tioman

yay, just got home and sort of finished unpacking, and before this i was chatting to a couple of friends who just caught me coming online once i switched on my comp and i was animatedly telling them about my trip. i thought it was really satisfying and time/money well spent. in fact at this moment i'm looking at diving becoming a permeanent recreational activity for me! :)

in more ways than 1, this a a really rewarding adventure for me. very thankful to guohao for pulling me along to go get our open-water certification and in the process getting to such an enjoyable trip too. hehe.

well, we went for 5 open-water dives around tioman and saw many staghorn corals, brain corals etc. of course there were alot of fishes too! there were alot of small little bright blue fishes that were hiding amongst the corals, and if u sprawl yourself directly above the coral u can see all these little things scuttling around.

VERY fascinating and beautiful.

actually, the first thing that will strike u when u reach the sea bed are these long, black things that pple call sea cucumbers. haha, cause they resemble something else that is not so pleasant. :) wah i tell u, really very big lar. the biggest i saw was about 1m in length. hehe, then we had gloves, so it all adds up. we were moving the poor sea cucumbers around at around 10m under the sea.

haha.

but it's really quite gross cause u would be staring at the sea cucumbers and suddenly u would find that they are actually alive and moving!! haha. it's quite something to see.

then there were alot of small parrot fish, zebra fish, small other-fish-that-i-don't-know-the-name-of too. :) very fascinating.

oh yes, we saw 1 sting ray too. those brown-coloured ones with dark blue-purple spots on its top. hmmm, i think it appeared on a local stamp before if i remember correctly. tt was quite a fleeting moment, cause the moment i closed my eyes and opened again, it scooted away to hide under a coral.

the coral formations are beautiful. though a little less vibrant in colour than i was expecting. mostly yellow, orange, reddish-brown type of corals. the sea anaemones certainly lightened things up, thought there were not too many of them. :)

and what's the big fuss about "finding nemo"?? over there u have nemos of all sizes. got papa nemo, mama nemo, baby nemo, grandbaby nemo. haha. they're so cute! lots of other small but brightly-coloured, beautiful tropical fish swimming in small schools too. certainly a vibrant display of colour.

and once when i was swimming, then guohao tapped on my shoulder and asked me to look up. WAH. a whole school of barracudas! but quite small ones, about 30cm i think. haha, then i suggested tt we swim together with the school and we could observe them REAL close. very calm, not moving much, but yet swimming with great efficiency against the current. magnificant creatures.

and to think tt when i was young i was told tt barracudas are very fierce fish. haha, maybe they are, but they didn't attack me. :) in fact i was looking out for their teeth tt would protrude out as my divemaster said... hmmm, maybe only the larger ones. i heard from the night divers that they saw barracudas tt were up to 1m!!! wah, i also want to see..........

next time i guess. :)

another dive group saw a black-tipped shark and a turtle too. aiyoh. i was kinda looking forward to seeing a shark, but it was quite mixed feelings lar to be honest. :) i was thinking that i would panic when i actually saw one. haha, but didn't even see it in the end.

took lots of photos of the trip, about 90 for the entire weekend trip. tioman has a spectacular sunset. yep, these photos will serve as a memory as to the sights that i saw and things that i've done on the island and off its coast. :)

but i felt the best thing about the trip was that i got to know so many more people on this trip. first there was randy and pam who are husband and wife. randy is a professor of communications at ntu. really nice couple. haha, randy is all excited about diving, and wants to go on to get his advanced certification (and so do i), although his wife seems VERY reluctant to go since this has been quite an expecience for he, probably need some time to assimilate the experience. :D

then there was dr tan and dr wendy, a dating couple i suppose. both anaesthetists. dr wendy is so very sociable, and she was just telling me all about her diving trips in the past, and giving me tips on where to dive, what equipment to buy etc. she's gone for 107 dives thus dar, and dr tan has gone for even more! wah. they're going for the divemaster course soon. wish them success in both the course and their tying the knot. :D

and it turns out tt it is a small small world after all, cause dr wendy was a student of my mentor, and she asked me to send her regards to him. haha, and she also told me a few interesting facts about prof chen. thinking of organising a lunch to meet up with him together with stella and amy too someday...

