A good friend effortlessly makes the day seem sunny. Even when it's not.

Probably one of the sweetest things a friend can say is:  “I’ve got your back.”

It makes a huge difference when knowing that you are not alone.  That someone cares.  And so very gamed to be your cheerleader and avid supporter.

With friends like these, one can weather the toughest storms in life.

And the best thing is, you never know when you’ll encounter such precious lifelong friends.  They can appear at any point of your life.  They don’t necessarily have to be chums from schooldays who have seen you before your pre-braces days.  They don’t have to be church, college mates or colleagues from work.

Some of my closest buddies come from a book club.  In a way, it makes sense.  We have something in common – a shared passion.  Even though our tastes in reading materials differ greatly, we met at a time when we were ready to welcome a kindred spirit into our full lives.  It has been nearly six years since we first met.  That is longer than most romantic relationships we’ve ever had, heh.

There were times when we did not manage to catch up with each other (sometimes for months or years on end).  But whenever we do get to meet, the bond is still there and the friendship ready to be taken up where it was left off.  We are not perfect but we try our best to celebrate and appreciate our differences.  And we wouldn’t have it any other way.

Come hell or highwater, I know my sistahs have my back.  Just as I have theirs.  And that is that bright patch of sunlight in the gloomy world that we live in now.

Photo credits

Just returned from Pangkor Island last night.  Am exhausted but also very happy.

I’ve been to the island many years ago when the roads were in bad shape and the beaches were not clean.  It was for all intents and purposes, a fishing village.  Now, it has transformed to a scenic and rustic beach resort.  It’s definitely a place I’d like to visit again and again and again.

Believe it or not,  this is my first ever company trip.  I guess not many companies have the budget or see the value of rewarding their staff by giving them a time of relaxation, fun and bonding.  I’m indeed blessed by the strong rapport and camaraderie with my wacky colleagues.  It was truly an eye-opening experience.  The serious dude in the office turning out to be a delightful joker.  The quiet timid geek who’s actually a sprightly actor with a loud voice.  The fierce manager who turned out to have quite a funny bone.

Besides this being my first company trip, there are a series of other firsts for me, too.  Here they are in no particular order of fun-ness:

Diving Into The Sea

Yes,  this was something I was too chicken to do not too long ago when I was still water phobic.  So there I was, dipping my feet into the nice and cool waters of Pulau Giam, just opposite Pulau Pangkor, wondering if it’s worth getting my T-shirt wet when all of a sudden, I heard happy squacks and squeals coming from the boulders nearby.  Thomas and Nick had just jumped into the sea from those huge rocks and boy, did it look FUN!

And so, I wasted no time and started to climb up.

And then, it was the moment of truth.  Would I or would I not dare to jump off into the 2-3 meter deep sea water?

When I emerged from the water, I smiled and laughed out loud for joy.  It was truly a moment to treasure – this sheer pleasure of jumping off into the ‘unknown’ and knowing that the sea will cradle me.

Snorkelling Without A Life Jacket

Now this may sound strange coming from a diver, but I’ve never actually snorkelled without a life jacket before.  When you dive, you always wear a BCD (Buoyancy Control Device) which keeps you afloat on the sea surface when inflated.  And the last time I snorkelled, I still had some water phobia and was reluctant to let go of the safety of my life jacket.  But this time around, I had no such qualms.  After my historic ‘cliff’ diving, I proceeded to put on the snorkel mask and started snorkeling around the vicinity.

Without the cumbersome life jacket, I could move freely.  I felt calm, at peace and yes, happy.  Even though I could only spot a couple of angel fishes, parrot fish and some sea cucumbers, I still felt like a million bucks.

Island Tour On A Motorbike

Three of the guys rented a bike each and we girls hopped on the back to circle around the island looking for food.  The resort food was good but foodies that we are, we wanted something porkie and unique to the island.  As I sat behind the bike rider and felt the wind blowing gently through my hair and the sun shining upon my face, that feeling of being free came upon me again.  I could see the sparkling blue sea and golden sand at 360 degrees!!!  It was so different and wonderful compared to being stuck inside the pink taxi vans.

Riding a motorcycle

OK, now this was something I didn’t plan to do this year.  But when Thomas asked if we wanted a crash course in motorbike riding, I took up the offer.  According to the guys, if you can ride a bicycle and pillion ride on a motorbike, then you can ride a motorbike.  So here goes nothing!

Riding a bike is so much fun!  Who knows, I may just get a motorcycle riding license so that I can bike around the islands next time.  It’s really the best way to get around, provided that it’s not raining a storm, of course.  And yes, I would need more practice :P

Dressing Up As A Pirate

What made this company trip rock were the series of games and themes that they made us participate in.  We were divided into four groups, told that we were pirates and we played our piratey roles to the hilt.  Some groups went all out and rented costumes.  One group even had their Iban pirate costumes tailor made.

