This I believe...

So in class, we were told to read or listen to some essays on a website called; This I Believe. I chose the essay " Creating Our Own Happiness" from the "Humor and Laughter" section. This essay focuses on the point of Happiness. Happiness is not granted to you, you MAKE happiness for yourself, no matter how miserable your life may get. In the narrator's essay, he tells a story of him in his car, at an intersection, listening to the radio when he sees a couple huddled together at a bus stop, in the cold winds of winter and pities them. He looks closer and sees that they're smiling and laughing, his pity quickly turns to envy as he understands that they are making their own happiness despite their current state. I really liked this essay because one, I like to be happy and not sad all the time, so this is a strategy I might use to cheer me up when I'm bored and two, I like the Idea of happiness and how it can happen anywhere and in any situation.

Summary of a part of "Odysseus" in 50 or less words.

After escaping from the land of the lotus eaters, They find themselves in the territory of the vicious man-eating cyclops, Polyphemus. While trapped, Odysseus tricked the giant, then blinded him, allowing time for them to escape safely.

Greek Myths Movie Reflection

On your blog, reflect on the Greek myths seen today in class. Which story did you enjoy the most? Why? Was it the characters or the story that you enjoyed? In thinking of the themes in these stories, what do they have in common?


Today in class, we watched two different Greek myths transformed into modern day movies; Theseus and The Minotaur, and Daedalus and Icarus. I actually enjoyed Theseus and the Minotaur better than the other movie, maybe due to the fact that there was quite some action in it, and since I've always like mythological creatures, I was also quite interested at the Minotaur. Despite the fact that I like the characters in the story, I enjoyed the story itself much more. It contains the basic same elements as the other story, yes it seems more intensified. It had mild DEPRESSION in it, quite a lot of action, and the fact that a character wants to do something that benefits others, but in the end, directly or indirectly, he does something emotionally harmful to himself (Icarus Falling, and King Aegeus falling off a cliff thinking Theseus had died). This story may also be somewhat of a fable (the way the movie showed it), as the movie emphasizes the fact that the Minotaur may look like a beast, but on the inside, it also has emotions, a personality, and love. I saw connections between this, and many other movies I've watched; King Kong, The Hunchback of Notre Dame, and also a fairly recent movie, Super 8.

Bio poem.

Owen
Curious, Keen, ready-to-learn, and enthusiastic
Who is Brother of nobody, is an only child.
Who loves Mom, Dad, and Loads of other things!
Who feels happy when around friends, sad when they move, and happy again when new friends come,
Who needs to be more organized, his family, and of course, loads of friends.
Who gives help, Lots of love, and whenever possible.
Who fears zombies, the dark, and angry teachers, angry parents and all other angry adults.
Who would like to see himself more organized, and the world trying harder to achieve peace
Who shares new ideas, new ways of dong things, and, whatever that's new that he can get his hands on.
Who is a certified scuba diver, a good student, and an excellent creator
WHo is a resident of 3Kiapeng, Jalan Kiapeng, Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia.
Ooi

Bali Diving Day 2- Padang bai

So the next day was basically the same, except where we were diving, at this place called Padang Bai (yes, they spell it B-A-I, not
B-A-Y, strange, right?). Again, I woke up to find myself in a completely different place. This time, I realized that I was at a place that resembled a fishing village, but with relatively fancy cafés instead of people selling fish, and diving boats instead of fishing boats. Again, I geared up, walked across the beach to the boat, tried and failed to shake all the sand stuck in my boots and wetsuit out, got in the boat, and when everybody else was in the boat, we were ready to start diving!

the dive site itself was a little disappointing, just a 20 meter sandy bottom dive site, but as we went deeper down, I was amazed, there was actually a wreck there, originally, I thought it was just a rock, or some dark coral, but there was WAY more than that...So everything was like an average dive, but we did see a load of new things. The morning dive we did, was especially interesting. It was relaxing, we just floated on top of these abandoned fishing traps (more like homes now) that looked like nets with HUGE holes in them, and they were all stiff, not just waving about. pictures should give you a pretty good idea of what I'm talking about. so as we glided along, we finally spotted something really cool- a few lion fish, cruising just below, our dive instructor took a few moments to snap a few pictures, and that's when we spotted ANOTHER lion fish swimming upside-down, not far from the first.

