Hantu 3rd anniversary dives~~

Am cheating a little since this post is coming up a month late... Hehz... Am finally free to sort through the photos and pick some nicer ones out to be posted here. Still need some time to sort out all photos properly to put in my online albums though. Below are some of the things we saw, definitely have a whole bunch more but those are all going into the albums!!! Not surprising that we saw quite a number of nudibranchs since I was with Gina and ChayHoon, expert nudi spotters~~

The echinoderms...tubular feet organisms

First iconic seastar I have seen in Singapore, as well as first seastar I haven seen while diving!! All those knobblies and commons seastars I have come across were all during intertidal walks....

First cushion star while diving in Singapore!!! Color looks off since I had to take it with flash using the IXUS underwater mode... Manual with customised white balance works the best, but when I need to use the flash....

Fishies....Never really felt up to the challenge of taking fish photos in Singapore's murk... Generally end up rather obscure it definitely was a day to "seas the moment"!!

Common copperbanded butterfly fish that we actually have on our stamps.. Usually seen in two and difficult to take since they seemingly disappear with a quick turn.

Butt view of one of the larger gobies around our shores. This fella seemed to be hunting amongst the holes, and it's rather fast, so shots are generally but views.... [EDIT] Checked with K and this goby is known as the barred high fin goby aka beautiful goby.

Anemonefish!! First time I am seeing them outside of Kusu ^^ These are false clowns since they lack the black band between the white and orange bands. The larger one wasn't exactly very welcoming when the 3 of us were just taking shot after shot after shot of them and their host anemone...

And on to corals!!!

Closeup of a mushroom coral. Unlike other hard corals, this group of corals are actually free living, meaning they are MEANT to be loose and "mobile". Love this closeup since you can see pretty colored bandings near the mouth ^^

This one is a super asymmetrical mushroom coral. You can see that the top side is HUGE and the bottom kinda small in comparison. Wonder what happened to make it become this way? Maybe it got broken in half before and the smaller half is some osrt of re-growth?

Real beauty, ain't this? Anchor-head coral, also known as Euphyllia. This hard coral hsa it's tentacles out 24/7, making ID-ing pretty easy, even during the day!!

Not exactly sure which coral this is. Can tell that it's an octocoral, and it's rather pretty since they look like a mini-meadow of flowers on the substrate....

Crabbies~~~

Kinda did a quick collage of the crabs we saw... The bulk of them during the night dive, with some rather shy crabs making a quick appearance from cracks and crevices during the day...

Cuttlefish~~~

Finally managed to catch a full grown cuttlefish in Singapore on my cammie~~~ The super friendly small one we were "playing" with some time back doesn't count!! Bwahaha...Cuttlefish!!! Buibui!!

Stingrays~~

All of these are our common blue spotted stingrays but to see ray after ray after ray, all so nicely staying on the substrate and posing for us (while eyeballing us carefully) was just amazing!!!

Flatworm~~

Yar, I know this is the super common flatworm that we just keep on seeing both in the sea and in the intertidal areas. But this one was looking at me head-on!! So my photoshooting skills aren't great.. It was looking at me nicely and I still got it a little blurred up~~ Grr... But it took of off and swwam almost immediately leh...

Sluggies~~ ^^

Too many nudibranchs to post individually, so collage time!!! All so chio!!Some were just a cm in length and I still wonder how I managed to get the blue and green one in focus...

More slugs~~These are sea hares. Tiny and cute and green!!!

Yep. So who says that our seas are devoid of life? Hantu may be heavily dived but it's STILL teeming with life!! And really, kudos to Debby and her Hantu bloggers team for dutifully showing our reefs to divers every month!! Hope to dive with you guys soon~~

Click for the rambling...

