I went for a night dive with the uni club yesterday evening. It was meant to be a evening dive with some light, but the tanks arrived late and the sun has already begun to set early (~6pm). No worries though, I didn’t think much about it.

So it wasn’t easy. Like the beginning of last year when I dived twice with the club, I struggled but I think I did better this time. At least I actually went down and had a proper dive.

We dived at Bellerive Beach and i saw many porcupine fishes, a lobster, a crab, many shrimps, fish larvae. Apparently you can see the uncommon hand fish there too, but i didn’t.

Water was cold, but i wore enough layers to keep warm, until some water went through the seal of my wetsuit and it became colder. However, my face, swelled up due to the cold. I looked like a hamster.

Wish temperate waters didn’t have to be so heavy. Scuba diving in tropical waters is always fun and easy. I’ll definitely go on more dives to get use to it here, hopefully it gets easier.

I really want it to be so I can be open to more options here.. and i don’t know how much i really want to do the scientific diving unit. the test is very daunting to me. I’m already breathing like I get high on oxygen underwater and my swimming stamina is shit. oh well, we’ll see, we’ll see.

edit:

i came back here to say something, entering the water from the shore while carrying the weight of a dinosaur is horrible. horribleeeeeeee. i love jumping off the boat, leap of faith~

so this is the beginning of year 2 in a foreign country, which doesn’t seem that foreign anymore. i’ve built relationships in this place, created a another home away from home. all it good, i’m happy here.

ready to rock this shizzz! bring on year 2, i’ve heard it’s crunch time, either make it, or fail. and no way jose, that ain’t happening.

will the car meant for me just appear on gumtree already? :/

had an awesome time at falls!

Since the final year exams ended, I’ve cleaned my room, moved out of it, moved out of college, moved into juliet’s (for 3 days), flew to sydney, participated in 5 days of capoeira angola madness, gain new friends, got drenched in sydney city, had a taco, had gelato, gone of the sydney sky tower, be the last one to check in for my flight back to tasmania <30 min before departure, got my bag confiscated (for being too big, YEAH RIGHT LADY. so not.), moved to ryan’s place, had great pizza somewhere in north hobart, helped ryan and anne with spring cleaning, and today i’ll be handing out resume for a summer job.

so first, exams. or rather, the end of first year of uni! holy moley, have i really been away from home for almost a year? this feels like adulthood, but no way jose! i definitely do not feel like it and damn, i’ve hit a significant number in age, feels like i’m that much closer to dying. death!

i really like what i’m learning in uni, hopefully it’ll get me somewhere, being in the amazon or africa or antarctica, or alaska… would be awesome.

sydney was amazing, the city’s alright, i see singapore eventually looking like that as more expats come in. the shophouses and buildings are pretty similar to those back home.

the workshop was an eye opener, it was tiring, and i fell asleep quite a few times during music class, but i now understand a bit more about angola. I always only knew that angola somehow always involve a low game, close to the floor. but now i see that it’s traditional capoeira, as in with the traditional moves, more expression, more cheekiness, more contact. a closer game.

and it was such an honor to be taught by mestres. that was been my first time meeting a mestre, no actually, mestres!

note to self, keep learning portugese!

but besides the workshop and training, was the people who made the experience so much more richer. Everyone was friendly, and i met really cool people with their travel stories. and of course my host, megan, who is a student in the sydney group that gave me a place to stay in her house. she took really good care of me, paying for a drinks and food, and i really appreciate that.

just on saturday night, i went to the cuban fiesta, a fundraising project by a south american band to send elias and 3 other band members to cuba to study music. mario bought me a drink when i mentioned that it was kinda expensive, and he said something similar to megan that is, “i’m working and you’re still a student”. it seems somewhat normal but i just feel like it’s such a great gesture or something. i’m really grateful to have met such people.