*aiyoh, my head is bobbing up and down now... feels like i'm still on the boat... headache arr...

yep, also met liling, a m4 this yr. and it's SO qiao(3), cause she's caohong's gf! (caohong's my scouts senior) very sweet girl. she went to this trip with her other friends - poh leng, who is quite a nice girl too, and is VERY funny, cause she keeps complaining about almost everything. haha, but from the short 2 1/2 days i got to know her, she's actually quite a wonderful character to have to brighten up the whole camp. :)

besides these people were also the 2 dive instructors (kenneth and kelvin), a sia air-stewardess and her friend who works in IT industry, and a guy called young(yang). very nice pple all of them. :) kenneth is actually also quite a nice guy. although he appears on the surface to be a 'macho-i-hate-sissys' type of person, there's actually a deeper side to him - a philosophical, religious, sensitive side.

and he's always suanning poh leng about her kb-ing. (yar, but poh lang kbs about almost everything, which is amusing more than anything else. :P)

yup.

this diving trip has left me with alot of fond memories that i'll always remember; new friendships that i always treasure; and skills tt i plan to use for a lifetime. :) money and time well spent. diving is not about bikini-babes and wannabe-hunks oogling at each other and getting pissed-drunk at night. it's about new and beautiful frontiers to explore underwater and getting to widen your social circle to include people from all walks of life, and a great excuse to travel to various destinations (yes, instead of falling for all the tourist traps when we just go to a certain place and shop/eat). but instead it would be so much better if we on each 'holiday' we could make new friends, explore new places under water, become more and more experienced and increase our enjoyment with each such dive.

cheers! :)

needles and threads

i think i'm really quite spaced out now, after having sewing for almost 4 hours continuously, not to mention another 3 to 4 hours before dinner...

yes, sewing.

and sewing is really really taxing, cause all i sew were just simple patterns -- one piece with a cute little sheep with grass in its mouth; and another one with 4 letters one it. but tt took my about 8 hours to do. sianz...

oh yes, WHY am i sewing. (i'll not make known now cause it'll spoil things. i'll edit this part again after da4 gong1 gao4 chen2)

and i think i must have made a thousand stitches today. getting really goggy from the sitiching really... but at least now it's completed. haha~~ at least i'm insisting it is, cause i really don't want to do anymore! :)

actually today was quite a good day lar. had lunch at ikea with andre, wm, stella, pakling, kim, linus. and we met andy, a MO i got to knew at nee soon there! haha, haven't seen him in a looong time though i still sms hom from time to time. aiyoh, he's really 1 person i admire.

cause he's so tall, handsome, rich, super-friendly, smart. yar, owns his own car, dean's list, super-yandao, super-humble and has his own interesting take on life. philosophical, sophisticated, yet sensitive. very inspiring.

wah~~ and the best part is tt he is u-n-a-t-t-a-c-h-e-d!(from what i know, unless things have changed since i last asked him abt it, which is highgly possible really)

in fact the basic reason why i wanted to get a diving license was because i was quite amazed at the photos tt he brought to camp to show us from a diving trip tt he went with one of his subodinates. yupyup.

oh, and i'll be watching troy only on wed with andre and wm, and possibly shrek too. alright, enough of the lameness, if u got it good, if not, spare urself the agony. apologies to andre and wm for the sudden change in dates cause i didn't realise tt i had diving pool lessons on mon. paiseh. :)

anyway i think it's getting rather late now liao... and i haven't bathed yet cause i was too bent on getting the stitching donw just now. guess a good shower is in order before i got koon(3)...