Playing Futsal With Kain Pelekat

This must be one of the most hilarious matches of the whole trip.  We kept laughing as we plodded along in the sarong-like contraption.  It was cumbersome to kick the ball without hitching it up.  What’s more, we pirates didn’t play fair and kept pulling the opponents’ kain pelekat, rolling the other players into the sea and sticking too close to the goal post so that the other team did not have a chance in scoring a goal.  But it was FUN!!!

Eating Gong Pian

Yes, I’ve never eaten this Foochow biscuit before as they are only available in Sitiawan.  It tastes best when eaten straight from the oven.  If you bring them home, you can heat them up on the oven toaster before munching into them.  The onion ones taste like onion rings.  Yums!!!

Building A Sand Castle And Burying Someone In The Sand

This is part of our activities and I learned that there’s a technique to building pretty looking and hardy sandcastles.  Burying someone underneath it just adds to the fun!  That person must remain still and not breathe too much or laugh.

Burying a group member. He said the sand was cool and nice.

I also went on a banana boat ride for the first time at Pangkor.  My life jacket slipped off when the boat man dunked us into the water, but it was ok because I could float and swim.  Good thing that happened to me instead of any of the non-swimmers in our group!  And with that, I conclude this entry of the amazing time I had in Pangkor.  AWESOME!!!

This year of adventure theme is panning out really well.  Stay tuned for more adventures coming soon!

Photo credits of pics of me: Azli, Luke, Celeste, Edward.

Year 2009 has been awesome.

3 Most Unforgettable Moments in 2009

1. Learning to dive and getting my Advanced Open Water License (in Sipadan!!!)
2. Meeting a soul mate and best buddy (when one leaves, God surely provides another)
3. Participating in my first 10k run

3 Favourite Movies Watched in 2009

1. Inglourious Basterds
2. The Proposal
3. Star Trek

3 Favourite Animated Movies Watched in 2009

1. Cloudy With A Chance of Meatballs
2. Up!
3. The Princess and the Frog

Saddest / Worrying Moments in 2009

1. When my sistah was diagnosed with cancer
2. Tiff with a family member
3. When my best buddy’s buddy went berserk

3 Cutest Things I Saw in 2009

1. My baby nephew
2. Cute underwater creatures
3. My red 5th gen iPod Nano

Most Embarrassing Moment in 2009

Having to do the CESA (Controlled Emergency Swimming Ascent) skill test not one, not two, but THREE freaking times.

Blogs are meatier

In this day and age of microblogging over Twitter and Facebooking, blogs have taken quite a backseat.  Sure, some bloggers still blog and blast their blog links on Twitter and FB.  And when you google for stuff, you’ll mostly get blog links instead of Twitter and FB status updates.

But the fact of the matter is, with microblogging, people have less motivation to blog these days.  Have a quick thought or question in your mind?  Just post some status updates.  Have a funny photo to share?  Just snap it with your mobile phone and do a mobile/Twitpic upload.

And the coolest part of all this microblogging business?  You’ll get instant responses and comments.  Sometimes in mere seconds.

I’ve even been blessed with a GPS unit from a generous friend just because I queried (on FB) about the merits of having a dedicated GPS unit vs. a GPS software running on a mobile phone.  I’ve also received a Google wave invite, coupons, etc via FB and Twitter.  Not to mention the latest news and rumours fresh from the oven.

So with all these activities going on at social networking sites, it’s been a while since my list of favourite blogs have been updated (so is mine, I’m sheepish to say!).  On the rare occasion that I stumble upon a good one, I will make sure that I bookmark it and leave an encouraging comment behind.  Blogs still and will always have a special place in my heart.

Microblogs are but appetisers whereas blogs are the meatier deal.

About 6 years ago, I was traipsing along Brooklyn Bridge, New York.  It was a beautiful day.  The sun was shining, the skies were blue and the bridge looked magnificent.  I was one of the hundreds walking on the bridge.  And then I passed a girl sitting on a bench.

Now, the bridge was quite a long stretch to walk.  So there were a few benches strategically placed along the way.

The girl who caught my eye was sporting a pony tail, had green fingernails, chewed gum and wore a long T-shirt over black tights.  Her slim body was curled on the bench while she read a book.

The book title was ‘The Seven Habits of Highly Effective People’.

Quite a number of pedestrians who walked past her, raised their eyebrows and/or hid their smiles.  I was one of them.  ”Why would a girl who’s serious about being a highly effective person be doing loafing on this bridge instead of doing something, well, productive?”

