Questions of the Past

Do you know that no matter how much you try to ignore it, your past will never go away?

Do you know that no matter how much you try to disappear, your past will always find you wherever you are?

Do you know that no matter how much you try to forget, your past will still haunt you in your dreams?

Do you know that no matter how much you try to pretend that you are okay, the demons of your past will never let you rest?

Damn!!! How I hate it when my past comes back to me!!!

My Back Hurts

My back hurts.

I have no idea what I did the day before that actually hurt it, but damn did it hurt this morning.

It's not like it hurts like hell. I'm just being melodramatic here. :P

Anyway, my back hurts, and my eyes start to close when I am sitting down and not doing anything.

I'm just whining...

Wreck Dives: 14-15 October 2006

This is supposed to be documented before the posts of Telok Melano, but since I was not in the right mind of doing any of these reporting, I procrastinated until today.

Not much details. Just a short summary of our overnight experience onboard the little fishing boat that belongs to a friend of our beloved Kim.

Here goes:

Departure : 12.00 hour, 14 October 2006 (Saturday)

Arrival : 17.25 hour, 14 October 2006 (Saturday)

Dive/Fishing sites :

(1) Thai Wreck

(2) Japanese Wreck

(3) Chinese Wreck

This is us...

The Divemaster

Fishing...

Baby sotong...


Right, this has a story behind it. Penny, one of the lady divers, had caught this fish. But while she was towing it in, a bigger fish came along and took a bite... Hahhpp!!!
Now it was just half of her catch remaining...
Poor Penny...

Mister Potato!!!!

Telok Melano: Polis!!! Polis!!!

Telok Melano is a small village. But they do have the security and protection of the enforcement team of the country. Here is a picture of the nation's brave and beloved police-fisherman (whatever that means...).

"Polis" is the Malay word of police, and "Tenang" means relaxed. I wonder why one would call a armed forces' vehicle that. Aren't they suppose to be always on the alert for problems and troubles??

This boat has its motors taken off. Are not the police always be ready for emergencies???

Telok Melano: Candid Post

Welcome To Telok Melano!!!!

Where it took a couple of hours to reach by Adi's boat...
And the people shrivelled from the monotony of the ride...

With some knocked out cold on the deck...

And the children went cuckoo with the"staking-crab-dance"

And the devil falling asleep...

While her devotee prayed for her wakefulness....
( "Ai ya, mai car lar..." )
[i.e. " Don't bother me..."]

As the little pet watcher had a little break-time fun from the back...

Just another filler post....

Telok Melano: Dedication Post

This post is dedicated to those people who have been through all the trouble to make this trip a reality. We would like to extend our gratitute to them and may they all live with laughters in their life on a daily basis. :)

Kim, Adi the boatman and Edward "Dog-Chain" Yong

On their way to visit the other families in the village...

While Kim had a good bite of the mango she found on her way...

And Eddie falling 'pe-lang-ting' from the boat on his way out to sea...

Just filling the gaps with photos...

Telok Melano: What Do They Have???

Telok Melano, village at the border of Malaysia/Indonesia, 56 families, population nearly 300, receives and watches the TV channels of Indonesia.

What do they have here?

This is the house of the head of the village. He is the one responsible for all things big and small relating to the village affairs. This house has a university graduate from the Malaysia Northern University.

Trails, one of dirt and one of cement lead to all corners of the village.

A wooden bridge at the west end.

A tree-shaded tea break table.

The only school in the village. I wonder if it meant both primary and secondary school?

A public phone booth at the door of the village leader's house.

One that does not work...

More phone booths, and a satelite dish... I wonder what this is for???

Telok Melano: At The Host's Place

Adi lives in a little house partially made of wood and bricks at the east end of the village. The house with a white roof may look small from the exterior, but it is rather spacious on the interior. If they needed more space, all that they had to do was to add more bricks or wood to the land, and wa lah!!! You got yourself a new room for whatever purposes it was created for.