*yawn*

deceptive appearances

finally HRM has ended. i think it was a relief for most if not all. and i think i surprised myself as well when i actually found a purpose to these whole series of lectures and tutorials.

but in fact i was still very skeptical about the purpose tt hrm served, since i think i was practically sleeping/doodling/reading/absent throughout all the lectures, and thus totally shut myself off.

and actually i walked in to the last tutorial with the same mentality too, but i left the room with a much refreshed opinion on the series of lessons. and now i think tt these lectures actually do help to a certain extent as alan koh and the genius-of-a-jonathon-chia has made me realise. well, i only realised at the very last 1/2 hr of the tutorial, but i guess tt's better than not realising at all.

and allow me to share what i've learnt, though i do realise tt it'll probably be very difficult to convey my ideas over this limited form of medium and break down the walls of resistance tt we have all built up from the super-boring lectures and pointless tutorials... what they are teaching us, is in fact to sensatise us to allow us to be able to know what signals to pick up in such and such situations.

and the point is to make us sensatised to pick up such signals, whatever they may be in whatever situations, and not to provide us with a certain concrete set of steps tt we have to undertake when dealing with situation A, and another set of steps when faced with situation B, and so on and so forth. which i personally feel it is pointless to discuss such hypothetical situations.

anyway i think tt's just the pathetic take tt i'll attempt to explain what i think of HRM now. and of course i'm GLAD tt it's over. :D

went for the last diving theory lesson today. haha, it's so exciting and interesting cause we discussed about nitrogen narcosis. contrary to popular belief (haha ok, maybe only mine), the limiting factor for length and depth of scuba dives is actually the no-decompression nitrogen limit and not air supply in the tank.

and cause our normal teacher was late, and this french guy took over for the first part of the lesson. haha, his accent was so strong not to mention his english wasn't perfect too. so u can just imagine the expert decoding poweress tt we had to exercise. :) but in my opinion he was a better teacher than ronald wee, cause he was less luo(1) suo(1)...

and anyway whatever the french guy covered ronald wee covered again when he got there. so there u have it, luo(1) suo(1)-ness at its best.

well, no-compression nitrogen limit is simply just the length of the dive tt u can carry out at a certain depth before u potentially suffer from nitrogen narcosis.

haha so interesting. and the way the teacher animatedly demonstrated how a puffer fish becomes totally helpless when it's inflated is really a sight to gaawf at. haha~~ :D so apparently this puffer fish is really adorable, cause when it inflates it just becomes unable to swim liao and just bobs around following the current. and u can actually hold it's top and twirl it around, and in his words, "if u take out ur flippers u can even play tennis with ur friend!"

and anyway after the lesson guohao's dad gave me a lift all the way to skin centre, though i was only expecting a lift to clementi mrt. quite a funny person who prides himself with a fine memory.

an exciting day

pardon my unexciting choice of titles, but my unimaginative mind simply cannot churn out a more innovative choice.

anyway, i must take back my previous comment on the new format tt blogspot has put up. it's actually quite nice now tt i look at it. somehow yesterday when i was blogging what came up was quite different from what i see today.

and back to the title... today was an exciting day cause we went down to the travel agency to finalise the plans for the hk trip and to pay for the trip. the total amount came up to a tidy sum for a 5 day hk trip. hmmm... i think it was quite a relief for alot of pple (haha~~) tt plans finally got confirmed despite the inumerable changes/cancellations tt came up before today, some of which were actually rather dramatic. and i'm quite glad tt we finally confirmed and paid for the trip too.

and also i confirmed with the saf pple tt i'll be going back for june and july. hmmm, which will leave me with not much free time liao. but i guess it's a comprimise tt i'll have to make, and i'm actually quite ok with it, much grateful to a certain extent in fact.

another thing is also tt today was the first diving lesson. :) theory lesson, was quite interesting though it started getting draggy after some time. interesting nonetheless learning abt all the equipment and precautions tt we have to take when making the descent and ascent. :)

and the person teaching us (guohao and me) the lesson was actually the director of the centre. he was quite a good teacher though there was an occasional grammatical/pronounciation error once in a while. nice chap nonetheless.

in fact i left my atm card there after paying for the rest of the course today and he bothered to go look for my number to call me up to tell me. hehe. anyway i've gotta seriously check out tt american ginseng thing abt memory...

anyway now quite tired liaoz... and tml got a whole day of rubbish again... *sigh* i'll try to be there for lecture tml.