She probably knew what we were thinking – she was smiling broadly as she read the book.  But she didn’t give two hoots about what we thought.

Fast forward to the present.  I was reading a book the whole of yesterday.  It was pretty riveting and potentially life changing.  Right after I read the book, I declared to my amused brother that I was too lazy to do anything more and took a nap – which stretched to over 4 hours.

The title of the book?

10 Habits Of Highly Successful People.

Heh.

Happy in Sipadan
16-20 Dec 2009

Before July this year, if anyone were to tell me that I would be:

• A certified Open Water Diver
• A freestyle swimmer
• Complete my Advanced Open Water Diver practicals…
• … in Sipadan

I would have chortled in disbelief and told them that they were out of their minds.

But as they say, real life is stranger than fiction.  And everything in that checklist came true.

Somebody pinch me.

Our happy group

Sipadan-Mabul-Kapalai are truly a diver’s ultimate playground.  They offer a mind-boggling variety of underwater creatures and great visibility (if the water’s not too choppy) that will titillate and satisfy the inner marine biologist in you.

I heard about this trip during my Open Water Diver certification at Redang at the end of September.  Dolphin Sport Adventure (my diving school) was arranging a trip to Sipadan at the end of the year.  Inwardly I dismissed the thought of joining the trip because I thought only Advanced Open Water divers would benefit the most from it.  Still, one thing led to another and I soon found myself registering, paying and finally, going for the trip.  I have absolutely no regrets.

Due to conservation reasons, the Sipadan marine authorities imposed a restriction of 120 visitors per day.  We were lucky to be able to dive there two days in a row (RM40 levy per person per day).  There was a group of snorkellers who didn’t manage to visit the island at all during their stay at Sipadan Water Village (SWV) – the 5-star resort that we stayed.  The Junior Cottage rooms were about RM500 per night and is inclusive of all meals.  The food was alright and I loved the juicy mangoes and succulent squids the best.

I suspect they pound this gong to announce every meal time at SWV

So lovely and peaceful to be surrounded by clear waters and corals all the time

Sunset at SWV

View of the nearby village from my room. The villagers lead a simple and humble life; the little children run around unencumbered by clothes and cares of the world.

We heard a lot of tales about Sipadan before we went.  The oodles and oodles of turtles and sharks.  The schools of jacks and barracudas.  The strong currents that made drift diving possible.

We encountered all of them… and more.  The first turtle we encountered during our first dive at Barracuda Point got our wetsuits in a twist.  I have not encountered a turtle in my previous dives nor snorkeling adventures before, so I was pretty excited.

However, by the end of our second dive at South Point, I soon got tired of the dive master (who was also my dive buddy for that dive) pointing out more and more turtles – and sharks!  I wanted to see other cool creatures such as the mimic octopus which some of the lucky divers in the group got to see because they were hanging out at the back.

One of the many, many reef sharks we saw

I soon got my wish that third dive at Barracuda Point.  The dive master Jimmy could see a cloud of Barracudas right from the boat itself.  He checked out the direction of the current and directed our descent flawlessly.  Soon after we descended into the water, we were met with the spectacular sight of thousands and thousands of barracudas circling us in an endless loop.  Their unblinking eyes and slightly opened jaw revealed rows and rows of sharp teeth.  They didn’t seem to be bothered by our presence and did their circling thing as if we weren’t there.  Awesome!!!

School of Barracuda – Surreal…

At both times when we dived at Barracuda Point, we encountered the marvellous school of jacks.  Just like the barracudas, they were unfazed by us.  There were plenty of strange looking creatures such as the boxfish, blenny, ribbon eel, broadclub cuttlefish, crocodile fish, puppy fish and scary ones such as lion fish and trigger fish that we saw during our 11 dives. 

School of Jacks

Our dive instructor Cyrena and fellow divers from Penang (Tho and Owen) encouraged my dive buddy and I to take our 4 Advanced Open Water (AOW) diving skills right there at Sipadan.  The rest of the group were already AOW divers.  We needed no further persuasion and soon completed:

1. Fish Identification
2. Underwater Navigation
3. Deep Diving
4. Peak Performance Buoyancy

Now all that’s left is the theory part and we’ll be certified Advanced Open Water Divers.  Who would have thunk it??

I still find that hard to believe.  Hee!

Underwater Photo Credits: Cyrena Yong of Dolphin Sport Adventure.

I’ve always liked ‘Sampaikanlah Salam’ by Alleycats. The beat is cheerful and the tune catchy. I’ve never thought much of the lyrics until McUser pointed it out to me recently.

“It’s far from a cheerful song lah,” the Alleycats fan said smugly.

