Watz New?

Nothing much really... except that temperatures in HK has been going down south, it's autumn here. You know it's autumn in HK when jackets of all materials, woollen, goretex, ski-typed etc make their appearances; knee-high boots over jeans, pants & short skirts sprout up everywhere in the shops and on girls. It was a sudden change in temperatures, one day it was still humid and blistering hot, the next... brrr and windy.

It's still a couple of weeks before we return to S'pore for the xmas, but now it's the mad rush before the semestral exams... have to prepare these 50+ pupils to sit for the exams. It seems like teachers and parents are the only ones who are truly worried and stressed out before the exams. Sigh...

D has just started his MBA, and I am considering if I want to further my studies. There are so many different courses here in HK, and I don't really know which one to take. MEd, English Linguistics, IT ... which one?!? Or perhaps I should do something totally different, become a Diving Instructor.

We have decided that we aren't going to enlarge our family this year, it's just going to be the two of us for now. D had asked me couple of weeks ago if I have "played" enough, given that I am getting better in climbing and that we are doing the PADI courses. I thought about it for a while, and wondered if all these extra-curricular activities are worth doing first before being a mother. Even though the maternal instincts have kicked in for a few months now, and I am afraid of all those medical issues that surround mothers in their thirties, I reckon I have decided to postpone it especially after what a good friend had advised - If it's in God's plan, it's in His plan.

We are going out soon, attending our Rescue Diver course... first step towards being a PADI Divemaster. And we should be buying our BCD and regulators too...

BBQ

We had a HK-style BBQ just a week ago (yah yah, I know, very slow to post... been too busy). Realise that the HKers simply throw the charcoal into the half oil drum, set up the fire and immediately begin bbq without waiting for the fire to die down till red-hot coals. D, being the ex-scout, didn't think it was right or healthy to bbq with an open flame, spent some time to tame the fire and finally we were ready to bbq. 

Another Duh Foto in HK

Saw this when we had dinner after our Emergency First Response Course at Diving Adventure in Causeway Bay. Direct translation from Putonghua, a bad one.

 

Clownfish Attack

We did our Enriched Air (aka Nitrox) dives today, one in the morning and another after lunch. In the especially clear waters around Shelter Island (off Sai Kung), we spent at least an hour in the waters for each dive. It was a nice warm day, lots of sunshine but wasn't overly humid since it's autumn in HK now.

We saw more clownfish (like those orange ones in the cartoon Finding Nemo) this time round, and being the inquistive sort, they will swim towards you to check things out.

Anyway, I found clownfish to be really cute and decided to just kneel on the seabed to observe two medium-sized clownfish which were about a metre away from me. Within seconds, two larger ones swam up by the side to join the ones which were already in front of me. For those few seconds, we were just facing each other, one diver and 4 clownfish having a staring match. I decided to swim over them so as to join D and another diver and that was when things went kinda wrong.

One of the larger clownfish swam up to meet me and with amazing speed, chomped on my index finger. Thank God I decided to wear my gloves. Gee, now what did I do to this guy? I flicked my hand vigorously and finally I got the psycho clownfish off my finger. My finger is ok, the gloves are thick. I sure hope I didn't knock that fish out or worse, kill it.

I read that clownfish are aggressive and protective over their young. It's probably their breeding season now, as there were many which I saw that were close to their anemones, protecting their homes and possibly their young. Nothing like the cute Nemo in the movie...

We are diving again this Sunday at another part of HK near the China border for our Peak Performance Buoyancy course. I definitely need to tune my buoyancy capability. I am growing to like diving, although climbing still takes the top position. And through these past few weeks of diving, I realise it's not that simple... you need ot do it often, much like climbing as the more you train, the better you become. One thing I hope to do is to dive with the rays... these are magnificent and amazing creatures. Slow, steady but graceful, as they cut through the waters, unlike me who is still a clumsy ox trying to be consistent with the buoyancy issue.

Cool Seat

This is one cool Bouldering finish I have ever seen. Basically the climber has to complete the route using only those grips marked up by the specific coloured tape. The route, which is marked up by the orange tape (those orange squares), finishes with a nice seat about 3 m above ground. Cool ...

iLounge Holiday Buyers' Guide 2005-2006

If you are part of the IPOD nation, click on the pic to visit the people who had put this 106 pages of "I Don't Really Need These Stuff But I So Want Them" guide and download it. I now have a copy of the Buyer's Guide and thinking about what to get next for my Mini.

Ipod Cookies?

Yummy

Late Nites & The Sniffles

I think I am getting abit too old to stay up late on consecutive nites...

Mon 31st Oct --> Halloween Bash @ Ocean Park (Fotos later):

D & I, together 5 other frens, were at Ocean Park in the evening and by the time I actually slept, it was about 1am. 5 hours later, I had to wake up to get ready for school. What made it worse was the fact that I didn't sleep well the night before, hence by Tues morning, I was a walking zombie.

Tues 1st Nov --> Nitrox Lesson @ Diving Adventure:

It started around 7.45pm, and we had to do the Knowledge Review (lots of complicated calculations) and a 25-qn test (more complicated calculations & tricky MCQs). Our instructor, Ah Shuen, went through the qns with us so that we understood where our mistakes were... by then, I was really squirming in my seat hoping that the session would end soon as I could feel the onset of a bad headache and droopy eyelids. The session ended just after 11pm and again, I went to bed ard 1am.

Wed 2nd Nov : School was generally a matter of counting down the hours, and nursing the pressure that was brewing at the top of my head and around my eyes... I was sniffing and my throat was on fire. Yikes, it's the dreaded cold again... I "survived" the meeting which was held after school. Against D's instructions, I didn't see the doc and thought my cold will go away after an early night's sleep.

Thurs 3rd Nov, Today: Saw the doc and got the medical leave... I asked him why is it that I am still suceptible to flu when I was just vaccinated against flu 2 weeks' back. The good Doc said that there is a wide variety of respiratory viruses, and the flu vaccine I had will protect me from the most serious variant but not the others. Also the term "flu" has actually been used as a generic term for all these different respiratory viruses but actually it refers to the most serious variant "influenza". So what I have been getting is the different respiratory viruses, and not flu per se.

Still I think it's basically a sum of all these late nights, close proximity to people who are sick around me, and the chili tapioca snack that I had eaten on Tues afternoon... sigh.