Commencement 2015

Unlike the graduation ceremonies of NTU/NUS held over a couple of days, SMU's commencement is one big day where the whole class of 2015 graduate together.

I started off my day getting myself registered at the counter and then decided to skip the opening ceremony and enjoy my lunch instead. Robert Timms was still having their 1-for-1 promotion so Sam and I decided to have that for lunch!

We shared a burger set and a pot of mussels. Pretty filling but worth the $33 we paid in total. (:

We continued window shopping around Suntec and the Godiva shop caught my eye. Since Sam had not tried the ice cream before, I led him there and we got a cone each! Sam chose the dark chocolate and I had the twist (half dark, half white chocolate). Sinful pleasures. :D

The verdict: Chocolate lovers should go for the dark chocolate. Glad that it's not bitter at all because I'm not a fan of dark chocolate... hehe. I decided to get the twist so that the richness wouldn't be too overwhelming. 

My happy boy with his very rich chocolatey ice cream! (:

Time passed pretty quickly and we decided to head back to the convention area to take pictures since most graduands were at the opening ceremony and we didn't have to fight for the backdrop to take pictures! It was a good thing that my parents and brother arrived by then to join us too! (:

My family... thank you for all the support you have provided me not just through these 4 years but throughout my entire life. These 4 years in SMU have made it difficult for me be home early and eat dinners together with all of you, but I hope you know that I've tried my best and I hope that you can 放心 now that one of your two children has graduated! (: You probably don't know this but when the dean asked all the graduands to face our parents and give a huge round of applause as a form of gratitude, I teared a little because I wouldn't have been able to make it so far without all of you. (': I love you Mummy, Daddy and little bro. (:

Sam. (:

Bf, thank you for being my pillar and helping me grow stronger through these 2.5 years. Thank you for complementing my weaknesses and never let me doubt my abilities. Also, thank you for making sure I get home safe from late night meetings and vetting my assignments till you blur... hehe sorry! ily <3

Bestie Yvonne and pretty girl Vanna came too! Thank you for coming and sticking by me through all these years! <3 I feel very fortunate that next time my children will have awesome Godmas hehehe. (:

Passed my 4 years with these 2 girls Joey and Rachel (well, most of it!) (: Glad to have met Joey since my day 1 at camp and then Rachel after. I'm thankful for all the mods I got to bid together with you especially since I suck at setting e$ for bids. When I bidded my major mods in Iceland alone, I overbidded every single mod by e$20. Hahaha. That's when I realised my year 1 and year 2 bidding rounds were awesome with the both of you! Hehe. Also, thank you for seeing me through my highs and lows especially in year 2 and for tolerating my sometimes half-past-six work... I only realised it when I started my major and was a lot more focused in year 3-4. (: 

SMUX Divers - Mark, Sam, me, Iris, Kai Keng, Chin Teck, (Almeric), Lu Xuan, Che'rie! (: Glad to have met all of you in the sport I love most in SMU - diving. It has been so much fun with all of you, especially since I was fortunate enough to bid a mod with some of you in the last semester! Hehe. I hope we will keep in touch because it would be awesome to go diving with all of you again. 

Next Phase

I have a lot to be excited about recently. I'm moving onto my next phase in life soon - the working world! Gone will be my summer holidays - then again they were never there since I've been interning every summer. Nevertheless, it still feels good!

The only thing I'm left with at school is picking up some of my official certs before I get no more access to school systems, receive my final grades for this semester on 8th May (*pray for the best*), and my graduation ceremony on 15th July! Yippee!

Went cycling with my dad today. Met an extremely cute poodle along the way who wanted to play with us. At first she came to our feet with a small branch but left when her owner called. After they walked one round, she came back again, this time with a bigger branch which she placed on my feet, desperate to play a game of fetch. I didn't play with her, but passed her owner the branch to throw instead. Such a cute little playful one. (:

Cycled along a long stretch of park connectors for the first time today and I must say, the government really put in a lot of effort to make the stretches of park connectors so scenic and relaxing. Singapore is so small yet all these are places I've never been to before, and it doesn't even feel like an urban area, it really feels like a big green park.

Later in the evening, I went for a BBQ dinner with the diving team. Almost walked into my friend's pond because it was in the middle of the house. Haha! Lucky for me I stared a bit longer and harder to see if there was really glass over the fishes - there wasn't, before I continued walking.

