so much for my happy ending

it's one of those time.. again.. when you feel demoralized and everything just won't matter. one of my dear colleague said he was quitting today, and that was after i heard about another resignation during yesterday's team meeting.

so there were 2 of them. maybe there would be another one tomorrow and it would be a hatrick. it would then probably followed by a slow death of our acquintance, if the funeral parlour in front of the office is anything to go by.

ok it was not actually a funeral parlour but some temporary storage trailers but i swear they look like one.

these news just hit me off pretty hard. sometimes i just wished that things would remain as they are. you know, like we live in a time vacuum or something. i would then have all my close friends nearby having fun all the time and stay forever 25.

but now i felt just like those in Friends when rachel got a job in paris.

during lunch i returned to my cubicle and browse some sites that offer higher degree learnings. hmm maybe i should take some part-time course and try to change field. especially after my boss doesn't think i'm doing anything.

even if he was, it's not like i can strike a millionare doing what i'm doing. i mean, how many of those top millionares out there are from engineering fields?exactly.

i must first distance myself from facebook and find something constructive to do with my life, like thinking about my future and find an electrician to fix my water heater.

want to blame someone that i was always occupied at night after work? blame the facebook. it's the place where you make artificial friends that keep your friends counter going and nothing else. seriously.

you see, when a bunch of friends invited me for a durian fiesta recently, they were not originally my facebook friends, and we had fun.


and the durian was superb. we had it at this durian king stall in chinatown just beside that famous frog porridge restaurant. i didn't notice this place before, probably because the only time i went to chinatown, was during chinese new year festival to see the kereta ayer opera.

what was good about this place was that it had all the different types of durians nicely labelled, so you won't get cheated as you most probably would if you were in geylang.

those geylang durian sellers just wait while sharpening their knife by the chopperboard, on which people keep willingly put their heads on. it's amazing really.


facebook so-called friends just dropped into town and treated like you didn't exist. i guess, we are all 2-dimensional substance to the other internet end, who goes to screensavers whenever we idle, or downloads torrents while on standby mode.

another non-facebook friend invited me for a movie last weekend. we watched red hill. ok that was what i mistakenly called the movie until my friend corrected me. red hill was of course, the mrt station, and the movie was red cliff.

it was just another chinese epic war movie based on the famous 3-kingdoms power struggle period in chinese history. nevertheless, i enjoyed it. it was a kind that the good guy's army was greatly outnumbered and you kinda wait for every tricks to unfold during the war while fighting the bad guy's army. in the end, the good prevails and all of us left happy.

of course that was only limited in the cinema theater. the reality in the real world isn't exactly so. george bush will prevail, as will abdullah ahmad badawi. there will be no happy ending. if cinderella was in our world, she would be the maid that fall to her death when being forced to clean the balcony of a high rise hdb.

i'm not doing much better either. if i don't know any better, i would think this is all retribution. it's karma. i must be job hopping all my life in my previous life, making friends and then leaving them in misery, ignoring my facebook contacts, and being an assholes on the roads.

maybe i should discuss this in facebook's forums.




...ed
p/s add me @ facebook 'adie zulkifli'

jazzy lil' dives

i woke up without a hang over today. ok it made sense actually, because it was not like miss chivas last night could do me any harm with that extent, but sometimes i could just only hope.

the clarke quay riverwalk outing was fun. sure, all was my colleagues and as crazy as we could be, i guess everyone figured it was wise not to smear our reputation too bad to someone who could end up being our boss in the future.

the result? a very business-like outing, the only thing missing was a notebook.

still it was a breath of fresh air to see them eye to eye and not mentioned about the yields. we stayed at the Jazz bar till almost midnight before i had to take leave and collect my car in my company, somehow feeling a bit like friday-night loser.

but again, maybe i was just not being soberly myself...


anyway, i opened my mailbox yesterday and there was a letter from PADI, piled in between junk mails.. i mean, bills.

it was my open water diving license! issued by PADI asia pacific which is based in australia.

sounds cool huh? i almost secretly wished someone was beside me while i opened that, so i could shrugged away and say, 'nah it's nothing, just my diving license' as if i got this everyday.

it seemed quite a world away when i was on that diving trip. ok it was actually a 4D3N diving course, held in aur island off johore's east coast shore in early june.



Aur Island Diving
07-10 June

to be honest, i've never heard of aur island before. apparently it's located not far from tioman island, but have much lower profile (thus much cheaper) because this place isn't really developed as a tourist spot.


for a start, we were stranded on boat early morning ~5am just offshore because of low tide. the beach looked ugly with lots of rocks, shells and dead coral pieces alongside a narrow white sandy area. the water looked clear though, i could see colourful fishes, even squid from the boat.

only at about 7am the tide was high enough for us to get ashore using a transfer small speed boat.

this was the extent of the low tide

the place we were going to stay was just consist of few dorm rooms, a couple of chalets and an eating hall. full stop. my friend asked beforehand if the room has aircond and stuff, and this organizer guy said, divers don't really care about those stuff.

huh really? guess i got my first sense of culture shock.

even in this remote island murphy's law still applies. as soon as we arrived, it got cloudy.

Day 1

at about 10am, all the open water students gathered and we met the instructors properly for the first time, a french guy named christophe and his helper, nas. ok they looked friendly enough.

they asked us to each took a bundle of instruments and introduced us piece by piece. it was the first time I saw a bc, regulator and of course, the tank. it looked complicated at first but we managed to put them together and headed to the water.

from left: christophe, nas, x,x,me! and the rest...

first lesson in the water was to kneel, as in doing a confession but to some god of sea or something. not that i do that, but just to give an idea. you'd be suprised how difficult it was to balance. we kept on being pushed by the current.

next, to clear water from inside the mask. chances are, water is gonna get inside your mask while you are deep underwater and you won't wanna surface up everytime to clear it. it was kinda tricky because water kept getting into our nose but it was pretty simple actually.

then, how to search for the oxygen tube in case it got knocked over and how to share oxygen point from buddy when ours somehow cut off.

after lunch we got back in the water. this time we practised how to completely opened our mask and put back on. having the mask nicely and secured was so our comfort zone, thus having to purposely opened it felt like a torture.

even more so, when we were asked to open the bc which kept us afloat and put it back on. i bet the instructors were enjoying this because i so wasn't. i mean, it was like when you are on a parachute and they asked you to fold it and open it back on while on air. evil? i think so..

the controlled emergency swimming ascent, or CESA as they called it, was more fun. we just need to take a deep breath underwater, then screamed Aaaaaaaaaa while paddling rigorously to the surface. useful when we are running away from sharks. haha ok that was actually in the event when we are out of air and no buddy in sight to share air nearby. the scream was supposed to even out the pressure in our lungs to the surroundings.

the highlight of the day was when we did buoyancy practise. by the way, the instructor always pronounced it as beyonce, which was kinda funny. he would be like, 'ok let's do beyonce today' haha.. anyway, we did the practise by swimming around following the instructors while starting to enjoy underwater scenery.

i had some problem to stay afloat at static level because i would either sinked and threating the corals towards extinction, or floated too high. the view was not as clear as in the morning, at one time i could barely even see the instructor.


Day2

our morning session dive did not start until 1015am. what i like about this arrangement was that we were not forced to wake up early and stuff. everything felt laid back and relaxing. after all, this was supposed to be a holiday too, right?

the weather was still cloudy and very windy. it even rained lightly when we got underwater. can you believe that? it could rain for another 364 days and it had to fall today.

this morning we did the yesterday's mask clearance, regulator drop and find, and buddy secondary air source sharing. by now we could do those with ease as if it was our second nature. ok most of the time anyway.

then the instructor led us swimming, or rather, diving through the sea bottom towards a deeper area.

man, so that was how diving feels like. it was like being on drugs, not that i've tried any but that was how i imagined it, being enclosed in another world with colourful sights and only air bubbles in our ears.

the visibility was not superb but pretty good. i could see various shapes of corals ~hard, soft, salad shape, mushroom shape etc.. you name it, it was there. ok i might blindly treat anything static underwater as corals but hey, who cares? you could not find these on land anyway.

the fishes were colourful but nothing too big. halfway through the dive, i lost sight of my buddy so I kept going up, down and around to search for her, feeling every bit like marlin searching for nemo. except i did find her later, she just had trouble descending.

we got back to shore by alternately towing each other with our buddy.

after lunch break, we rode a boat with our diving equipments to the pontoon further a bit from the shore for a swim test..

which i don't understand why. the basic concept of swimming is to stay afloat above water. what's the basic of diving? to stay submerged underwater. now tell me why we need to do the swimming test during this diving lesson?


plus, i'm not a good swimmer.


but my brain must have been affected in some way by nitrogen poisoning from the morning dive or something, because i found myself willingly jumped into the water and did breast stroke as if i have been doing it all along.

in fact, i was starting to feel proud of myself when i realised my mask was blocking my nose. i could not breathe properly but i could not stop to adjust it. ok this was so not good.

my heart started to pump heavily as i got more panicked. my head got lower and lower during inhalation when i got more tired from struggling to stay afloat. some water made it through my mouth and that was when i realized i was going to drown.

you know i saw a lot of movies with people drowning so i was very convincing when i cried for help. a diving friend was nearby so he let me hold onto to him but he started sinking as well. wait, this too was so like in the movie. or was it in the accident news?

anyway, i lived to tell the story after the dive instructor jumped down and saved me. never had i been so relieved being in a man's arms before. ok scratch that but the point is, nobody was harmed in making that little scene around the pontoon on that particular afternoon.

enjoying those on land moments by watching sunset by the beach

Day3,4

basically we just did dive after dive and learned along the way. there are few different dive sites around aur island with different water depth, but generally we did not exceed 15m. the weather started to improved too, and for the first time i was worried about getting sun burnt.









the highlight of the dive was when i spotted a blue spotted lagoon stingray on the sea bed. at last something big, and i know the name of (obviously i only knew it as just stingray, i checked the complete name thereafter), and then i saw a giant sea cucumber, which i thought was a bolster dropped out from the titanic.

before returning to the surface, we learned to do a buddha pose and hovered about 5meters under water for a few minutes to neutralize the pressure and get rid of access nitrogen in our blood. it was for safety precaution but for me, it was fun doing acrobatics like nobody's business when we were supposed to stay still like a yoga posture.

written test that night to see if we understood the theory

in total we did 6 dives altogether, which was pretty a lot for a diving trip. partly because after we were certified, we joined the rest of the experienced divers who mostly were hardcores. seriously, these people were like a whole other species. i guess when we evolved from sea creatures onto the land animal a gazillion years ago, some of those behaviour left inside some of us.

i got to enjoy the nice scnerey of the island during those dry moments in between dives.

we were fortunate that we had help in getting those tanks in and out of boats, because those things were darn heavy. during the first day when we did the initial underwater practise near the shore, we had to walk back to the beach with that thing on our back. i felt very much like a turtle that inched towards the sand to lay eggs. seriously.

the final photo before we left the island.. satisfied and certified but just without the official license which was just arrived recently. i was glad i did it you know, it was a totally different experience and moreover, one step closer to our dream visit to sipadan island.



till i wear this flippers again... in the meantime i'd be just content in spending time in some Jazz bars humming kelly clarkson's chivas.







...ed

wake me up when monday ends

i'm exhausted. i don't know what i did. ok i did go to the gym before noon for about 20 minutes, then drove down to joo chiat for lunch at hajah maimunah, sending my friend off in toa payoh dan headed back home for an afternoon nap. from then on i have been in hibernation mode.

maybe that was the problem. too much slacking time.

i don't mind though. tomorrow is monday, and as if the normal afternoon weekly meeting isn't stressful enough, there will be a visitor from our main hq in US.

as with the past visitors, i expect she will be getting the normal red carpet treatment from her hotel to her temporary throne in the office, and the whole department 'kow-tow'ing to her feet chanting 'long live long live her majesty' all the time.

you see, i so need the energy to face all that tomorrow apart from my usual monday blues.

yesterday me and my dear friend went for a vegetarian buffet at ling zhi restaurant. i have heard about this place in chinatown before, but last week we spotted this new branch in novena square and found out about the high-tea dim sum buffet for dollars 15++ and figured, we must try this out.

i must say i'm not that all crazy about dim sum in the first place. in fact, i don't think i'm normally crazy about any food, except sushi, and hajah maimunah, and now the durians, but i'm all for new taste. plus, considering i'm trying to get my kilos one notch lower, i have been abstaining myself from the usual splurge so this felt like a treat.




there was not much of a spread, which i guess it's ok considering this is a high-tea, and me and my friend are not big-eaters anyway. here are some of the dishes we took. i'm sorry i don't even know what they are called. i mean, they are all steamed flours wrapping some stuff, what's the difference?

we were told we could order some off the menu, so i went for 'sauteed monkey head mushroom with dried chilli'. ok i admit, the monkey head was the one catching my attention. it turned up to be the one on the bottom left. we ordered 'bag of treasure' too for one obvious reason, and that was the one on the bottom right.

taste wise, it was alright. not very tasty and not very bland either. i guess that's what vegetarian is all about too : moderation.

after that we went to yishun avenue 7 choice optical shop because my friend wanted to buy glasses. his friend is working there so it was like throwing 2 birds with one stone. ok perhaps 3 birds in this case because that means genuine discount and no rip-off as well.

what i wanted to say here is that, after my friend did his eye test, they did mine too, just out of my interest, and here was the result.




the result was quite a relief. after spending about half of my life staring at computer screens (in romantic dim lights normally at home), i guess my eyes are still alright.

except a bit of astig on my left eye. the reading says 1.75, which i guess not serious since i don't notice it unless i'm on the back of the room trying to read the board in front. plus, wikipedia says Astigmatism is quite common. studies have shown that about one in three people suffers from it.

ahah. one in three, that's very common right? like when you see a family of 3 on the road, or say maybe the 'destiny's child', one of them would have astig right?

then the article goes, 'the prevalence of astigmatism increases with age. although a person may not notice mild astigmatism, higher amounts of astigmatism may cause blurry vision, squinting, asthenopia, fatigue, or headaches.'

hmm.. fatigue? maybe that's what causing me feeling fatigue all day. oh god i knew it! but again, it's for my left eye. must i feel fatigue on my left side then? gosh i'm so screwed.

i better close my eyes then and go to bed, hoping i'd wake up on tuesday.