when i came back from sydney, i went for a thanksgiving dinner event hosted by a couchsurfer living in tasmania. she’s american and married an aussie and they have been in tasmania for 3 months. but they haven’t been able to find a good job here so they are planning to return to korea to teach. so at the dinner i met another american guy who was from the navy, a belgian lady who is very animated and pretty much lived her life couchsurfing, that she is actually the traveling ambassador of the CS website (uh, that’s REALLY AMAZING) and another korean guy who is the student of Jalice, the host.

and so i got to understand more about what thanksgiving is about. it’s actually to celebrate the native indians in america who gave the first settlers food when they were starving. the americans made a joke that that was a bad move on the indians’ part. haha! but anyway before we started the feeasstt, all of us took part in the tradition and said out what we are thankful/grateful for and i am really grateful to mummy and papa for giving me the opportunity to study what i like and study in tasmania, for if not i wouldn’t meet such wonderful people during my time here.

after dinner we played board games and jalice and thor, her husband with the cool name, have an huge range of board games. we played munchkin and it’s real fun! they said i could visit them another time to play again, and i think i will try to arrange with them.

anyways, adios for now!

whuttt upppp y’all. i’m tore between blogging here and blogging in lj. lj will always have a special place in my heart

how could all you others abandon it

i went to support the girls’ soccer semis on sunday. We were playing against the girls from jane franklin, whom we (christ) refers to as Jane Sluts, which i find is hilarious.

the people here aren’t shy to insult others.. at least in cheers anyway. 

whenever jane scored a goal they cheered:

“WHAT ARE CHRIST? (SHIT!) X 3

WHAT ARE WE DOING? (SHITTING ON THEM!)”

and they cheered the same thing when they passed us during their warm up jog.

i personally didn’t feel anything fired inside of me or anything because the cheers here openly diss one another. hahahaha!

well here’s part of the christ cheer that i find particularly catchy..

apparently we can’t ever write down the christ college chant. so i’ve removed it

a jane girl got injured and Rob, an american from Christ said aloud, “GIRLS, REMEMBER, IF YOU’RE GONNA HURT THEM, MAKE SURE YOU DON’T GET CAUGHT”

hahahahha! what the..

and isobel, a girl from snr year who was acting as coach for the team, said loudly, “one down girls!”

i looked over to jane and they just rolled their eyes and tended to their injured player who was crying badly.

poor thing.. i felt kinda sorry for her, but she’ll be all right. 

the weather was awesome last week but this week it’s gonna be really shit. good and bad weather seem to alternate between weeks. And now the sun sets before around 6pm and when i first arrived it set at 9pm. jeez, this is a bit depressing, having light taken away.

because of the rain, rugby training was cancelled and we had a whiteboard session instead. Think i was given the position ‘full back’ which i was totally clueless about but have since wikipedia-ed and i’m the last line of defense. i must be “able to chase and tackle any player who breaks the first line of defence” right. wait, what????

i’m still not sure if this position has heavy responsibility, i’ll just wait and see.

this weekend has been really fun and long for me, felt like i did lotsa stuff. 

climbing, bubble tea, pavlova, games till past midnight… SARDINES! bbq at long beach. delicious!

it’s been close to 2 months now. It seems unreal. adapting quite well here, but i do miss home. I’m excited for easter break and for the semester to end. it’ll be arrive soon enough.

today’s the first time here that i’m still awake at 4am. it’s all because of the new lecturer we got for Biology of Animals. she has tons of slides and i gotta pause the lecture recording to take down the notes. I’m not even sure how much of the information is tested but she’s fun. Guess that’s what really matters, hahaha!

So thursday night, (just now) i took a nap and overslept, missing rock climbing and i was late for rugby. we had more contact at rugby today. trainings are gonna get rougher and i need to learn not to collide with anything/anyone with my face. It just feels messy tackling when your team mate is near by and she could tackle as well. I always get hurt when I try to help or we both tackle at the same time, zzz. 

But rugby is fun, even though i don’ t know the rules. I just do what i’m told. it’s easy being the player- just listening to instructions. 

