it was a quiet uneventful week. didn't have much to do, but sent out a few resumes. it's always reassuring when you get replies that your applications are being processed.

on saturday went skating and managed to get the wheelbarrow after analysing it for a week. then went for a nightskate.. shi zhi lu kou on skates.. skated and ate and skated and ate... feeling more comfortable with my skates... but decided i've got to be less violent with them... haha..

lazy sunday... i went down to ecp to meet another bunch of skaters.. who call themselves the zig zaggers, also slalomers, and guided them on some moves they wern't sure about..

had an interview with nets... hopefully i can start work soon.. sounds like an absolutely challenging job.. which is good....

Radio academy has ended.

For 5 nights inside a small dingy room in the media academy building in a quiet secluded corner of Mediacorp, we attended lessons and listened to Bernard Lim talk about how to be a radio personality, the tricks of the trade, presentation skills, how the station is run, the all holy untouchable programming clock, how no one is above the station.

On Thursday we had a nice time recording in the production studios where we recorded a 6 minute talkset to be edited into a little radio program and boy what fun we had. Anyways, on Friday we had a review of the whole thing and had a good laugh. And the potential radio personalities shone thru!

Some pictures.

And over the weekend I went to check out the nussc's skating course. Pretty good turnout.

And today I woke up to a call from Jiahui, over in Philly, and then spent the day watching nip/tuck.

Now I can't stop!

today marks the most exciting day of the whole 5 days of the radio academy 8th intake class i signed up for. we're going to get to do a studio recording after 3 days of talks on how radio works, what makes radio tick, how to be a better presenter, and actual techniques to help loosen the tongue, train the vocal chords by mark richmond.

the photoserver went down for awhile but it's back up.. the diving photos from my advanced scuba trip is available at
http://nytemare.lobang.net/Advanced

and the photos from phuket are available from http://nytemare.lobang.net/Phuket

a new addiction

addictions are difficult things to manage... i've just gotten addicted to sucking air out of a presurrized tank, while floating as if weightless, exploring the other 70% of our beautiful planet. that's it! i've taken to scuba diving!

let's write something about scuba, and show some pictures...

it all started when jagr recommended mako subaquatics to me. went down to the scuba diver(open water in padi terms) intro, was greeting by a beautiful kim, who intro-ed the course. couldn't sign up because kc's leave from saf had not been approved then, so we waited. that saturday we went down to do fitting of the wetsuit, equipment, had a 8 hour theory lesson, medical checkup and we were ready for the pool sessions. we attended a pool session on sunday, had to pass a swimming test too, 200m swim, 15m underwater breath hold, 10 minute tread water... then we did skin diving drills... mask clearing, snorkel clearing, finning exercises...
the following wednesday we went down for the actual scuba training... more finning, rigging up drills, derigging drills, and giant stride... wonder how they keep their heads out of the water when striding in..

so last weekend we were off on our dive trip to pulau dayang.. right next to pulau aur. the mini van set off from ayer rajah for causeway.. made it thru immigration and customs, and we were off on the ride.. the driver drove really fast.. and we were in kota tinggi in no time.. stopped for.. RAMLY BURGER! wahahaha.. had a beef special and a cup of teh tarik.. and off we were to the jetty in mersing... took the sea princess out.. a 4 hr ride... and arrived at 5am.. checked into the rooms... and promptly fell asleep.. woke up at 8... for breakfast.. a sumptous buffet breakfast of eggs tuna bread nasi lemak... then off we were to our diving...

did 3 dives on saturday, teluk kador, teluk teluran and teluk jawa... did drills, then had 1 leisure dive.. the 2 other SDs on the trip was pris, this teacher trainee, and jeff, a orthopedic surgeon, who's other hobby is flying planes.. on the trip up.. we shared the van with reg, my instructor, soon, a SQ pilot flying 777s, and audry jiejie, a big time DBS banker. always amazed at the different type of people you can meet going on holiday, esp the successful ones.

anyways in between dives we'd return to shore and have lunch, tea.. there was never lack of food! and the dinner was a bbq buffet with free flow crab, lamb chop, satay, curry chicken, fried rice, bee hoon which was simply fantastic.

sunday came about and we did 2 more dives.. twice in jawa.. we abandoned a dive at raiders rock cuz the current was too strong and pris disappeared while descending.. she just couldn't master her finning kick... instead she was cycling.. so well.. drifted too far away with the current.. luckily she was picked up by another boat...

well, an eventful weekend of diving.. saw bat fish parrot fish nemos, and moray eels.. whichi made my day.. hopefully this weekend's trip, i'll get to see bigger baracuda, maybe a turtle or 2 and some mantas!

pictures here