Ramadhan arrives again

Family.

It's the first word I think of when Ramadhan comes in mind.

Last year, I was fortunate enough to have been able to spend the whole month at home fasting with the family while waiting to transition to my new job after resigning from Sony. During that time, everyday was a day of planning what to eat for breaking fast. The main questions of the day revolved around what kuihs to have, and what main dishes to make, and whether we will have enough food, and whether to try this method or that method to make the softest version of kuih apam..

And every family member taking turns on weekends to showcase their special dishes. My dads baked chicken, my moms casseroles and ayam masak kari hijau, my brother's sudden creative idea for something he saw on Food Channel (or something he always picks up and manages to make), my sister's cinnamon rolls and Sue is always there to help out :).

The trend was usually buka puasa with some kuih and drinks, then Maghrib prayers. Then we proceeded with the main course afterwards. And after cleaning together (in my family, everyone helps out which is something I am really grateful for), we continued with Isya' prayers and some recitations. And so that was the routine!

Once in a while we would drop by the bazaar Ramadan to check out the food and various types of kuihs. Malaysia is truly a haven for food, and this is emphasized especially during Ramadhan. It can be very hard not to 'overbuy' food when you are there, like, really.

While I think about last year, I'm a bit saddened not to be able to spend more Ramadhan days with them, and especially the first one :(...

Boohoo Sarah? You're 27, not 10!

But hey! At least I'm not breaking fast all alone - now that would be just sad.

I'm thankful for today, thankful for surviving the first Ramadhan 1435, thankful for the food, thankful for the people I meet, thankful for EVERYTHING.

Ramadhan, here I come to embrace you...

Toodles.

100 happy days

A colleague at my office introduced me to this - 100 happy days campaign and I thought I'd give it a try, even though I am always happy...but sometimes you forget what those things are when you're feeling down.

My motivation? Pictures below describes it all. :)

Beauty in the city

Garden of knowledge awaits...

Technically, I have 105 days before the official start date, but I shall start today!

A couple of other things I wanted to try for 100 days :

1 - Life without Maggi
2 - Life without sugary drinks
3 - Cardio - once every two days

I read that to start these habits, we need to start slow. So, give me a week to do all of the above, and slowly, we will take it up to 2 weeks, and so on..

Will I be able to accomplish these for 100days??

Challenge accepted.

Til next post.

Bitten by the Scuba Bug

Now let's start crossing off those items in my bucket list, shall we?

#bucketlist - Scuba Diving

The Classes

Between March and May, I enrolled myself for a Scuba License certification. It's been something I've wanted to do for years but never really had the time (or money) to do so.

And since Kreatif Club (a recreational club in Astro) was having a promotion, I took the first oppurtunity!

The certification takes you through theory classes, practical classes in the pool, and also exams in Pulau Tioman. You'll need to pass the theory exams with a score of 75%,  have satisfactory skills in the pool sessions (judged by the instructors), then only you can proceed for the certification in Tioman. Our dive center was called Marine Monkees.

Theory Classes : Acing the exams, yo.

Pool Classes : Waiting for my turn

Pool Classes : Practicing with the regulator

Scuba Diving is not something to be taken lightly. You're dealing with consumption of oxygen which is not from the usual air you breathe in. Although the 28% oxygen and 72% nitrogen in the tank resembles the air you breathe, the source of oxygen has to be taken into account. One of the ways to check your air source is to get a whiff of the air before inhaling it through your regulator.

The tanks were DAMN heavy especially in my current fitness condition (I used to be more fit before :P). The secret is to make sure your body is bent in the correct angle to handle the heavy weight - it took time to get used to, but I managed :)

The awesome equipment - feelin' coool

Summarizing up the classes - well, basically, before you proceed to the pool classes, you would have already had a good grasp on the theories of decompression limits and its effects, equalising techniques for when you descend in the water, how to use the RDP (Recreational Dive Planner) and so on. It was actually quite a fun theory session to be honest. 

RDP table to calculate nitrogen levels in the body - all of this is computerised though nowadays.

The pool sessions went smoothly as well - disregarding the part where I almost drowned lah. "How did you almost drown Sarah" you ask? Well if you MUST know, here's the story.

There is a technic that they teach you for in the case of when your inflator loses air source. So then you'd have to manually blow air into it to stay afloat. So during this technic, I was kind of having trouble staying afloat (I can swim, but not really float well, ohwell), and almost drowned until my saviour came to save my life. :P. But yeah, I'm just overdramatizing things here, the technic isnt too hard just as long as you don't panic. I managed to do it again with no problem afterwards (although it was kind of nice being saved by some handsome, muscular dude). 

The Certification - Tioman

End of May was the time to travel to Salang Bay, Tioman for our certification. A total of 30 of Astro employees (consisting of Open Water, Leisure, and Advanced) took part. 

My team consisted of 8 people - we called ourselves - TEAM AWESOME::

Before putting on the awfully tight wetsuit erk

Our instructor making a face for the camer (>.<)

Team Awesome's first shore dive!

Our first shore dive was great! We did the usual mask clearing techniques, alternate from snorkel to regulator techniques, removal of weights and just swam about 10m below for practice. The BEST part during this first shore dive was when a HUGE school of fish came swimming around the area we were practicing at. It was like a rainbow of beautiful shiny fish shimmering in the water just a couple meters away - astonishing! At that moment, at that very moment, I knew I wanted to do more of this. :)

Team Awesome - after 'graduation' ceremony

The whole Astro Kreatif Club team!

More photos here

The best part was the night dive - we got to see glow in the dark shrimps and played with jelly fish, and saw some boxfish and interesting creatures during the night. The feeling of swimming 20m underwater in pitch darkness with only a small source of light - is just thrilling!

All in all, it was an enjoyable 3 day getaway meeting new people and being motivated for a common cause. Our team still keep in touch after the event and plan to go diving again someday. Can't wait!

I'd do this again. Anytime. :)