Adventure Time with Keri!

Today I finally got to go diving!! HUZZAH!!

Actually it was more because we needed to do some basic skills tests, but our second dive was purely for fun.

We were supposed to start at around 8:30am, but because Jef's father is sick, he had to take him to the hospital. I'm not actually sure what's wrong with him, but prayers would be appreciated! At around 10:30 we finally left and did our skills test close by. We had to demonstrate basic skills that we were supposed to have learned from the beginning, so technically, it should be easy. Thankfully, it was for both Black and I. Haha!

After the first dive we took our surface interval (you must always wait between dives because of the nitrogen that you absorb in your tissues from breathing air from the tanks). THEN, we had to do a swim test. Oh man...I'm really out of shape. Haha. Jef told us to swim to a certain buoy and back and both of us were about to die when we finally made it back. Haha. Swimming freestyle through waves with no equipment (or goggles) is quite difficult for those of you who are used to swimming in a lap pool. It's supposed to be 800m...but I'm doubtful that it was actually 800m. Lol.
I unfortunately forgot my underwater camera. =( So no underwater pictures today...sorry!!

Birthday shout-out to my homie-lover-friend, the one and only Niki Penola!!!!

Before we met again for our knowledge review this evening, I went with my family across the road to this dinner thing. I was just kind of following them b/c that's what I do...I don't usually question where I'm going (which may or may not be a bad thing). Well, turns out that the local Chinese community was celebrating Qing Ming, which is when Chinese people celebrate spring as well as the time to clean the graveside of their ancestors. People will actually travel quite far to tend to the graves as this is a time to celebrate their lives, to remember and honor them. There are a few other rituals that are involved besides cleaning the graves such as leaving food or tea/wine and incense sticks. This is also a time for people to enjoy the start of spring (unless you're like us and live near the equator...then you just start enjoying or not enjoying the rainy season...haha). Anyway, what I was saying is that there was a big dinner or all members of this society and it's basically a time to get together and eat, see and talk to people you may not have seen in a while. I wasn't a part of cleaning my grandparent's grave as I was still in Thailand (I was invited by my host family to go with them but I was already going to church).

People and food!

Since my grandmother donated this piece of land for this building, they named the conference room after her...haha.

This was actually taken a few yrs ago, but I wanted to show you what typical Chinese grave sites look like.

As I said, I had to go meet with Hafiz for another knowledge review session and I have decided that no one is EVER on time. They all run on Asian time when it doesn't concern guests. Lol. So, I shall not be on time again unless it is dire....I've decided. Haha!

Hafiz reviewing with us.

Black trying to understand what he's saying...haha.

Yay for studying and reviewing!