. According to Claudio the purpose of the punishment is to gain a reputation.

Awakes me: revives in my case Enrolled penalties: recorded in the rules of law.

Unscoured armor: Armor is the protective covering worn by soldiers during war. Unscoured is unpolished. Unscoured armor is unpolished armor.

Zodiac: Year

For a name: To gain a reputation

Two questions I had about these words are

1. Claudio compares the punishment to unscoured armor. If armor is a protective covering worn by soldiers and kings during war why is it likened to punishment in the words spoken by Claudio written by Shakespeare. How is punishment similar to armor?

2. The second question is if Claudio was making such a an offense for the first time. When Claudio says armor unpolished hanging on the wall not worn for 19 years did he mean that for 19 years he has committed offense and wasn't punished or did he do no wrong for 19 years and was not punished or was he doing wrong for the first time?

These words reflect a theme in the play--that of how societal morality is regulated by the state.

The Iowa Arts Festival

These are two earrings I bought from The Iowa Arts Festival. In downtown Iowa City yesterday the streets were lined with artists displaying and selling their artistic creations from jewelry to painting to ceramics to pottery. I spent one hour walking through the streets looking at all the creations. I liked a lot of things but bought these two.

Lilly Pulitzer Pink Bag

I like this bag a lot. I found this in the Lilly Pulitzer online store. There are lots of beautiful bags in Lilly Pulitzer. They also have lots of beautiful dresses, sweaters, etc. If you are shopping for bags or dresses please check out Lilly Pulitzer.