Cat autour du monde

My first Illustrator project

2009-07-01T09:39:00.002-04:00

I'm like a proud mama! I thought I had found somebody to design a flyer for my dance camp, but that fell through and I needed to get this flyer printed ASAP, as I have to send it to Herrang, before the Swedish dance camp ends, in July. Well, I bought the Illustrator program and gave it a try, while being coached by P, on FB chat, with her not seeing my screen or knowing what images I was playing with. Hahaha! That was truely unique! Well, here it is, my baby:

And for more info on the dance event, visit www.bali-lindy.webs.com (my first website, so my slightly older baby, ha! ha!)

Cheers!

Procrastinating...

2008-01-18T23:16:00.000-05:00

Why am I writing so much today? Yes, I am procrastinating again... I have a paper due on Tuesday. I don't know how I will ever get it done on time. I'm worried. But am I hitting the books? Noooooooo... That would make way too much sense. Argh! I am so uninspired on researching volunteering programs in schools and what kind of impact they have on students. ...I can hear you snoring from here! Well, this is the subject for my thesis. I wanted to write about something else, but I just can't find enough material for me to base my facts on, so the professor rejected my idea. He seems quite interested in this project though. Too bad he's not the one that has to write it. OK, enough moaning.

Figured I'd post a few photos from my Canadian holiday.

Miss Canelle, une des deux royautees du domaine!

Two self-portraits taken in the golf, Pointe-Claire, PQ

And what do you do on a cold winter night?

2008-01-18T22:53:00.001-05:00

While visiting friends in Montreal, it was no surprise to see that most of them had started a family. While in Quebec city, I visited with Natasha and Etienne. Both of them have 3 kids each. In Montreal, I tried to surprise Catherine, who still works at N-D, but she was on maternity leave. She's waiting for her 4th. Marco is too. Karl and Isa, I just found out, have 3 of their own. In fact, I don't think I know that many people that have the old average of 1.2 kids...

What's up with that? Did you guys have a meeting and all decide together that you were going to repopulate the whole province? I know all of you will be paying heavily to take care of the baby-boomers that are now getting pretty old. Did you decide that by having so many kids, you'll have it easy when it is then your turn to retire?? Is it THAT cold during the Canadian winter months???

Hehehehe.... Just wondering....

And people do...

2008-01-18T18:53:00.000-05:00

I have just returned from a 3-week holiday in Quebec, It was my first Christmas back ever since I left Canada (7 years) and I must admit, it was a better trip than expected! I'll tell you all about it in my next posting, but first I wanted to address all those complaints about me not updating my blog very frequently...

Do you keep a journal? I don't. I tried, as a teenager, but I thought it was a waist of time writing my thoughts down when I knew very well that I would never read it again and that nobody else was supposed to read it.

When I started this blog, it was to cut down on the long emails I was sending to everybody, realizing that they rarely replied or only wrote back a few lines (figuring their life wasn't exciting enough). I figured that keeping the blog would allow people to find out what I was up to and let them write their little "one-liners" in the COMMENT section of the blog (at the end of each entry). Guess what? Annick (annicksurlatrotte.blogspot.com), my sister Colette and sometimes Carol-Ann wrote a comment, once in a while, but lately, nothing. What am I to think? I am obviously boring people to death and nobody is reading this stuff, not even me! So I don't write. I might as well spend more time on flickr.com or kodakgallery.com, to post photos instead of trying to construct a decently-structured text once in a while---I am waaaaay too lazy for that (and I hate writing).

Well, imagine my surprise when, during my visit, almost every single person I visited complained that I didn't update my blog very often!!! You guys read this s**t?? And you enjoy it??? Hehehehe.... I am shocked!

Anyway, if you are reading, thank you! It means a lot to me to know that you care enough to keep up to speed with my ever-changing life. Guess what? I wonder about YOU all the time! (OK, I actually started crying while writing that...sob, sob...). OK, you think your life is not that exciting. Well, it's different and interesting to me! You're in love (God knows that's a foreign concept to me!!!), your kids are groing up before your eyes, some changes are happening at work, whatever. If it's not enough to email, then just go to the "comment" section of this blog and let me know what you thouht about what you just read or what you have to get back to once you're done reading or a little bit of news you don't mind others seeing.

After writing your comment, if you click "anonymous", don't forget to write your name.

It was great to see you guys during the break. I am sorry I didn't get to see everybody. Next time, next time!

