NUS Dive Club @ Pular Aur... (I SURVIVED!)

I survived the diving trip! Yay! Did many crazy things and saw many cute cute stuff underwater. Big blue starfish more than 30 from arm to arm, sea anemone, clown fish, giant clams, hermit crabs and the highlight.... THE WHALE SHARK! First timer luck some call it.. Made some friends there too.

The place we stayed in was a modest place. Very simple but clean, thankfully. Gerald and I were supposed to share a room with Benjamin and Aleks, both exchange students from Germany, the latter is a Greek. Our first room had a faulty aircon so I asked if there's another spare room with one working. No, i'm not an air-con freak but i thought, why not? So anyway, we got the room but the exchange students didn't mind not having aircon and so we split. Quite good too because 4 to a room would be really too cramp. Pulau Aur is a pristine place. Clean and nice. The water there is beautiful and its inhabitants, cute and spriteful.

My diving team consisted of 7 people excluding trhe dive master and the instructor. We had lots of fun. Still apparehensive about clearing mask underwater due to the mishap during the pool session. I pulled through the drill twice successfully. Enough to ocnvince the instructor to pass me. I'm quite sure i wont clear my mask underwater anyway. I'd rather clear the water in my mask wearing it than take the entire mask out.

Overall, it's been a very good trip that i will remember for a long long time to come. Perhaps when i save enough, I'll go again. Also, when i allay the fears of those at home and UK who had been so worried about me. Thanks guys...

It takes a victim to be a victim - CL

Had lunch with a good friend this afternoon. He said, "It takes a victim to be a victim". At first I didn't get it, but after asking him what exactly he meant, I finally got it.

One must be a willing party to become a victim. As the chinese saying goes, "Yi ge yuan da, yi ge yuan ai" which means that "one is willing to hit, one is willing to bear the pain", literally.

I looked around me and certain events that happened today and I think this is so true. I went for my diving pool session 2 today and I choked on water. Headed straight up to the surface. Under real sea conditions, I would have died. My lungs would have collapsed under the change in pressure. I wanted to give up so many times because I'm not exactly a good swimmer and hey...diving? ....

I allowed myself to be a non-swimmer, a "victim" because I allowed myself to be. There are so many things that I could have done to relieve myself of this situation but I didn't.

Likewise, when one is victimised, there are hundred and one things that one can do to get out of the situation and fight back. More often than not, when we're victimised, we often blame others for our pathetic situation. We blame everyone but ourselves.

Perhaps you were victimised next time, you can stop and think about the hundred and one ways which you can retaliate. Yes! There are usually so many ways things that you can to to get out of the situation. Fight back and triumph over life. Then, perhaps, life would be so much more meaningful.

不想用言语拉扯所以选择不责怪

(Don't want to play tug-a-war with words so I choose not to reprimand) - Waye

Have you done this before? How often do you find it so difficult to explain or make your stand to the other party?

When words are used so desperately to prove our point to someone who just cannot see it, the experience is exasperating and often very draining. The first reaction under such circumstances is to try even harder to make the other person see or at least appreciate what you have in mind. This is, usually, futile and makes matters worst.

Over the years, I've learnt that sitting back and just let nature run its course is better than engaging in this war of words. Perhaps one day, he will understand and see what you mean.

PS: Tried and tested so you sure won't vomit blood :D

Was Darwin Wrong?

No. The evidence for Evolution is overwhelming. Evolution by natural selection, the central concept of life's work of Charles Darwin, is a theory. It's a theory about the origin of adaptation, complexity and diversity among Earth's living creatures. If you are skeptical by nature, unfamiliar with the terminology of science, and unaware of the overwhelming evidence, you might even be tempted to say that it's "just" a theory. The notion that Earth orbits around the sun rather than vice versa, offered by Copernicus in 1543, is a theory. Continental drift is a theory. The existence, structure, and dynamics of atom? Atomic theory. Even electricity is a theoretical construct, involving electrons, which are tiny units of charged mass that no one has ever seen. Each of these theories is an explanation that as been confirmed to such a degree, by observation and experiment, that knowledgeable experts accept it as a fact. (Excerpt from National Geographic November 2004)

Lots of thoughts after my Evolution and Comparative Genomics. Just don't know where to start and anyway I don't think people who read my blog is interested in evolution. So, just enjoy the pic I took during my prac.

Sex or Friendship? uoynidetnioppasidosmai ...

When you have to choose between the two, which would you choose? Especially in situations where choosing one, you forgo the other by default.

I choose friendship. Not a very difficult choice for me. Was it hard for you to choose?

How did sex and friendship get entangled together in the first place? To name a few: Maybe after sex we cannot be friends anymore. (That's if i have sex with you. :D) Or perhaps that someone that you were going to do with meant something to me. A past? A future? Or just a fragment of my memory. It doesn't matter.

The decision was easy.

I remembered how my friends were by my side when i was at my lowest.

I remembered how i felt when i was all alone in this island and you guys were there for me.

I remembered how my relationship with you guys outlasted most of my (un)romantic relationships.

I respected my friends as individuals and i will stop at nothing to protect them.

Respect. The decision was easy. Was it for you?