a lousy day at school

BORING... today's hrm was totally was waste of time. i think i'm just very skeptical about stuff like chicken soup for the soul and 7 habits of highly effective people sort of rubbish, and of course any motivational talk stuff.

or stuff like this morning/afternoon's lectures.

i think they over-simplify things very much and don't pay any tribute to the complexity of human relationships and problems. always trying to quantify such intangible stuff and reduce them to a mere formula where u can put on a pre-formatted grid to determine "everything that u ever needed to know about it"

BAH.

the beautiful thing about relationships is the very complexity of them. the fact tt they cannot be compartmentalised and sectioned into 'easy to swallow' portions is an undeniable aspect of it. in fact after today's session, i'm ever more convinced tt conducting a motivational/understanding-your-psychology seminar takes nothing more than a false accent and a whole load of trashy ideals.

i wonder how many people will turn up for the lecture tml morning... even if i'll be there i'll probably be late i guess...

and congratulate me, cause he's my tutorial teacher too... bah.

on another note, the holiday plans have already been finalised over lunch time today. going hk for a 5d4n trip with alvin, ivan, qichang, yiqing and huiting. think it's comething to look forward too, quite excited. :)

my specs are spoilt... don't know how, don't know when. just realised when i took them off to clean the lens just now. see if anyone notices what's wrong with them tml. haha~~

quite alot of things to fan(2) about today. haiz. one of my friends seemed a bit down today, also not sure why...

aiyoh... shang(1) nao(3) jing(1) arr......

yucks.

blogger went to change the format of the formatting page for blogs and it's TERRIBLE...

YUCKS.

a more feminine side...

tried to do some cross-stictching today after cg using one of the girls stitch work. hehe, hope i didn't destroy it cause i stitching a small leaf on. thanks for teaching me ashley! and the piglet is really cute... :D

cross-stitching's REALLY addictive!

haha. anyway... yar, and zj lost his bible and notebook at the food court... aiyoh... never mind, i'm sure it'll be restored to him 7 times more.

CROSS-STITCHING IS REALLY FUN!
CROSS-STITCHING IS REALLY FUN!
CROSS-STITCHING IS REALLY FUN!

tml (today depending on how u look at it) is the annual ORA jogathon. think it should be quite nice going back to savour each and every sq of the campus. yar the smelly toliets and all. haha.

melancholy and puzzlement.

sigh. think there may be more changes in travel plans again. instead of bk, maybe hk. still considering it and i think the problem now is really of $. don't want to spend too much, and also cause i'm already going diving, which has set me back a bit too... the cost for airfare and accomodation for hk almost already covers the entire cost for bk, including all the shopping tt u would/could ever do...

and the worse thing would be if i had to go there to scrimp. the most senseless thing to do. oh well... anyway if i end up going, i hope it will be enjoyable...

haiz.

oh, on a lighter note, tml is the ora thingy at rj. yep, going back to rj in the morning with andre, think it should be interesting to see the teachers again, and rj for probably on of the last times. must remember to bring camera. :)

fan(2) arr...

sushi madness!!!

today's bs was excellent i think. and what pastor said today really touched me and got me thinking. abt the adulteress who was thrown by the pharisees before jesus...

hmmm yar, it just left me quite saeh(2). i think i would want to get the tape next sun. better rem.

today was wonderful, went for a sushi buffet with the cg. we went to sakae sushi at wheelock place. not really very impressive i must say, and the service was not very good too. quite unfriendly too. but we went there cause they were having an offer for students. $14 for a sushi buffet for students and senior citizens.

but i must tell u, i ate till i was really SO full. haha. there were 5 of us sitting at one table, and i think we must have finished about 80 plates of sushi... yes, very filling...

today a quote i heard in the past just came back to me. it was, "u like a person for his good pts, but love him for his flaws." hmmm, i realised tt this quote would be more true if it was, "u like a person for his good pts, but love him despite his flaws."

yep, should be read liddat. yes, and it's an interesting thing to chew over.