It's been a long and fulfilling day today. Glad I got to spend so much time with so many people today. (:

Good night.

The Bahamas

Since we were in the US and we thought we could spare a few days, we decided to head to the Bahamas to dive. It's off the coast of Miami and it was pretty fun!

We decided to go with the company Stuart Cove's because they are quite well known there. (:
Here is their boat dock.

Leaving the dock for our very first dive.

The boats were pretty new and spacious for all our equipment. The equipment was relatively new too!

Standard pose

There were a couple of grey reefs swimming around and we caught one on camera!

We decided to go with the company Stuart Cove's because they are quite well known there. (:
Here is their boat dock.

This was a plane wreck that was filmed in the movie "Into the blue" with Jessica Alba

Bf sitting on toilet bowl

Me on a beach chair. I struggled to sit that way and Sam just kept laughing at me while watching me manoeuvre myself. 

Camwhore underwater

And again.

Shark teeth that an instructor found for us... which I successfully kept safely and brought back all the way home, only to lose it in my living room. ):

Grilled lobsters for sale at the beach side

Mahi mahi with rice, fries and mac n' cheese. The mac n' cheese comes in a cube, it's quite cute. 

These are conch fritters! Absolutely awesome I must say!

We had 6 dives in 2 days and we had a shark feeding dive which was pretty cool. There were around 40 grey reefs and swimming around us competing for food which a shark feeder who was also our dive guide brought down to feed them - mostly dead chunks of fish. We also saw a lot of wrecks that were used in films - most of them were sunk on purpose for movies. The shark feeding dive was the best part of our diving trip in Bahamas. (:

Drysuit diving in Silfra

Sam and I took a challenge and we decided to go for a leisure drysuit dive in Silfra. Silfra is a lake of water that took about a century to arrive from the Langjökull glacier, seeping through underground rocks. The lake is part of the Mid-Atlantic Ridge; nevertheless to say we dove in between the North American and Eurasian plates!

Since water from Silfra comes from a glacier and has been filtered by many porous rocks along the way, it is pure and drinkable and the visibility is perfect. The only thing about it is that, since it melted from a glacier, it's freezing cold. Therefore, we dressed ourselves up like penguins. 

This is me struggling to fit in my drysuit

Red and blue penguins

All geared up with about 20-30kg of weights. I almost died from carrying all these. My legs were wobbly because I couldn't balance so much weight on my back and hips.

Me!

Me again

Sam

Me showing off my weird gloves. Haha. Felt like an alien that day.

Probably the best picture of me and sam (Left: Sam, Right: Me)

Me, towards the end of our dive.

Emerging out of the lake

That narrow water space that we had fun in!

Trekking back with all the gear was no joke!

This experience I had was fun but probably the first and last time I'm going to do drysuit diving in such cold waters. Basically, the weights of all the equipment and the tightness and bulkiness made it extremely difficult and tedious for me. What was worse was that my drysuit leaked, and probably because I was already cold, I didn't realise it till about 2 hours later when i took out my jacket and realised that my insides were all wet (we wear normal winter clothes under the suit). This would explain why towards the end of my dive, I started shivering really bad and continued shivering for a good 20 minutes after I was out of the water. I couldn't even hold a hot cup of chocolate in my hand without dropping it.

2 days later, today, I'm experiencing the worst part of the entire experience... due to a drastic drop of my body temperature caused by the leak of cold water into my clothes and me shivering the whole time, I recently developed cold-induced urticaria or hives. Right now I'm just itching non-stop and it's horrible. Going to visit the doctor tomorrow because I can't take being woken up at 6am from itching anymore. Urgh. ):

Miss the water

Crashed SMUX Camp as a fake freshman together with Sam and we pulled it off for a week before SMUX Camp right till the morning of Day 2 when it was diving time! :D

G24, Chelsea and Nicholas's group.

I have to post this because it's probably the only one I have of myself not slacking and playing wockey!! :P

Smiling without our regulators! (:

Enjoyed my time playing in the pool with love! Caught him just as he was about to clear his flooded mask! 

Cleared his mask as I was looking strangely at something else!

Someone getting bullied as usual. 

And again...

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I've been sick the past 2 days - cough, sore throat, blocked nose, stomach ache... Hopefully I can get better and get back to my daily routine. Time to sleep. Meeting love for a date tomorrow. Hehehe. Yay! Good night everyone! (: