Listening and Reading Practice - British English Podcast (46. Miracle of Metamorphosis)

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Hello there, you are listening to the English Like a Native Podcast,

the podcast that's designed for lovers and learners of English.

I'm your host Anna, and today we are going through the change.

Oh dear.

Why did I say that?

That makes it sound like I'm going to talk about the menopause, as

this is a common phrase that we use to describe the menopause.

“ What’s wrong with Tina, she seems flustered?”

“I think she’s going through the change.”

But no, we are not discussing the hormonal changes of middle-aged women.

We are in fact, talking about the miracle of metamorphosis.

Let me say that again.

It's a mouthful.

Metamorphosis.

Have you ever seen a caterpillar turn into a butterfly?

It's an incredible thing to witness, and I've been lucky

enough to see it in person, albeit not in the wild, but in my home.

I didn't even know this was a thing, but my nanny...

a nanny is someone who looks after children professionally.

We have a nanny for the boys.

Well, she recently suggested growing butterflies.

Now, there's a company that will provide you with caterpillars and

all the equipment that you need to support them to grow and eventually

transform into butterflies.

So that's what we did.

We went online and ordered some caterpillars.

Now, before I continue, I would like to address a myth that I

believed, wrongly, for far too long.

According to the myth, the word butterfly used to, in fact be

flutterby, which I thought was adorable.

As butterflies do in fact flutter by as you sit in the garden.

Flutter, flutter, flutter, flutter.

But this is not true.

Let me repeat.

This is not true.

The name butterfly may have come from the insect's fondness

for the common bush Buddleia.

A Buddleia is a bush that is, well, it's beautiful.

It has large drooping spikes of densely clustered, small, purple

flowers, and butterflies love it.

So, they could have been known in the past as the Buddleia Fly.

Buddleia Fly.

And over time, that could have corrupted into butterfly.

But again, I'm not certain, so don't quote me on that.

Okay.

Right back to my mail order butterflies.

I had visions of these big, fat green caterpillars turning up, probably

because of the popular children's book, the Hungry Caterpillar.

However, what actually arrived was a small plastic cup containing a

sticky substance on the bottom, and this was the caterpillar's food, and

five very small black caterpillars.

The plastic lid of the cup had tiny air holes cut into it, to ensure that

the caterpillars had some fresh air.

At first, they seemed like they were dead because they didn't move, which

would've been devastating for the children who were very excited to have

some creepy crawlies in the house.

While we're on the subject, I love the name creepy crawlies.

This is a childish term used to describe bugs basically, anything that crawls.

So, spiders, earwigs, flies, anything.

Butterflies.

And when we first moved into our current house, it was full of creepy

crawlies because we had lots of bushes and trees and just greenery,

literally surrounding the house.

So, all at the front, down the sides, at the back, and you know, it was

just a haven for creepy crawlies.

And so they would all come into the house, "Oh, this is a nice warm place

to seek shelter in the colder months."

So, we put a stop to that and now it's not as bad, but anyway, yes,

butterflies, creepy crawlies.

Anyway, I digress.

I mustn't keep digressing.

I must go back to the main story.

These tiny caterpillars appeared dead on arrival, but luckily this activity

is normal and it wasn't long before they started to wriggle around.

Then they basically spent the next week eating, spinning silk, and growing.

Growing a huge amount.

They grow more than 10 times their original size, which I guess is similar

to a human baby growing into an adult...

but imagine that happening in just a few weeks.

It's no wonder they eat a lot.

They've got to do so much growing.

So, over the course of about seven to 10 days, they eat away at this

food that's provided and they grow.

My caterpillars actually started fighting a little bit.

Some of the larger caterpillars seemed a bit tetchy with the smaller caterpillars.

I think the larger ones were hoarding the food and weren't so keen to share.

I did worry about the smaller ones, nervous that they wouldn't have enough

energy to transform, but after a week or two, they crawl to the top of the

cup and they start hanging from the lid and they curl up their tails, so they

make a J shape with their bodies, which is the indication that they are ready

to become chrysalids or chrysalids.

I'm not quite sure on the pronunciation, probably chrysalids.

Basically, they cocoon themselves.

They create a cocoon around themselves, like a little shield

or changing room in which they can do their big costume change.

They're ready to transform into butterflies.

So, they produce this outer shell, they encase themselves in this shell.

And they become smaller and harder over time, and they appear dormant.

I'm sure there's a lot going on inside, but on the outside they appear dormant.

After three days of them being in this state you take the lid off the cup.