This is the host's house.

These were the guests!!!!

And the feast began!!!

The hungry bunch.... :)

Adi's house cooks the best curry on the island!!!! Long live the island's curry house!!!

Telok Melano: The Island

We, the divers and good friends of Adi the boatman, were cordially invited to his exotic and peaceful village of Telok Melano, Lundu, Malaysia, in celebration of the second day of Hari Raya. We were thankful for his generosity and kindness, and would like to share with the readers of the world, the beauty of the land bordering that of Indonesia.

Telok Melano, as we first approached it after nearly two hours of boat ride from the Sematan jetty.

The tide was low as we neared the shore. The rocks jutting out in the middle of the water were very dangerous to passing ships and boats when the tide was high.

The front view of Telok Melano. This was the direction that we would land ashore.


There was a long jetty extending out towards the sea. But then we badly needed a smaller boat to board us all to land without wetting ourselves.

Arriving ashore, with Adi the boatman leading the way back to his home. He might look a little lonely, but there were 30 of us trailing behind him!!!

If you crossed over the mountains, you would find yourself in the land of Indonesia.

We Are In The Papers!!!

Sin Chew Daily, the national chinese newspapers of Malaysia, was kind enough to provide us with two pages of special report (complete with colours) about the wonders of DIVING!!!

Here's us:

The page on the right was published on 5 October 2006, Thursday, showing the underwater world pictures of Kuching waters and Miri waters. The two divers at the bottom of the page were Kim (yellow tank) and Angel (white tank).

The page on the left was published on 8 October 2006, Sunday, page 21. The group photos shown in the middle was the one that we took while on our trip to Tanjong Dato' in August. The following is a close-up of the aforementioned group photo.

p/s: Fish, if you are reading this, try guessing who's who behind the two newspapers pages in the first photo. Don't you just miss them two gals....

It's Getting Dark

Something is growing inside of me. A darkness that is trying to envelope me, and pull me down with all its might.

It does not march in with drums and trumpets, but sneaks up at you when you are most unaware.

It comes, and slowly, you cease to function normally.

It starts with your five senses, with which you communicate with this world. Then it starts to seep into your brain, the part that makes sense of the world around you. Finally, it seeps into your heart, the core of your spirit.

You start to see things the way it wants you to see. You start to hear things the way it wants you to hear. You start to think the things that it wants you to think. And you start to understand things the way it wants you to understand.

It isolates you, and makes you think that this world is your enemy.

You start to withdraw, and stop keeping in touch with this world.

It creeps into your heart, and clamps it with its cold hands, making you believe falsely that this world is a cold one.

May be it is. Cold as ice. Hard as a rock.

But I am also a part of this world too. Remember?

May be.

But I'm cold now. And this darkness is still pulling on me. It's still trying to pull me down.

I cannot lose.

Sicker

It is getting worse. Whatever that I was feeling before, it was getting worse.

I am getting more and more disheartened by the moment. All that I could feel now is the greyness that shrouds me like a blanket.

And it is suffocating me.

Work is busy, but that was usual. We are making progress slowly. But there are times when I do wonder, if I really am fulfilled by all this.

My work is my living, but it is not my life.

There are times when I feel that I am like a joke to another, or to others. I don't mind being a clown in a crowd, it makes people laugh and happy. But I hate it dearly when people talked about me behind my back, as though I am a joke. It hurts especially so when those people who talked about me like that are the people dear to me. It do not really hurt when normal people talk about me from behind. I do not really care about them and what they think. I could not give a f***ing damn.

My head is clouded, and I could not think properly. There is something so maddening about it. I just cannot make sense of some things now. Damn, my head hurts.

I cannot think. I cannot make sense of things. My eyes sting. And I cannot feel properly.

I don't want no drugs.

Leave me alone.

Sick

I'm drowning.

The darkness in me is growing, and it is dragging me under.