And so, I took a closer look at the song:

Sampaikanlah salam cintaku padanya (Please send her my love)
Walaupun terluka namunku merindu (Though I hurt, I still miss her)
Kerana cintaku tiada akhirnya (Because my love is never ending)
Walaupun kau telah menghancurkannya (Even though you have shatter it)

Sampaikanlah salam cintaku padanya (Please send her my love)
Walaupun sengsara namunku masih sayang (Though I suffer, I still love)
Kerana cintaku mewangi dan harum (Because my love is fragrant)
Walau tercampak di mana jua (No matter where it is thrown to)

Andaiku tiada, andaiku pejam mata (If I’m gone, should I die)
Biarku abadi, cinta yang setia ini (Let me live forever in this pure love)
Biarpun kau jauh, sambutlah salamku (Though I’m far, receive it)
Kerana aku masih menyayangimu (Because I still love you)
Tidak pernah aku membenci dirimu (I’ve never hated you)

Blimey, the dude was right. The whole song reeks of jiwangness! Egads!

Jiwang is a Malay slang for ‘emotional’. I steer clear away from such songs. If you are sad and broken hearted, these songs will sink you further into despair and hopelessness. If you are secretly crushing on someone, the songs will exacerbate your longings and anguish at unrequited love. If you are happy and in love, they will make you ‘angau’ – lovesick.

Think about it, do the following lyrics contribute to you being a happy and healthy individual?

… I can’t live, if living is without you….
… How am I supposed to live without you…
… What can I do to make you love me…
… Can’t you just love me, you stupid fool?…

In short, these songs make you sappy at best and suicidal at worst. Here’s the thing, there’s no use pining over someone who doesn’t want you. Life is so much better without that louse, trust me.

Here are my suggestions of alternative songs that will get you off your fanny, get over your grief and moving towards fun and life:

Broken hearted? Listen to ‘I Hate Myself for Loving You’ by Joan Jett and the Blackhearts
Unrequited love? Listen to ‘Keep Me Hanging On’ by Kim Wilde

Say no to depressing love songs!

Twinnie once blogged this:

And to quote the character Jesse in one of my favourite movies Before Sunset, “I guess when you’re young, you just believe there’ll be many people with whom you’ll connect with. Later in life, you realize it only happens a few times.”

And when you do connect, you grab it – be it in friendship or in love. It doesn’t happen as often as we think.

She’s right.

Pisau Cukur was hilarious! Glad I dragged McUser to watch this with me. He enjoyed it tremendously (albeit with red ears), lol.

The part that had me wail out loud with laughter was Rahim Razali lovingly flicking the golden buttons of his briefcase. The hamsap and dreamy expression on his face was classic. It’s so awesome seeing a normally sedate and respectable actor venture treading into murkier roles. If he can make such a change in his twilight years, then so can we, younger ones.

Sigh, changes. That is the only constant thing in life, isn’t it?

Recent happenings had me thinking of doing things I wouldn’t dream of doing before. I’m a firm believer that fear should not hold one back from achieving all that one could and should. In some measure, that has been my mantra and way of life since the past two years. But there is still room, so much more room that is filled with this irrational creature called fear. Maybe it’s time I start applying that belief into those other horizons.

Maybe.

This is a song D shared with me. Couldn’t relate to it until today. It’s just so… apt.

Long long ago, in a galaxy not too far away, and definitely light years before the incessant branding of 1Malaysia came about, my friends and I were already living and relating with each other as one community.

In our majmuk (multi-racial) group, you can find folks from every age, race, religion, gender or economic status. Chilling out and hanging out together was never a problem – there are plenty of places that can accommodate our differing tastes in food and ambiance. In fact, our differences extend beyond food. Not everyone of us share the the same interests in books, music and travel comfort preference.

All we know is that we share the same wavelength, have oodles of sense of humour, and a healthy amount of acceptance and respect for each other.

This is something we grew up with and naturally incorporate into our lives. Yes, waaay before 1Malaysia came into play. If you are not at peace with people who don’t look like you nor believe the same things you do, no amount of ‘indoctrination’ or splashy racial unity campaigns can change one jot of your heart. Have you ever tried to change a bigot’s mind about his/her stand? You’d have a better chance telling a pesky fly not to land on your food.

Similarly, if you are already one with your fellow Malaysian buddies, you don’t need to be reminded to put unity first and foremost in your everyday dealings. It’s already so much a part of you and as natural as breathing. The line has become so blurry that you don’t even see your friend as a different race anymore. And when you grow up in Malaysia the way we did, the line never even existed.

1Malaysia ain’t a new concept. It’s always been there. So let’s move on, put the 1Malaysia campaign moolah where it counts to make this country a better place for all of us.