北极星的眼泪 [张栋梁]

像断了线 消失人海里面
我的眼终于失去 你的脸
再等一会 奢望流星会出现
愿 如果真的实现
爱能不能永远
明天 或许来不及变
但曾经走过的昨天 越来越远
北极星的眼泪 说不出的想念
原来我们活在 两个世界
北极星的眼泪 你哭红的双眼
被淋湿的诺言 淹没在心里面
我抬头看着 爱不见

再等一会 奢望流星会出现
愿 如果真的实现
爱能不能永远
明天 或许来不及变
但曾经走过的昨天 越来越远
北极星的眼泪 说不出的想念
原来我们活在 两个世界
北极星的眼泪 你哭红的双眼
被淋湿的诺言 淹没在心里面
我抬头看着 爱不见
当对的人 等不到对的时间
就在放开手的瞬间 爱撕成两边

北极星的眼泪 说不出的想念
原来我们活在 两个世界
北极星的眼泪 你哭红的双眼
被淋湿的诺言 淹没在心里面
我抬头看着 爱不见
整个宇宙都 流眼泪

Click for the rambling...

What happened to rationality?

Human handling of polar bear stirs flap

This article raised a number of questions with regards to zoos and human meddling in the lives of animals. Just because Knut's mum abandoned her two cubs, doesn't mean that she would have done so in the wild, and definitely doesn't justify outright murder of a polar bear cub!! Yes, an abandoned cub in the wild would mean near to sure death but it still isn't definite, and aren't polar bears supposed to be protected? They definitely are endangered animals. Maybe making the cub dependent on humans isn't exactly the best thing to do but taking the other extreme of just killing it off ain't right either. What happened to methods of remediation? How about using puppets or roleplaying etc. to attempt to teach Knut how to fend for himself, so that he could be re-introduced into the wild? Wouldn't that make more sense, even from an animal rights point of view?

Really, the bizarre things humans think of protesting about. If the only solutions we can come up with when faced with problems with regards to animal protection are only the two extremes, we probably would end up doing more harm than any good at all. How then can we be responsible caretakers of this earth of ours? How then can we face the inevitable climate change (or crisis) and continue to protect our lives, livelihoods, and biodiversity?

[EDIT]
And here's yet another piece of disheartening news about another group of mammals, our ceteceans. This period is depressing enough with my thesis looming over my head and all the mentoring duties I have cramped in the next 2 weeks, and I definitely could do without such disheartening news...

Plight of River Dolphins

Click for the rambling...

Just because I haven't done this for a while...

3 things that scare me:
Falling from a height
Total darkness
Marilyn Manson

3 people who make me laugh:
Just pick any 3 of my friends ^^

3 things I love:
Books
Nature
Sun

3 things I hate:
Pickles
Green peppers
Fickle-mindedness

3 things I don't understand:
Physics
Macromedia Flash
People

3 things on my desk (in lab):
Indo-Pacific Coral Reef Field Guide
The Statistical Sleuth
FiNS magazines

3 things I'm doing now:
Playing KoL
Chatting online
Typing this

3 things I wanna do before I die:
Visit random places in Japan
Visit random places in UK
See whaleshark in the wild

3 things I can do:
Dive but not drive
Swim but not cycle
Play the piano but not a guitar

3 things you should listen to:
Common sense
Your conscience
The sea

3 things you should never listen to:
Offkey singing
Jolin Tsai
Ambiguity

3 things I'd like to learn (haven't started yet):
Driving
Cycling
Korean

3 favorite food:
Udon
Laksa
Cha soba

3 beverages I drink regularly:
Water
Orange juice
Vitasoy

3 TV shows/books I watched/read as a kid:
Thundercats
Enid Blyton
Captain Planet

=======================================================

And thus I complete today's quota of randomly useless stuff to do ^^

Click for the rambling...

To Dayang and back...

Whoopee!!! Had my quick weekend break to do AOW before resigning myself to the mercy of the paper mill. Thanks everyone for a relaxing and enjoyable weekend. Despite not being able to find that elusive whale shark, we sure did see many many fishies (too many triggers for my liking, many bumpheads), many cuttlefish, many crabs, cushion stars etc. Not to mention learning a new fin stroke and being an extra in rescue training as well. Sorry to disappoint but really have too many readings and projects and stuff to do so no intensive photo blogging but I promise to have the photos up in my albums once semester ends!!!

Now... do I really wanna go do rescue as well?

Click for the rambling...