You do this very carefully as they're all attached, and then you transfer

them into the butterfly house.

Now, this is the bit that really stressed me out because you are

supposed to remove all the frass.

Frass is a new word for me.

I don't know if I'm pronouncing it correctly, but frass or frass,

it's spelt like grass, but with an F instead of a G at the beginning.

And it's basically the term for caterpillar poop.

Frass.

And you have to remove all the silk and all the frass from around each

chrysalis so that when they emerge as butterflies, they don't get their

wings and their legs stuck, which can make them deformed basically.

So, I was very carefully trying to remove the silk, but what happened was

I discovered their defence mechanism.

If you touch or move the chrysalises in a way that disturbs them,

their defence mechanism kicks in.

They basically start shaking violently.

And the point of this is that it's supposed to scare off predators,

but it made me really nervous.

I wasn't scared of them, of course, but the thing that stressed me out

was that they need all of their energy to complete their transformation.

And the more energy that they wasted trying to scare me off, thinking I

was a predator, the less chance they had of making their transformation

and surviving to become butterflies.

So, they would literally be worrying themselves to death,

which is a lesson in life.

Don't waste your energy worrying about things unnecessarily.

Now, I was warned when I was sent the five caterpillars that only around

three of them would survive to become butterflies, and that made me feel

really sad, really unhappy because I wanted each one of them to survive.

They were my babies now, my responsibility.

So, it was quite a stressful moment, removing all this silk and frass,

but I did my very best to remove as many silk strands as I could

without disturbing them too much.

And when I did disturb them, I tried to hush them and reassure

them that they were safe.

Now there was one caterpillar that was really slow to cocoon himself.

He was the one that was bullied the most by the other caterpillars.

They didn't tend to let him down to where the food was very often.

So this caterpillar was very small compared to the other caterpillars,

and I thought, "Oh, this one is probably not going to survive.

He's not getting enough food."

And he was a day and a half late changing, cocooning himself.

So I thought, "Oh no, he really isn't going to survive".

Anyway, he did finally turn into a chrysalid, and then I had a very

long and anxious wait for them to all emerge just like a man from the

movies in the fifties and sixties when the man would wait outside of

the room as a woman was giving birth.

It's not like that these days.

Not over here in the UK anyway.

The man is usually in with the woman, encouraging her to push and going through

every single moment with her, but in the past, the man would wait out anxiously

in the corridor just listening to the puffs and the pants and the screams,

not knowing what on earth was going on.

And that's how I felt waiting for my butterflies to come out.

Then one morning, a few days ago, I came downstairs and two of my

butterflies had emerged overnight.

They had popped out overnight, leaving a little shell behind.

Not a shell, but an exoskeleton, the skin, basically the, I don't even know

what the word would be, the leftovers of the cocoon that they were in.

They'd shed it, they'd moulted that, come out and they were

now beautiful butterflies and they were flapping their wings.

And just like human babies, they released something called meconium,

which is like their first poo, basically.

In human babies, meconium is black, but in butterflies it's red, which

makes it easy to mistake for blood.

So it looks a bit messy.

It looks like a bloody mess, but it's perfectly normal.

And then about two hours after that, their wings are fully formed.

They are fully unravelled, and they harden.

And so they're constantly stretching their wings to try and dry them off.

Now, the following morning I came down and we had three butterflies,

so one more had hatched.

Woo-hoo!

I was looking at the last two chrysalises.

I'm thinking, "Hmmm, are you guys going to come out?"

I wasn't very hopeful, but after spending an hour in my office, I popped back

to the house to get a cup of tea, of course, and there were five butterflies.

There were five beautiful butterflies in the butterfly habitat.

Hurrah!

They had all made it through the transformation stage.

I was ecstatic.

So my job at this point was to feed them for a few days to help them to

gain the strength that they needed 'cause they no longer had the food

preparation that they had in the cup.

So, I had to provide them with nectar and fruit and things like that.

So, the nectar was basically sugar and water mixed together, and I served

that to them on a few rose petals.

The luxury!

I placed these rose petals in the bottom of the habitat and I used a little

pipette to suck up the water, and then I would squeeze little drops of nectar

onto the rose petals using this pipette.

I would also take a few slices of fruit like apple, pear, and banana,

and score it with a knife so that it pooled little bits of juice like a

puddle, basically, and provided them with a pool that they could drink from.

Because you can't just put a dish full of like nectar in the bottom because

they could fall into it and damage their wings, or worse still, drown.

You don't want that.