Emily and I were early for antarctic studies tute today. it’s an achievement for us. 

And currently what’s spoiling my mood here in beautiful tasmania is my missing black pants i bought for capoeira. i really liked it and it’s gone now. fuck, i hate losing things unless it’s rubbish, of course. I got my afternoon off later because i completed all my pracs today so i guess i’ll head to Target to get a new pair and also a pair of shoes cause mine current ones are a sad case.

capoeira training later tonight. i look forward to playing some instruments and roda. I wish we could do more advance things but there a new comers in the class every other day and basics are important. oh well just gonna stick to it for now.

and there’s a christ party tonight as well. it’s called “tight and bright”. themed party. might go, see what happens after training.

my lunch for a week.

apples, mushroom, tzatziki, wholegrain mustard, salad leaves, capsicum, tomatoes

what is up with the weather here? it’s freezing in summer. completely ridiculous. I have a feeling that by winter, I might experience seasonal depression for the first time. the wind here bites into my skin but i will get use to the weather here, hopefully. i have to, I NEED to if i want to do research in antarctica. 

I was dozing off in my lectures today. even though it was 3, three hour lectures, i felt quite tired. I experienced even heavier timetables than this but i don’t know why i feel tired just after 1 or 2. 

i’m not sure if it’s sleep.. but i think it should be, but why?

hmm.

anyway, when we reached back to CC yesterday after rock climbing, izli, erin and i went chasing wallabies and disturbing their dinner.

wallabies and rabbits come out of the forests nearby and munch on grass right infront of accommodation building at night. it was really an unusual sight to me. things that hop! 

Hi, I’m still alive. Haven’t got eaten up by some wild animal, yet.

But i could be beaten up or scratched to death but some savage possum or wallaby right? or wild rabbits..

those are the common wildlife i see here other than flying objects. It’s still cool that I see seagulls around.

I’m near the end of week 2 of school and my 3rd week in tasmania. School’s getting pretty hectic now. I always got to go back home and revise just to keep up. However, I’m surprised at my muggerness. I kinda enjoy revising, or at least it’s not a chore to me. Could it be that I really like what i’m studying?! :D Yeah i think i do. although i can get tired during lectures, it’s because I’m much proactive in it. I actually have something substantial to write on my lecture pad! yay! i like that notes aren’t printed for us and that the powerpoint slides are not exactly self sufficient. It makes lecture more interesting. Well, the lecturers are interesting most of the time. They are all so passionate about what they are teaching and they always pause for questions. It’s something different, seeing so many people raise their hands during lecture. My goal is to ask a qns during lecture! if i have a good qns to ask… I’m just struggling to absorb as much as i can, especially in bio classes. Well, I did mentally prepare myself for all the biology terminology.

I guess what I’m experiencing now is that I don’t have enough ME time? like to slack and stuff. Most of the time i got something to do outside my room. Like movie night.. which is like every night. I know i’m used to just staying in my room, procrastinating but now I think i do less of that, especially since i don’t really have my distractions like unlimited broadband and the food network channel. That’s good for me. really good.

Everyone here is really friendly and i’ve made many friends, who are really great! lots of people here are doing what they like and following their passions and all environmental and stuff. 

I’ve joined a ridiculous amount of clubs during clubs and societies’ day. scuba diving, rockclimbing, bushwalking, + some other societies. 

i’m going for my first dive trip this sunday, it’s a free dive but i gotta hire a wetsuit. I know scuba diving is expensive although it’s already heavily subsidised for students, but i feel i gotta make the sacrifice and clock in more dives to get more experience and advance to higher levels. I wish to do research in Antarctica and I think scuba diving is my ticket there, anyway it’s just plain awesome! So this sunday is clean up australia day and the dive is gonna be a clean up dive at the hobart waterfront. free lunch provided so plus points there!

i’ll try to post my iphone photos regularly here at least :)