Ghost Rider

Glad I managed to catch this movie with woc. ^^ Interesting that I never knew that this Marvel character even existed til earlier this year when I had my movie spree in Jan and saw the trailer. The special effects are so cool!!! Pretty decent acting though not much suspense in the plotline (didn't help that we had a "helpful" father-son duo behind us giving a running commentary in chinese...) Also have a new actor to swoon over. Matt Long who plays the 17 year old Jonhy Blaze. With the special effects literally burning up the tarmac, Ghost Rider is DEFINITELY worth a watch in the cinema (unlike Epic Movie that looks amusing but prob worth just watching at home on a tv set). As I already mentioned, no suspense here. Pretty much the usual good triumphs over evil, love conquers all kinda storyline. (Watcha expect? It IS based on a comic series!!) Interesting how the FIRE element seems to be able to overpower EARTH, WIND, and even WATER. Thought it was kinda like scissors-paper-stone where earth and fire basically don't do much to each other, wind strengthens fire, and water kills fire? Yet another interesting thought that popped up at the end of the movie: #01 top perk of being a Ghost Rider - green transport since cool bike (oops, meant "trusty steed") runs on a renewal resource, brimstone fire from hell. (Just imagine trying to use petrol with all those flames. Asking for an explosion to happen!! Or maybe that's why EVERYTHING's on fire - petrol leakage *grinz*)

Click for the rambling...

Happy Chinese New Year!!

Too many things happening one after another, thus the neglected blog.... Finished all my ReefFriends training dives (now for OJT-ing), first draft for my thesis intro has been submitted and shot down by Prof, application for the MBARI summer internship has been sent, preparing for the last round of spawning from my POC *keeps fingers crossed* The visibility in Singapore has definitely gotten better and I promise to have new photos in my Yahoo albums by the end of next week. Will also try and solve the problem with my Youtube account that some how compresses ALL my videos to like 4 seconds worth of footage :(

Really need to increase my productivity rate since our mid-semester break is half eaten up by the CNY celebrations/holidays, and there's my AOW and the Hantu bloggers anniversary dives in Mar. Not to mention whipping my thesis into shape and finishing our tropical conservation project by the end of Mar as well. Would get to know the results of my summer internship application by mid-Mar, so there's that to stress over. After finding out that there's another summer field studies thing that I also wanna go for, I don't know if I would be happy if I get to go California. Nowhere near completing the exploration of SEA diversity and stuff!! *How?* For all my ranting, might not even get into either summer prog since they only have like 10 vacancies each... Oh well, if you see me with like no hair in April, you'll nknow why. ^^

Anyways, here's wishing everybody a happy (and relaxing) Chinese New Year and mid-semester break as we usher in the year of the pig!!! Also to good weather on the 19th for our ReefWalk at Kusu ^^ SO nervous. First time guiding!!

Click for the rambling...

An Inconvenient Truth... Again!!!

Whoppee!!! Blog surfing DOES pay off.... Found out from Monkey's blog that there would be a couple of free screenings for Al Gore's "An Inconvenient Truth" in NUS ^^ This is a chance for those who did not manage to catch it last year when it was screened, so PLEASE GO AND WATCH!!!! Details as shown below:


Date: 2nd February 2007 (Friday)
Time: 7pm – 9pm
Venue: Lecture Theatre 16, School of Business

Date: 8th February 2007 (Thursday)
Time: 7pm - 9pm
Venue: Lecture Theatre 28, Faculty of Science

For a review, read Monkey's blog at http://leafmonkey.blogspot.com/2007/01/inconvenient-truth.html.

Click for the rambling...

Life is short...

Dearest Linda,

I may not have known you long or very well but you have made an impression on my life. Your smiles, your cheerfulness, your entire sunny disposition really brightened up my day. Especially when going for SPS stuff at the end of the day. Can't believe that you are gone. Gone just like that. Not knowing what happen, just a couple of impersonal emails received today, to inform us that you went away on Wednesday 24 Jan 2007. I do hope you went as painlessly as possible, even as I join the many who have found you dear and would miss your presence. Really regret not meeting up with you after those couple of semesters together at SPS. Really. Your presence HAS made a difference in my life. I may not be able to remember the exact topic of our discussions, but I always went away thinking and pondering more. Really never thought that I would never get a chance to even say hi anymore. Even as I try to wipe away these tears and get on with life, I do hope you are at peace and that your family would pull together. God bless....