I cannot think. I do not know what to think or feel. There are times when things happen and I do not know how to react.

I am sorry. I am just being myself.

I am losing myself.

This thing is taking me down again.

Disoriented

I woke up this morning, not knowing what day or time was it.

Everything was a blur in my head.

I had the weirdest dreams. People from different walks of my life were in there, doing things that I did not think that they would normally do. I guessed that they were not bad dreams, at least the lightings were good in them. That said something.

We were in this little japanese room, the size roughly around six tatamis, and sitting in a circle. There was a picture perched on a drawing rack at the right corner of the room, and a sliding door that opened up to the garden (I thought it was a garden) was just beside the drawing, in the middle of the area. People from my present and past life were sitting in a circle in that room. It was like we were having a cell meeting, with education and good will in mind. It was like a family in spirit, something that I once felt when I was still in church.

But I am not in church anymore, and I resent that.

I am alone now, and I don't care. I would rather be on my own, than having to go back and face those people who kill in the name of God. Those who said that they loved and cared for me, yet abandoned me in times of crisis.

That was how I learned to grow strong. I was left alone when I was dying.

What does not kill you, will only make you stronger.

I guess my church nowadays is the open water. That was the drawings on that picture perched at the side of that room in my dream. :)

After thoughts: This is the closest that I would get to talking about my past. Don't touch me there if you are still with me.

Divemaster

What does it take to become a divemaster?

Well, first of all, you must have the awareness that you are there to work. It will not be leisure diving for you anymore, and it will be your responsibility to watch over the whole board and take care of your divers. Responsibilities are your priorities now.

When one bears the title of a master, one bears the responsibilities of those under one's care.

Therefore, one should always be on the alert to watch out for potential problems that might arise from different situations, be it the water, the equipments, or the divers themselves.

A divemaster is, well, a master in diving. And being a master it means that one will have to have the knowledge and skills to teach to others and handle all sorts of situation, like aforementioned, be it the water, the equiments, or the divers themselves. One will be required to review each new qualified diver for their diving skills, and lead them around the local dive sites. So, one must not just be a master of skills, but also a master of the location too. If any one of your divers is having problems with their equipment, you are the one required to fix it. Master Obi-wan is the cure to all problems.

A divemaster is also the most needed assistant of a diving instructor. A diving student will usually approach his divemaster and not their instructor for assistance. The instructor will also approach a divemaster for his assistance in guiding their students, especially underwater.

Body fitness is a necessity. One would be required to do a lot of physical work, starting from carrying and stacking the air tanks, to equipping and accompanying the divers, and the washings and cleaning of all diving equipments after a trip. Tedious is the work of a divemaster.

Well, on the advantages of being a divemaster... one gets to meet all sorts of people (one might say that is no advantage at all. The multitute and spectrum of human characters, it's so difficult to handle!!!), and makes lots of friends. And when one travel to another place to dive, one gets a big discount from the local agent, for you will need less care by them. Let you "chap sang" on your own lar....

So, if you still want to become a divemaster, then pay RM1,800.00 for the course lar.... you will get to go on all diving trips during the period of your course for FREE!!!!

What Should I Do??

What am I feeling now?

aise my eye brows*

.......

*Kept on driving and avoided a motorcyclist that just crossed my path. Oi!!!*

You know how it feels like to have this one guy, who likes you and intends to marry you, but never tells you or confirms it.

*Raise my eye brows again, higher now*

And you don't know whether to go for another one, or wait stupidly (the actual words were "gong gong") for this one.

*Nodding slowly, turning right at the junction*

And when someone else comes along and asked, "Do you have a boyfriend?", and all that you could answer is, "Er.................."

What do you do? Should I take up that man, or should I wait?

That's how I'm feeling now!!!

And that stupid fella who's staling me is the KPM!!!!

*I stopped my car, turned around and smiled at her. *

She smiled back, said good bye, and let herself out of my car.