misunderstandings

hmmm, was talking to jb today at the bus stop on the way home, and he thought tt my previous entry was me ranting about him -- as he had to back out of a diving trip tt he initially expressed interest in going with me and mr.G... which is precisely the problem with blogs, as they are a a broad-reaching form of self-expression, and given the obscurity that u have to work with in some of ur entries, u just find tt different pple can inteprete it a thousand ways... and often they think tt it is directed towards them and a whole string of rubbish just follows after tt...

and i'm glad jb asked me if i was blogging abt him. :)

but actually i was browsing through some of the "notable blogs", and i realised tt blogs need not be abt bitching abt pple and how they just-pissed-u-off this afternoon. in fact, blogs should be used as a window to offer a peek into ur world.

and even so what's 'peekable' is just the curtains tt u choose to put up. may not really be the furniture in there.

anyway... on another note, went to sign up for diving today with guohao. leaving singapore on the 21st for tioman, ocming back on the 23rd at night. really happy cause finally we dragged ourselves down to book the course after very much delay and postponement... hoping it'll be fun. :)

a life of planning.

recently i've been hearing of epic sagas tt a few of my friends have been having... what else, but on holiday plans. it is indeed a hassle trying to plan holidays, and it inevitably causes much fustration due to the uncertainty and fickless that your travel buddies may have.

to be able to confirm all the details of a trip w/o any word of confirmation of attendance is an understandably demanding affair. in fact there are really many factors to consider as well, like the date of departure, accomodation, itenary, who's going, and the budget.

aiyoh. headache.

and i can understand the fustration when plans are changed suddenly... and in fact, i realise it's often a case of miscommunication rearing its ugly head... haiz.

but i guess this is just a part of life? always like that one lar, i think there has rarely been a period where misunderstanding does not make its presence felt.

anyway, just hope tt all these stuff will be settled soon so tt we can enjoy the times ahead.

lost in a world

hmmm was playing d2 for practically the entire afternoon just now... sigh. didn't find any nice items despite having mf-ed for so long. ok, for those who are able to grasp a faint shadow of what i mean, great! for those who don't, realise it's really inconsequential anyway. :) haha, i'm down to getting a last amulet to complete the set of items tt my sorceress is wearing!

anyway.

haven't seen some pple for a long time, and i remember the recent times when i saw these pple, i don't even feel like talking to them. it's weird. cause i just feel very uncomfortable in their presence. hmmm. and i can feel tt a timeout is long overdue, which is why a unilateral one has already been established.

oh yes, tml's outing with some friends. still haven't decided what to do yet though. hmmm, better call zj to tell him too b4 i forget.

to a certain extent, it's true tt i've been avoiding them, because i'm afraid tt when i meet with them i'ld be engaging in yet another series of mindless, 1-way rampage of insults and sacarstic remarks, which are, frankly, still mysteriously finding their way through various modes to reach me.

planning to have a short no-frills trip to bangkok, perhaps in june. it's just so fun hunting for all the budget airlines and accomodation, and ur own itenary. hehe. still looking for 2 pple to join us actually. 4's a nice group size.

in fact, this has not been the first time i've felt so out-of-place with these friends. hmmm. i recall sometime ago where i too, was feeling tt what was before me was not too right and bailed out. seemed irresponsible at tt time and received alot of silly comments from some friends, but in retrospect i still feel tt it was the best move.

oops... paiseh, still haven't scanned ur anime yet andre. :( btw for those who don't know, andre draws really good anime and gundam. breathtaking. i pomise i'll start tonight. haha don't club me!

anyway, i'm feeling a little bewildered+irritated+indifferent+resigned right now. and i found tt i'm not the only one who feels in such a way abt these friends as i ask around. and we start asking ourselves why pple are we not going hk.

to those who have just finished their exams, rem to enjoy ur hols, but don't forget to do ur stuff too.

spammed

oh yay, seems like everyone's holidays have come liao. :) so this is the happy season now. but what a pity, there doesn't seem to be any nice movies around right now. and i'm like TOTALLY immersed in d2 right now, thanks to wm ;P nono, i'm noto blaming him or anything, cause anyway we have time now. haha, but who knows what will happen when sch reopens. aiyoh.