Big hugs to all,

Cat

N.B. I am not even going to re-read this, 'cause odds are I'd probably delete the whole damn thing!

You like photos??

2007-11-02T10:02:00.000-04:00

OK, I have started to take photography a bit more seriously. I've been taking great shots not because I'm any good, but because I've visited amazing places. I want to be able to take a great shot of even something that looks boring. I want to learn how to use photoshop. To help me, I've been posting a few shots on http://www.digital-photography-school.com/ and following what other photographers do on the forum. To be able to post on this forum, I upload my pictures on http://www.flickr.com/. As I can only post 3 photos at a time on this site, you'll be able to visit flickr and see more, if you're interested. I have added a link to that website to the right of the screen, so you can just click the link and bingo!

Last week's assignment for DPS (digital photography school) was hands. Here's my favorite shot of the lot. More on flickr...

My 7th grade students signing the word "hands"

China-Yangtze river dragon boat festival

2007-10-05T00:12:00.000-04:00

All the expat teams in Singapore (Canadian, American, Australian, British, Irish and German teams) got together to form a traveling team, called the Singapore Barbarians. We practiced together only a few times before setting off to China for 2 days of racing on the Yangtze river.

We were guests of the government, so we only had to pay for our plane tickets. The bad thing about that was that we had to eat what they fed us... Eurk! Pork liver, beef intestines and all sorts of other things that I didn't want to know I had put in my mouth were on the menu. I neve thought I would say this, but where's a McDonald's when you need one???

We spent our first day on the water, practicing and making fools out of ourselves because we didn't have a cox on our boat (the "driver"). The other teams must have been wondering what was up with the crazy white folks! Then we went to the new Yangtze River dam. Around the world, people are complaining about the damage that this dam is creating. It was very eery to hear how the Chinese government thinks this is one of the greatest things that could have happened in this region....

I have never seen such a crowd show up for a dragon boat event! The banks of the river were crowded with locals (see photos) and we had a water parade to kick the whole thing off (maybe that's what people really came to see---who knows?). On the first day, the level was quite high for the men, but there were barely any women teams competing, so we were basically assured to medal. We had a packed lunch from the hotel (chicken feet and whatnot--I stuck to the rice) and ran accross the street to buy crackers to be able to survive the long day.

The next day, we took a long drive up the river, back to the dam. That's were the start of our next race was. During my 2 years as a paddler, the longest race I've participated in was a 1km race. Well, this was going to be a loooooong one: 35km, estimated to take us 2:30. Well, it took us 2:10 and I must say I was in less pain that I had anticipated. Still, as soon as we got back to the hotel, Alicia and I had a 90 minute massage.

Going back in time...

2007-10-04T23:30:00.000-04:00

I've had a few complaints about not updating my blog--Oui, oui, je parle de toi, Annick! I have not taken any pictures around Jakarta yet, but I've taken many while traveling last school year and I never took the time to post them, so let's go back in time...

Let's start with dragon-boating. Sadly, it will be impossible for me to compete now that I am in Jakarta (with this insane traffic, it would take way too much time to get to practice), but I have a few pictures of my last race in Singapore (April). I was usually responsible for stretching the teams out before each race and would prepare healthy food for up to 60 people (breakfast and lunch), which Siti (my maid) did most of. I wonder what they're eating now....

Our men finishing first, in boat 3

Our women's team, paddling to the start of the 500 m race

The women's team, being goofy!

I'm back!

2007-08-03T04:59:00.000-04:00

OK, the end of the last school year was CRAZY! I didn't take much time to reply to personal emails and certainly didn't update my blog. I am sorry. Good news: I'M BACK and ready to settle in my new home in Jakarta, Indonesia.

Where is that? Here you go:

I arrived on Thursday, July 27 and moved into my new appartment on the following Monday. It was quite a shock to see how small the place was, especially compared to the huge place I had in Singapore. I am wondering where I will stash my shipment (12 cubic meters!!), which will arrive in about a month. Where is Siti going to sleep? I have no clue! This is only for a year and I will hopefully move into a house at the end of this school year.

The school looks amazing and my dance studio is HUGE! I can't wait to send you guys photos! The best thing about returning to Jakarta after that god awful experience in 2001 is that the place looks and feels so much better than it did the first time around! Maybe making the big bucks is what makes the difference. I don't know, but all that to say that so far, I am enjoying the little bit of the city I have had access to.

Well, I have ANOTHER party to run to (these folks are trying to test us, I am sure...)