Click for the rambling...

First Semakau walk of the year ^^

Was out stalking shore critters yesterday. Yar, I know... I had to miss the first ReefWalk for this.... Found out later that they saw a nudibranch as big as a person's face (?!) Don't know if I should believe them or not.... Be prepared for a long, long entry!!

We started off the journey in a torrent of rain, with Ron trying to get us to interact a bit more since it IS an opportunity for the trainees to get to know the experienced guides. Got to the landfill area quite relaxed thanks to the light hearted atmosphere. Still raining so we waited in the canteen area. Between Semakau mangoes and table tennis, we had enough to keep us entertained.

Thankfully we didn't have to wait long, and soon we were on our way to the entry area via bus, and had a glimpse of one of the completely filled cells. Nice patch my grassy area over our burnt trash. Mr Poi's a real nice driver, even filling in more information about the filled cell for us ^^

Here we have arrived at the entry area, at the stairs leading down to the last sheltered area we would have.

And looking back at the bus...

Peiya's expression says it all, doesn't it? ^^

A quick intro to some plants and butterflies while waiting for the light drizzle to come to a complete stop.

After bashing through the forest with muddy sploches everywhere, we were greeted by this amazing area of HUMONGOUS reef flat. Tried to take a panoroma of it but forgot to change the settings, resulting in this badly done patchwork photo of part of the reef flat area. So HUGE!!!! Simply unbelieveable!!! Please click on the thumbnail to see the full scope of it. ^^

After oogling at the amount of reef/shore exposed, we started off exploring in drips and draps.

Saw so many things that I can't remember what I saw in what order, so will just present some of them here. The complete range of photos are in my Yahoo! photos.

First up is this little critter ^^ Our ever friendly anemone shrimp. Little fella was scooting around so didn't get a good shoot with its anemone. Oh well. Better luck next time!

Here's looking at ya, baby!! Baby cuttlefish!!! Only around a 1-2cm in length. This was the only decent shot I got of it. The focus on the other one was off.

One of the many nudis out in throves yesterday. Can't remember whose finger I used for a scale though....

Got scolded by E1 for not bringing down my camera the very first time we saw this Gymnodoris rubropapulosa nudibranch just off the breakwater where the replanted mangroves at Semakau while diving.

Not being an anemone person, can only tell that this is a branched anemone....

If you think this is yet another anemone, think again. It's actually a Heliofungiid, a type of solitary free-living mushroom coral. In other words, a hard coral. The tentacles somewhat resemble that of the bulbous anemone that tomato clownfish are associated with. Easily mistaken since unlike most hardcorals, these tentacles are out ALL the time.

One of the most common residents of Singapore's natural shores, the hairy crab.

Yet another commonly seen crab not just in Singapore, but seen them along Paya beach at Tioman Island in West Malaysia. Plese correct me if I am wrong but I *think* it's a sesarmid crab.

Big, fat sandfish sea cucumber. Well, it seems like the edible species of sea cucumbers are named something or another "fish". Also saw the stonefish sea cucumber but by the time I got there, waters too murky to try taking any shots. Oh well...

This fella was found amongst the seagrass field, right next to our zone of death. Can you guess what it is? It's the mouth of a synaptid sea cucumber, and they can grow REALLY REALLY long. Think this one that we saw was 1m-odd.

Another encouraging thing we saw all over the reef flat. Tonnes and tonnes of coral recruits. Something that I have yet to see at Kusu... SOOOOoooo cool seeing so many of them popping up nearly everywhere ^^

Looks like Davy Jones' locks (think pirates of the Caribbean), right? Kinda gross. This is a soft coral, one kind of dead man's fingers. ^^

I spy with my little eye a Fugu!!! This little guy was flopping about in a series of pools. Refused to keep still for a photo and kept mucking up the water.

Guess this was the reason it was so skittery. The photo's blurry but it's an attempt at a close-up of a big ugly laceration on the poor puffer.

Introducing the noble volute!!! This is the first one we saw, rather early in the evening some more.

Close up of the nicely patterned mantle. Love the orange patches. so chio~~~ *fangirls*

Then someone spotted this clump of unusual looking stuff. Looked like some kind of eggs, though only confirmed it with Zee later. These are noble volute eggs!!! A reall first for me ^^ Big thanks to Zee for the ID-ing!!

And this was the bigger one that we spotted just as we were ending the walk. Probiscus and all out, mantle nicely spread. PERFECT photo opportunity, man!!

The icons of the CJ guidebook, the knobbliy sea stars!! First time seeing them, so big!!! Pity we don't get them at Kusu. Big and colorful, definitely appeal to visitors. ^^

Up close with an arm...

And the 5 pinnacles up close... Why do they look so looming?

That's because they are THIS big!!! Practically giants compared to the dull colored common sea stars that are almost everywhere.

This fragile looking feather star aka crinoid is a familiar friend to me. But it's the first time I see one in the intertidal area!! And apparently it's a first for a Semakau walk too!

Samson found this!! A cushion star ^^ Also a first for Semakau walks. So glad I decided to tag along with Ron when he went in search of this cushion star!! Since I also caught a glimpse of a small octopus near the cushion star, though we did end up pretty far fromt he entry point....

Cushion star texture. Why's it so bumpy? It's an echinoderm, so related to crinoids and sea stars and sea cucumbers, and thus the bumpy skin. Darn... just short of a sea urchin sighting....

Dusk starts to fall but there's a bunch of us (kinda led by Ron here) at the far end of the flats... near those evil looking chimneys that are puffing out fumes....

Minus Ron, it's definitely a juxtaposition of nature and urbanisation... Oh those evil buildings in the background.....

Time to head back... See the light at the far end at the edge of the trees? That's our entry/exit point.... But wait, the sightings have nto come to an end!!!

What could this be? Looks like another anemone, but wait! It's pulsating....

It's an upside down jellyfish!!! Or at least it was until we turned it over ^^ It looks greenish because it has algae in it (are they zooxs too?) So they usually are found upside down, so as to expose as much of the algae/zoox to sunlight as possible, thus the name.

With this, the show-and-tell session comes to an end, and by right, that would have been the end of the day for me as well if I hadn't gone over to Marina South to join the rest of the RWers.... At least I got Zee to ID the clump of eggs, got introduced to yet another guide, plus had an interesting ride home with Elain, DW, and Kim Yong in MS's car. ^^ Including this excerpt of the car conversation(s) just for entertainment value (if any):

With just 2 passengers left in the car....
KY: "So where do you stay?"
J: "Boon Lay"
KY: "MS, where you staying now?"
MS(rather nonchalantly): "I'm staying over at her place"
KY: "Oh, OK."
= 5-10 seconds of silence =
KY: "Wait a minute...."
*J & MS laugh*
MS: "No la... Going back NTU...."
Shows what sleepiness does to thought processes.....

Oh, and other takes on yesterday's exploratory walk.
http://tidechaser.blogspot.com/2007/01/exploratory-trip-for-semakau-guides.html
http://uforest.blogspot.com/2007/01/semakau.html
http://mantamola.multiply.com/photos/album/7
Til the next low tide then~~~

Click for the rambling...

Overdued post on Pulau Jong....

Finally dived off Pulau Jong sometime after Christmas last year but only just sorted out the photos and stuff today. *paiseh* Just a quick post before I go sort out yesterday's Semakau walk photos... Hee... Thankfully not to many photos to share since I was doing LIT for HX on this dive. The nicer ones are here but the full bunch is in my yahoo albums (also updated more random photos).

Nice big CMR

Yet another nice big fella ^^

Couple of photos of my first cuttlefish caught on camera!!!

