Weekend Dive

Class starts in two hours time and I’ve got nothing to do… but TGFCN (thank god for compulsory notebooks). At least I could still surf the net. Oh, how I love Ngee Ann Poly!

It’s been two days since I came back from the weekend dive trip and it was awesome! It’s like a half leisure trip. Did a jetty jump, exited by the beach (yes, the tank is uber heavy), saw a bumphead, as well as a trigger fish and got bitten by bed bugs (eww). Jeez, and now I’m confused with the cert thing… 2 more dives or a theory test? It’s bothering me.

I brought along my trusty polaroid along which took up some precious space in my backpack. 

 

It’s Pulaur Aur by the way… Not Dayang. My bad.

Way to go for some spastic smiles!

Amelia and Illi saw a turtle! Gah. That’s all for the update. 

It’s Retro Time!

Hola! I just came back from Mustafa… Actually I went there to hunt for a watch.

Hah, that’s the one. The Citizen one was way out of budget, so I got the Casio one. It’s pretty cheap. My mum said that it looks gross… something which rich old men will wear. I’m ignoring that comment. 

Ok, back to school work.

Androgynous Obsession

Okay. The more I see Kate Lanphear’s boots, the more I want to kidnap them… Because they’re way out of budget for me. I should stop dreaming about them. Anyways, a miscommunication with the hairdresser today resulted to a super cropped fringe which I have to bear until my bangs grow back. Ew.

I hope mask clearing isn’t that bad…

A Week of Work With No Play

Wow, wow, wow!!! It feels like I’ve totally forgotten about this blog. Hum dee dum.

This week was pretty hectic. And Jiabing dropped over for a night to complete this darn video. I just zonked out at 5 plus in the morning… And felt bad for leaving her to do the boring interview editing. Jeez.

And today we just dropped by the Salvation Army at Bukit Timah. Man, the eyewear section was interesting. Got a pair of coolio shorts. Hah, thrifting is gooood.

Man, I can’t go for ADVANCE openwater because I didn’t pass the darn basic openwater course. Only two 5 metres dives! I must emphasize on the FIVE. Yes. I competed the fifteen metres dives instead of the FIVE metres ones. What a bummer. 

Jack Johnson - All At Once

All at once,
The world can overwhelm me
There’s almost nothin’ that you could tell me
That could ease my mind

Which way will you run
When it’s always all around you
And the feelin’ lost and found you again
A feelin’ that we have no control
Around the sun
Some say
There’s gonna be the new hell
Some say
It’s still too early to tell
Some say
It really ain’t no myth at all

Keep askin’ ourselves are we really
Strong enough
There’s so many things that we got
Too proud of
We’re too proud of
We’re too proud of

I wanna take the preconceived
Out from underneath your feet
We could shake it off
Instead we’ll plant some seeds
We’ll watch em’ as they grow
And with each new beat
From your heart the roots grow deeper
The branches will they reach for what
Nobody really knows
But underneath it all
Theres this heart all alone

What about is gone
And it really won’t be so long
Sometimes it feels like a heart is no place to be singin’ from at all

Theres a world we’ve never seen
Theres still hope between the dreams
The weight of it all
Could blow away with a breeze
If your waiting on the wind
Don’t forget to breathe
Cause as the darkness gets deeper
We’ll be sinkin as we reach for love
At least somethin we could hold
But I’ll reach to you from where time just cant go

What about is gone
And it really wont be so long
Sometimes it feels like a heart is no place to be singing from at all

 

“… songs are brave things bold enough to sing when all they know is darkness.” - Jamie Tworkowski, TWLOHA

Into The Sea

Hah. Dayang was fun. We saw shooting stars, the sunrise and a shoal of flying fish during the ferry ride. Missed two dives (hyperventilated on one… don’t laugh), left someone on another island and went for a dive, saw an eel, ate at some restaurant and saw a retro wedding going on (with a particularly funny dance) and got left at SIM by the furious van driver which made us walked back to school at midnight.

Yep, those are the highlights of the trip. 

Somewhere Beyond The… Pool

Crap. I realized that I’m a nervous wreck. The in-pool session was kind of intimidating. Jeez.

Peking

“Who needs air-con when you’ve got weather like this”?

Uh-huh, I so agree with that statement. I’m talking about Beijing by the way. Well, it’s getting warmer there… Summer, they call it. I wish we had the four seasons here.

Anyway, the trip was kinda like this crazy, goofy, one tree hill thing (no pun intended) all meshed into one. Being chased by a crazy dude down the street, good but oily food, taking on the fake disneyland, seeing the poor living out in the cold, news worthy events being tackled, changed three hotel rooms in two nights, ghostly encounters, saw reuters for real, bored off our ass at some CCTV opera show, gossiping, photography, failed attempt to catch the sunrise, getting lost, climbing the great wall, getting confused with a place called ‘the place’ and ‘that place’ (they actually exist in beijing, google it), toured a film school, saw tonnes of vintage cameras, bargaining, attending a cinematography lecture, faking accents, telling people we’re from hong kong/ korea when we’re not, amused by the exotic food, more gossiping, pubbing, catching up on sleep everywhere, ate steamed donkey’s privates, pms-ing, buying banned films, got squashed at the train station, looking for ‘black’ fred perry stuff etc.

The ok ones are posted on flickr. You can check out more there

But strangely, I don’t feel any pre-olympics vibe anywhere. Not even any Dalai Lama campaign or whatever going on.

P-P-P-Polaroid

Okay, I’m a little too late to realise that our postcard polaroid thing has been posted up already. Hah. I only noticed it when I read Arisa’s blog.

There you go. Suddenly I miss school. Dang!

Bang!kok

Hmm. I guess the most memorable thing from this trip are the conversations made.

The Boxing Conversation
Us: Where do we go to watch Muay Thai… Thai Boxing?
Them: We’re Thais… We box for you… Thai Boxing!

The Bargaining Conversation
Tuk-tuk guy: 80 Baht.
Py: No… 70 Baht.
Tuk-tuk guy: No… 80… Need to U-turn.
Py: We go there and wait for you (pointing across the road)… 70 Baht.
Tuk-tuk guy: No! 80 Baht.
(We were ready to walk away. He called us back.)
Tuk-tuk guy: Okay… 70 Baht.

Than there’s also Pui Ye’s Bargaining Tactic 101. Always use “I’m a student” and “Need to take bus/ train back”.

There was also the “chicken and duck” conversation. Julie could actually understand what they were saying… This girl knows English, Mandarin, Cantonese, French, German and Thai! Man, I’m jealous. The bus ride was fun as well.

 River Taxi + Pui Ye and her piece of Guava.

Check out the packet of worms. Roaches looking insects were sold there as well.

That’s about it. Jeez. I’m packing off to Beijing in like another 2 weeks…