You certainly don't want a butterfly death on your conscience.

That would be terrible.

And today I released three of them, which was bittersweet.

I had to cut the apron strings, say farewell and watch my babies

fly off into the big wide world.

I don't think they have a very long life, so I do hope that the time that they

have is full of positive experiences.

The final two butterflies didn't want to come out of their habitat today,

they seemed a little nervous, so I'm going to keep them safe for one

more night and give them some more time to grow and strengthen their

wings before releasing them tomorrow.

So yes, I was thrilled to see all five butterflies hatch, and

the thing I put their success down to is positive affirmations.

Basically positive talk, positive statements.

I told my boys at the beginning that we have to encourage the

caterpillars and the butterflies.

We have to encourage them by speaking positively to them every day.

There have been many studies that show that speaking positively

to plants can help them to grow.

It is fascinating.

The power of positivity, or the power, as well of negativity,

should not be underestimated.

And so I said to the boys that we have to be as positive as we can and

encourage the caterpillars to grow and then to transform and survive.

Thus, every day we'd come down and we would speak to the caterpillars.

We would tell them good things.

We would tell them that we were proud of them and that we loved them,

and that we wanted them to grow.

We'd also tell them not to be mean to each other when they were fighting.

And then all the time when they were in their cocoons transforming, we

continued to talk to them, to tell them that they could do it, and that

we were looking forward to seeing them, that we were proud of them.

And lo and behold, five butterflies emerged.

So, just consider for a minute what positivity could do for you.

It is often the case that my most upbeat and positive students tend

to be the ones who are most present within my community, who take part

in all the classes and live streams.

They complete the tasks in the courses, and they're the ones

who make the most progress.

I know it can be hard when you're trying to learn a new skill, especially if it's

really important to you in your life.

If you are prioritising it and you really, really desire change.

It can be hard to stay positive, especially if you feel like

you're not making progress.

You start to feel desperate, but it's always good to try and rephrase

things or reframe things in your mind.

So, rather than thinking, "I'm not doing a good job, I'm not

progressing, I'm rubbish."

Think, "I'm turning up.

I'm trying.

I'm working on this."

Progress is not always easy to quantify.

It's not always easy to see progress, especially when you are

at an intermediate level or above.

Progress in language learning comes incrementally through consistent

practice, regular input, regular output.

So, reading, writing, listening, speaking, comprehension, just

constant language in and out.

If you are doing the practice, then progress is happening.

This is a mountain, not a treadmill.

Every step is in fact progressing you further up a mountain and you will not

see how far you've come until you've reached a ledge, a moment in time where

you have the chance to look back across the distance that you have covered.

At that point you'll think, wow, I've come such a long way, and

I didn't even realise until now.

So be kind to yourself.

You are a developing butterfly.

I'm getting quite profound or rather dramatic here,

but indulge me for a moment.

You are a developing butterfly and all of your energy must go into your development.

Focus only on the learning, not on the obstacles, not on the time

that it's taking you to progress.

Or how fast other people are developing.

Focus only on you and the work you are doing and be your own cheerleader.

Woo-hoo!

You did it.

You did your lesson today.

You didn't want to do it, but you did it anyway.

Celebrate yourself.

Okay, let's move away from the dramatic speech and bring it back to butterflies.

If you come to the UK, then you should look to see if there are any

butterfly houses, sometimes called butterfly farms that you can visit.

These are places where you can experience lots of beautiful

butterflies flying all around you.

Some will land on you, it's such a treat.

By the way, why is it we are calm when a butterfly flutters around

in front of us, but we freak out if it's a daddy-long-legs or a bee?

Right, I think it's time for me to flutter off.

I do appreciate each and every one of you listening to me and supporting this

podcast and to all of my Plus Members.

I want to extend a huge thank you.

It's only because of your monthly donations that I'm able to produce

this podcast, so thank you.

If you'd like to learn more about becoming a Plus member, then you can

find information in the show notes.

Until next time guys, take care and goodbye.

Are you still here?

Alright, I've got some jokes for you.

What do you call a butterfly with no wings?

A caterpillar, of course.

Uh, the next one's better.

What do you call a butterfly that can fly faster than any other butterflies?

A betterfly.

LOL.

Okay, last one, and I promise this one is good.

What did the butterfly say to the very shy cocoon?

Trust me.

It will be more fun once you're out of your shell.

LOL.

Okay.

Yes, I admit they weren't that good, but thank you for sticking around.

I'll see you next time.

Bye-Bye.