i think popups are super-irritating. and there seems to be a never-ending barrage of rubbish, which can be potentially embarrassing at times, especially when u leave ur comp for a short time and advertisments blatantly screening scantily-clad women come up, and ur family happens to walk by.

sigh. i think something needs to be done. anyway there was this rubbish tt downladed itself onto my computer, so right now i have a "searchbar" at the top of my internet explorer. and it's not tt i go and dl rubbish, but it just appears... and the worst part is tt i can't remove it.

can't find the file to uninstall
can't be removed as an option when i right-click the bar

rather akin to a leech.

any chance we can sue them? at the rate it is going, i think it may provide a steady source of income for the rest of my life. and who knows, i may just quit medical school and be a full-time suer-of-spammers.

oh yes, tried using ad-aware liao, but everyday i scan there's like 50 files found. guess it helps a bit, who knows how bad it could be w/o using ad-aware.

of bags and cars and other stuff

arh. today was indeed a very eventful day. went to sch in the morning for a SSM session. hmmm, don't know why our group is so 'on' about it, but it's actually quite fun despite the inconvenient travelling down to nus... we're doing some study on how urine can help treat AIDS. yep, and we're meeting on mon and prob wed as well. can u believe it? wow. i think it's quite interesting though to use this topic, and hopefully it will be fruitful as well.

after the SSM session ended, went home, then to orchard for lunch with ivan. and i made the biggest mistake of the day by taking the car to orchard. initially i thought tt i could drive straight to suntec for bs later on, and have a convenient form of transport hom after tt... the parking is just SO expensive at orchard, not to mention the CRAZY jam.i was SO irritated with the super-heavy traffic and the vans tt suddenly stop to unload, jamming up the whole road. in effect, i spent 1/2hr driving from my place to orchard.

and there was ERP when i drove there in the afternoon ($1.00+), parking fees ($8.00), and ERP again when i was heading to suntec. ($1.00+) it's just so irritating. i'll never drive to orchard again, esp in the afternoon. when the parking is $2/hr. sigh.

but still, went to collect the free starbucks voucher at paragon again today. still can't figure out a sensible reason why the pple would give us a free drink. hmmm, must have some strings attached, but don't know what yet.

oh yes, seems tt the new blog design is supposed to be much nicer than the previous one, cause the previous one was just horrendous. aiyar, u'll should have said something mar... :) rather akin to a person with body odour and no one tells him; the poor fella goes ard with his aroma w/o the slightest whiff of what's going on...

at paragon we met andre to collect the voucher, then went taka to shop for mothers' day gift. following which we went to far east to look for a sling bag for andre. hmmm, i think the 'hunt' was quite interesting, though a little bit tiring esp for my feet. :) and although we didn't buy a bag in the end, somehow i just felt a strange sense of satisfaction. hmmm.

then we went to the ddp sale at aljunid. which was the 2nd biggest mistake of the day, since i got very irritated in the car on the way there; ran through whatever displays they had within 5 mins and found not many appealing (at least for me). i think andre bought a green t-shirt, whilst george bought a ligh blue pants and a belt. granted the items were very cheap, but i think some of the items didn't really look nice. still, good bargains.

the way back was also terrible. it was peak hour i guess and there were so many cars on the road... it was just SO fustrating to drive with those conditions, and at the same time figuring out WHICH WAY to go because it is a crime to not know the roads of singapore. anyway... i'll just avoid driving at these times in the future.

after i dropped george and ivan off at city hall, i was about to head back to suntec for bs but found tt i had to go all the way down to carlton and bugis before i could turn back to suntec. and can u tell me how iritating tt is... so in the end i just gave up and drove hom instead, missing today's bs. sigh.

haiz. it was a terrible day today.

anyway, let's hope tml will be a better day. going to the gym in the morning, then to church in the afternoon at 4pm cause there's a newcomers' tea when the new pple who joined campus ministry since jan this yr are invited to attend. i'm supposed to go with junrong (kim's husband). hmmm, don't really know him tt well, but think it'll be exciting.

oh yar, campus tml will be in the new overflow rm. wow, never been there before, hope tt it'll be exciting. :)

*yawn* nite.