...ed

tennis, the train and ghostbusters

i'm ecstatic. ok i literally was smiling ear to ear from early morning. the moment i woke up, i jumped off my bed and clicked on yahoo tennis, and there was the sight of rafael nadal screaming on the grass and i knew it was all a happy ending.

that was just passed 5am, and i felt fresh as ever. although the truth is, i couldn't sleep all night. i know at that moment nadal was battling roger federer for the wimbledon tennis championship crown, so i kept getting these glimpses of nightmares of federer actually won (god forbids!) in my sleep.

i just couldn't watch the match live. i just couldn't. it was too heart-wrenching, the roller-coaster ride events were just too much to bare. i mean, i like riding the actual roller-coaster you know, but at least with that i know i won't feel like jumping off some cliff at the end of the ride.

so what i did was just have my panasonic HD recorder do the job and i just hoped for the best (spell: chickened-out).

and you know what, good things do come to boys who wait. never have i been so upbeat about going to work on monday morning, even with lack of the previous night's sleep just to share the joy with everybody who bothers. i think the whole company know i'm nadal's big fan.

work, well, went as usual. morning was spent preparing for the weekly meeting (whilst peeping in menstennisforums.com once in awhile when the computer was processing), then lunch, long meeting, then having the usual after-meeting withdrawal syndrome hanging around in other people's cubicles before dashing home on time.

to rewatch the good parts of last night's match.

gosh, now when i wrote about it, i do sound like a maniac, don't i? i guess these freaky little things make me happy in my pathetic little life. i mean, i really don't need to be climbing mt kinabalu up and down, or diving to the shore of the deep sea just to feel fulfilled. give me a nadal win from my couch and i'm practically in orgasm mode.

i just think that i'm easily satisfied. in fact, as a human being, i must be the simplest emotionally created version ever. there are no complex feeling whatsoever. like the other day when my internet acquintance happened to throw me a bomb, asking me what was i thinking about at that exact moment, and i figured, nothing.

nada. which made me think, am i that shallow inside?

maybe it's ok you know. i mean, do i need unnecessary stress thinking about stuff that might or might not happened? i might as well just enjoy the ride as it is. if there is even a ride in the first place.

oh yes, i must mentioned about this long time friend that i met last saturday. we studied our degree together in nagoya japan. we were from different universities though, me from nagoya university of technology doing engineering and she was from nagoya university doing medicine.

we haven't met since i left japan in year 2000, so when she said she'd be in singapore for some conference thingy, we just had to meet. eventhough the only time and place to do that was one hour before her flight in changi airport terminal 2 sakae sushi.

it was refreshing catching up with our lives. she was still as i had remembered her. all the deja vu of our students life came rushing back in. it was amazing how we were once in the same time and space, and now we have our own lives to live.

while updating each other about our lost moments, i kept on thinking, 'has it been that long?' it has been 8 years for goodness sake. what have i achieved for the last 8 years to update? only something so mediocre i must say. i haven't invent anything new, or make any beneficial discoveries, or even contribute anything back to the society.

my life has been a straightforward constantly-moving-way-under-speed-limit-in-singapore-expressway journey with little sights in between. with that sights being weekends.

weekends that include a trip to JB by railway train from singapore's tanjong pagar station recently which i couldn't understand why it has to be delayed every single freaking time. seriously. that railway company is a total disgrace. they charged me SGD10 for a 45 minutes journey which include super slow-motioned immigration checkpoint at woodlands. i spent like what, 5 minutes inside the train.

the stupid train was delayed by 30 minutes, at its starting station!


at least this still gave me a bit of childhood nostalgia


anyway, if it was not for the invititation for house warming cum ghostbuster mission made by my friend, i wouldn't bother to make the trip. she's from johore, working in singapore and recently just purchased an apartment in larkin. confused? well i couldn't write more about her since she's reading this blog haha..

the house by the way, is nice. the location was on this quiet suburb beside some greens, from where i supposed some paranormal instances could originate from haha.. (ok the truth is i'm always jealous of nice new houses). the gathering went ok too, it was a lot of fun.




ok now i am sleepy. i think i'll watch a bit more of last night match and go to bed feeling high...



...ed