Thorny oyster

Click for the rambling...

movie spree ^^

Seems like I have been spending more time in the cinemas watching movies the past few weeks that I have been in the entire of 2006... Haha... Interestingly enough, all three of them are all non-Chinese movies caught at the JP GV, and I felt they were all more or less worth it. Gonna do a quick movie (sorta) review here with links to the official movie sites, actually more on my impressions than on the actual plot themselves since those are easily available online.... Caught the first 2 with Wai and the last one was with MS... at the very least I now have a couple of movie kakis to catch shows near home ^^

(1) Confession of Pain 伤城
This one is a pretty straight forward usual way of telling a story in a film media, basically the story of a guy through his friend's eyes. Pretty interesting how the entire story unfolded. Rather slow going at parts but the character developments are rather interesting to watch, definitely carrying on the present fashion of making characters more believeable by projecting both the good and bad sides, thus making them more 3D and realistic to us. No real surprises in the plot (at least not to me) though the 2 leads (Tony Leung and Takeshi Kaneshiro) did more than justice to their respective characters of best friends ^^

(2) Death Note 2: the Last Name デスノート
Finally get to catch Ryuk and L on the big screen!! *fangirls* Honestly speacking, nothing very special about this Japanese movie except that the plotline diverges from the original manga. Like the change in the plot much more than the story in the manga with the introduction of M and N... Though the pity about L~~

(3) One Last Dance 茶舞
Wonderful mindboggling Chinese movie. Love the filmatography!! It's just like a very well choreographed dance~~~ Francis Ng is just perfect for the role of the gentlemen assasin ^^ *swoons* My favourite scene was the one that was showing Ko at a nightclub chatting up the girls. That entire scene was shown using polaroid photos being stacked on top of each other as the scene unfolds, with the conversation going on as pernormal. Absolutely brilliant I say!! Definitely recommend this movie to all me friends... Just maybe not after a long day since this is more of a thinking show than an unwinding one.... Probably one of the few times that an unplanned movie turned out to be a great choice ^^

Click for the rambling...

Let the lessons begin....

Only taking one module this semester but the Monday lectures are at 8am!! *whines* Plus the fact that SEA conservation taught by a couple of cynical (though inspiring researchers and mentors) is rather depressing..... Just that my semester has just started on a depressing note and that the rest of the module seems to the same. Probably not gonna be discussing much on marine conservation, except for the one guest lecture that Prof would be doing. Really makes me wonder as to whether what I am doing at the moment is going to have any impact on our environment, be it Singapore or SEA or the world. How does studying the settlement and post-settlement survivorship in Pocillopora damicornis fit into the bigger picture of it all? *sigh* Sounds pretty much like what Wai voiced out before... Can just only hope that whatever little that I am doing is like helping each and everyone of those stranded seastars and whales and dolphins... Just hope that we are not causing unnecessary damage to the environment.... *hefty sigh*

In the meantime, the group project sounds promising. No details have been ironed out so far but it seems that we would be working/proposing some possible modules that Conservation International would provide to developing countries with some aid in the education of conservation. Promising, eh? Degree of practicality/feasibility? I have absolutely no idea... Will just have to see how it all goes ^^

Click for the rambling...

TADA!!!

Here's presenting the fully functional version 2 of ASHIRA ^^ Revamping this from the original Legolas layout has caused me to learn a little more about CSS along with refreshing me rusty HTML (and has also made me realise that having blogger codes of any kind tends to cause HTML to behave strangely) If and when I find the time to dissect an iFRAMES layout in a bit to do my own, this blog would definitely be ifted up more!! In the meantime, I love this layout that combines God, blue-ness, and the sea, all-into-one.

The copyright is still up since the bulk of the coding is still MyrrhLynn's, though I sadly cannot remember where I got the main picture from. It's cropped from a wallpaper I found sometime back.

*jeeps* Have to wake up early for the first Tropical Conservation lecture tomorrow and I still haven't typed in the data for my experiments!!! Just couldn't resist tinkering with ASHIRA... Especially since it's the start of the new tear!! Not to worry, only taking Tropical Conservation this semester (and crashing a couple of extra modules) ^^ *back-to-work, back-to-work*

Click for the rambling...

And so the new year begins....