After that, interesting things just get spotted, on after the other, like we're in some crazy slide show with the speed set to 100! Immediately after the lion fish, we spotted a cuttlefish, lazily swimming around a piece of coral (was he searching for food?) unfortunately, it also spotted us, and tried to put some distance between itself and the divers pursuing it (meaning us), we attempted to follow, but hastily backed away when we saw it put itself in a position we knew to be agressive. following that, we came across a porcupine fish (puffer fish with SPIKED ALL OVER ITS BODY), which was also too quick for us to hang around it, except to take some pictures. And, to add to all that, we saw a small moray eel sticking its head out of a rock.

The second dive wasn't altogether interesting, but we did see a fair few eels, including a black ribbon eel, quite a few nudibranch, and a scorpionfish, and that was basically it for day 2 of diving.The pictures I include should give a pretty good idea of what everything looks likes..

Bali Diving

After an exhausting and frankly painful first day of officially being in Bali, Indonesia, we finally got to get into the water and swim with some fishes; Scuba Diving. The day started off pretty normally for a tourist living in a hotel; wake up, eat breakfast, go out, then start the day's activity. BUt for the rest of the day, things were different, VERY different. First, before we start our journey to our dive site, we met up with the dive instructor that would be guiding us through four day of diving; Murfi Chen. His whole family were into the diving business, but his father also opened a restaurant in front of their dive shop. We hung out at Murfi's place for a while, getting ready everything, choosing our wetsuits, our BCD's (buoyancy control device) and also a Dive camera that we used to take all our photos.Then, we were ready.
The total time to the Tulamben wreck diving site was about three hours, although I hardly felt it, as I was sleeping (Hey! don't blame me, it was eight in the morning, and I slept at like twelve the previous night!). But the change in the atmosphere was HUGE. From tall buildings and tourists all happily shopping around to trees and mountains and sea view all around.We then walked for a bit and reached the place we were going to gear up and go in. Once all our dive equipment was set and working, we DESCENDED TO THE DEPTHS. It was a shore dive, so we slowly and gradually went down a slope. When we hit around ten meters, It was paradise. First, we saw a small patch of sand where some garden eels were lazily sticking out of the sand, we swam over them, casting a big shadow and scaring them back into the sand, only to be surrounded by around five batfish, curiously observing us as we make our way to the wreck. Not far off, we were able to spot a GINORMOUS tornado of jackfish. I've only ever seen a school of them, well, you know? You get new things every dive. Altogether, the two dives at Tulamben's USS liberty WWII cargo ship wreck was the most relaxing out of the eight of the whole trip.
The first dive In the morning, was concentrates at the front of the ship, there, we just gently drifted in and out of the wreck, seeing smaller things, like sweetlips and more batfish, and the coral growing around the wreck. But the second dive ater lunch, was much more interesting; we went to the cargo hold of the ship. There, we actually saw more things IN the wreck than out, although some weirdo kid went ahead and held onto a turtles shell- NOT a good idea, as dive-masters can still express their anger underwater. Overall, That Dive was one of the Most relaxing dive of all.

BALI

So yeah... Not been blogging for a long time, haven't talked to anybody from school in a long time, but hey! everybody's having fun...I guess... So yeah! over last week, I went to Bali for diving, I heard It's one of the best wreck diving sites in the world. What? did you think I would sit around at home, in front of a TV or my computer and do nothing productive for a solid two months? Ok, I admit, that would be nice, But I DID NOT regret going to bali.

The moment the plane touched down, I had a feeling that the trip was going to be good, that was before My head felt like it was going to explode, note to self, Do NOT lie down completely horizontally and sleep in a plane, gives you a massive headache. wasn't really interesting for the rest of the day, we had a massive lunch in this traditional looking indonesian restaurant, now, I expected the menu to be full of stuff like nasi lemak, and I did not expect Burgers on the Menu. After checking in to the room, and sleeping off the headache for an hour or two, we (meaning my dad and I, as My mom was in taiwan) went walking around the nearby stores, and eventually found a way to the beach. We then found our ay back to the room, hung out for like an hour in the room, then went out to eat a really tasty Japanese restaurant. That was basically day one.