*PHEW* finally managed to change my blog layout. The year-end break has been real short, and somehow packed (I have no idea how I managed to busy myself), so I just used one of MyrrhLynn's layouts that are available on her Daystar website. Back to simple table coding, so no more messy scripts lying all over ^^ At least this time round I sorta understood most of the coding, though I still feel sorely out of practice~~ Slightly cheery-er, greener color scheme to start me year off! Loads faster too!! Too tired (after making sure all the linkies and stuff work) to actually make something that is more uniquely mine but managed to find quotes and user pics that actually match nicely ^^ Just wait til I have time to fiddle around again.. if ever that is!! *grr*

Good news is that the link to the photos is sorted out. Just a common link to the albums page of my yahoo photos but that should be it... At least til I fiddle with Picasa and see how it compares... And before I forget,

HAVE A REALLY BLESSED YEAR AHEAD!!!

Click for the rambling...

Underwater adventuring...

I know that this is kinda overdue... Been having a number of dives throughout the exam period and am just so glad I got me underwater cammie ^^ Uploaded the photos onto my Yahoo photos account but have yet to sort out the links on the blog... In the meantime, just go to the link there to see all the albums.

And here's the video I took of a crinoid swimming while we were at Raffles Lighthouse around a month back ^^

Click for the rambling...

Crumminess....

Exams maybe over and the lab back into it's nice neat state (in time for the safety check on Monday) but still feeling a little down. Tried reformatting Delphine yesterday since she seems to keep eating up my C: memory like nobody's business, but somehow managed to mess that up... Gonna try again tomorrow after I borrow some recovery CDs (while waiting for my own ones to come in). Some how am always depressed when Delphine is not in working order. Shows how addicted I am to her...

Just ended an uber long mentors meeting, and while checking the latest news online, and found out that the Sentosa IR bid went to Genting. Don't know if I should be elated/jubilated or heartbrokened that there would soon be whalesharks in Singapore.... Here's the report.

Since this would probably be my last blog entry til Delphine has been re-formatted and back in her happy state, just wanna congratulate Li Ling and Kim Yong on their wedding this weekend~~ Photos would be up once I get Delphine up and running (hopefully this by Mon), and get to organise my online photos properly...

Click for the rambling...

Couple of interesting Hokkien spoofs...

It's quite interesting what can turn up on Youtube ^^ Click to find out!!

Hokkien Bond
Lord of Hokkien

Click for the rambling...

just one more paper to go...

The past few weeks has seen me sitting alone in lab early in the morning... Just wanted to type a quick entry before settingoff for *yet* another dive at Pulau Satumu today. Do hope that the visibility would be as good as the last time ^^ Slight currents expected though

Somehow this sem's exam period doesn't feel *quite* like exam time to me.... So unmotivated to study... Have a nasty feeling that I am gonna end up with Bs for my Biophysical and Samurai modules, and can kiss my 2nd Upper goodbye~~~ Only left with Marine Biology next Tue but most of my days from now til then have stuff on. Today's dive would be to get more practise with coral ID-ing with urchin-mummy and our very own coral grandmaster!! And diving along with us would be this Canadian dude working on zooanthids at Kuroshio, Japan. He's gonna be giving a talk tomorrow on zooanthid phylogeny ^^

Really looking forward to the day ahead, especially I will be catching Happy Feet with some of the labbies ^^ Hee~~

Click for the rambling...

60 Years of Asian Heroes

Have yet to edit my first bunch of underwater photos nicely... Probably only get that done after my exams, especially since Youtube doesn't seem to wanna let me upload my video that I managed to take of a crinoid swimming *sigh*

In the meantime, came across this TIME article on 60 Years of Asian Heroes. Guess Singapore's sole claim to fame in this kind of articles would only be our very own Minister Mentor, Lee Kuan Yew. Not surprisingly, some Nobel laureates also got dubbed "hero", such as Burma's Aung San Suu Kyi (Peace prize). The winner of this year's Nobel peace prize, Muhammad Yunus, also made it into the list. A number of Japanese also made it to the list, ranging from film directors and architects to business leaders and the creators of instant noodles and Nintendo. Real glad that Miyazaki Hayao made the cut *fangirl squeal* ^^ Here's the listing of the Japanese dudes (why no dudettes?!) who have been dubbed heroes by TIME magazine:

(1) Miyazaki Hayao (STUDIO GHIBLI)
(2) Kurosawa Akira (director of 'old school' samurai flicks)
(3) Tange Kenzo (postwar architect)
(4) Morita Akio & Ibuka Masaru (the people who gave us SONY)
(5) Ozawa Seiji (maestro)
(6) Ando Momofuku (where would we be without instant noodles?)
(7) Hanae Mori, Yohji Yamamoto, Issey Miyake & Rei Kawakubo (designers)
(8) Miyamoto Shigeru (Nintendo)
(9) Oh Sadaharu (baseball)

So that's the current affairs update for now... Gotta hit the books again!!

Click for the rambling...

Last week of semester!?

CRAPCRAPCRAPCRAPCRAP!!!! It's the last week of lessons already!!! Aaargh!!!!!!! Need to organise notes and MUGMUGMUG!!! Please excuse me...Just needed a little rant-it-all-out therapeutic session before I take the plunge and finish up my samurai term paper.... It's worth 30%, and I have absolutely NO motivation whatsoever to do it properly. Guess I can kiss my 2nd Upper goodbye, and really sit down and think about whether I wanna continue with reef restoration research in Singapore (as opposed to running off to Australia/Okinawa/California to work on crinoids ot whalesharks). Can see why Wai has so much trouble sorting out options. Haha... Still have one semester and my thesis to go though. The good thing about staying with NUS (besides having funding for reef restoration stuff and TA-ship), assuming that they wanna keep me, is that there's also SPS mentoring (that would take up a chunk of my time but gets me paid)... Downside is that Prof would be away teaching in USA during my first semester of post-graduateness (if I stay on and do Master's immediately that is) Too many "ifs" floating around me head now.... Really need to concentrate on the "now" and get through this semester with minimal injuries!!!

EDIT: Before I forget again, saw my first cuttlefish in Singapore waters while diving near the breakwaters at SJI yesterday!!! Pity the crapped up vis but it was still pretty amazing!!!

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CNA provided a source of amusement and worry....

This article and video provided some source of worry in lab yesterday. (Other than the fact that none of us in lab followed the news over the weekend that is...)

70 divers help clean parts of seabed at Pulau Hantu
(here's the video with the interviews...)

The first thing that came to everybody's mind when we read/heard "We used to find a lot of construction materials, long poles, metal bars and rods." was there goes all over experimental racks!! Especially when the video showed them bringing up the some nets, AND OUR LOOSE ANGLE IRONS!!! Prof was chiding us for like having all sorts of structures all over our severely stressed reefs, and that we sould expect this kind of stuff to happen. Oh well. The good thing to note is that: (1) the navy dude used PAST TENSE when he mentioned the metal bars and stuff, probably meaning that they didn't take up many on Sat, (2) they seem to be collecting the unsecured loose bits around, (3) Singapore visibility would probably have prevented them from finding ALL our racks, and (4) personally I highly doubt if they brought lift bags and stuff to bring up the many many heavy structures we have (though them being the navy may mean they DON'T need them) and the POC/urchin-mama thinks that they should have enough sense to leave what seems to be experiments in process alone (but then to most people, those structures would just look like some weird stuff in the sea!!). We would find out after POC/urchin-mama and faviid go there today. *darn* If only I did not have this last assignment to do... would love to go and see what Hantu is like now...

Experimental gripes aside, it IS rather heartening that other fellow Singaporean divers are trying to make a difference/raise awareness of the plight of our local seas by doing this kind of clean-ups once in a while. Good job to those 70 of you!! (though we would like that our racks are left alone ^^) Hantu IS one of the very few places left in Singapore that recreational divers go to for their courses and stuff, and braving the silty waters in a clean-up attempt is really good of them but what about the trash on all our other reefs?

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Thanks Abby~~~

Sir David Attenborough was in Singapore to film some parts of "Life in Cold Blood" at Sungei Buloh. recently!!! *goes into fangirl mode* Didn't get the chance to meet him in person, though Wai and Abby did. Some photos and stuff on Wai's blog, HERE. Anyways, Abby was nice enough to make this photo of us mucking around in the mangroves with Sir Attenborough ^^


Definitely makes up for not being able to meet him... Should make good use of my Kinokuniya membership card and grab "Life on Air" or the Blue Planet book one of theses days....

Click for the rambling...