In my next posting, I will hopefully have time to bring you up to speed with my summer holiday: a trip to Nepal & Tibet with Shabari (a colleague from SAS) and 5 weeks in Sweden, swingdancing.

My new email, by the way, is cparent@JISEDU.OR.IN yes, those are all capital letters at the end. Hope to hear from you soon!

Overload!

2007-05-08T02:31:00.000-04:00

Argh! I am leaving Singapore in 3 weeks and it seems like I need another 2 months to prepare for my departure....

I've had many visitors stop by in the past few months. I guess everybody was trying to slide in a visit before I left. It's really cool to get people to come visit, but this year, they all seem to have come during the same week!

Colette (my sister) came over for 3 weeks. We managed to spend 9 days in Vietnam (photos later) and a weekend in Phuket (for her birthday), but I feel like I didn't have any time to show her what the real Singapore is like. Oh well, maybe in a few years!

Andrew Sutton (check out www.smoothsavoy.com), on his way to Australia, stopped by for a week. He taught a few classes at school and it was awesome to have him around, although I didn't get to go social dancing with him at all. OK, that's a lie: we managed to slip a dance in at 6:30 am, while waiting for his taxi to take him to the airport... I think I was still sleeping!

I received an email from Martha (an old colleague and friend from Beirut) while I was in Vietnam. She wanted to know if she could stop by for a few days. I am never one to say no! I was definitely very happy to see her (it had been 4 years), but I barely had time to spend with her. I am so sorry, Martha! Hope you'll come to visit me in Jakarta (actually, we could just go to Bali) and I'll make sure you have my full attention next time!

Now, I have to figure out my summer plans, getting my stuff out of Singapore (including my cat) and settling in to my new home in Jakarta. How am I going to manage that? I am supposed to go scuba diving this weekend, but I have an important skin infection. Maybe I should cancel that, but how can I pass on an opportunity to go diving? Also, next week, I am supposed to compete in a dragon boat race in China. I took 3 days off of work to go to this thing, but again, the doc thinks I should cancel... I'm still undecided!

The shipping company will come pack my stuff up on May 28 or 29, I finish work on June 1st and off to Nepal and Tibet for a few weeks, with Shabs. Then, I'll fly to Stockholm for the rest of the summer. How can I cut out my favorite dance camp when i'll be teaching dancing next year? Makes sens to go, right?

That leaves the evenings to plan for everything. We have a dance show this Thursday night, so the planning can wait to next week, I guess. Am I crazy? If I am not, I'm certainly going to be... Very, very soon! I need a personal assistant! ;-)

OK, pics from Vietnam coming up soon!

New Eyes

2007-05-05T13:13:00.000-04:00

During the Chinese New Year, I finally decided to "have my eyes done". I was rejected for lasik, but the epi-lasik was what the doc recommended. Much more painful, but my only option. Usually, they do one eye at the time, but because the epi-lasik takes so much more time to recover from, I convinced the doc to to the 2 eyes at once. Ouch! I couldn't see for 4 whole days! Imagine being blind for 4 days.... I was bored out of my mind: no tv, no computer, no SMS, no reading. Only more time to think of how much pain I was in. Now, I can say I have no regret: 20/20 vision and no worries when I exercise or go diving. That's awesome!

Can you beleive they took a souvenir photo during the surgery???

Diving in...an aquarium!

2007-02-07T23:59:00.001-05:00

Last weekend, we took the students from school to dive with the sharks at Underwater World, on Sentosa Island. It was a great experience and I manage to join the last group. We were led to the back area, where we geared up. When we slipped into the tanks, we could see the tourists walking through the giant tunnel, taking pictures of us.

Once settled, we fed the eagle rays, the napoleon wrasses and a few other big fishes. The underbelly of the ray is very soft. I kept on putting a hand on their bellies as I fed them. Nice! After a while, the guide went to get a leopard shark and shoved it in our arms. This guy looks smooth and slimmy, but he feels a bit more like sand paper or something. Hard to describe. Here are a few pics:

A mom and me (to the right), holding the leopard shark.

A student and the leopard shark.

Students feeding eagle ray (sorry, fuzzy picture...)

Birthday Celebrations...

2007-02-07T23:59:00.000-05:00

Turned 34 on February 1st. I haven't had such extensive b-day celebrations for a while! Shabs kicked off the afternoon with a visit to the Spa Sauvignon. A massage, body scrub and jacuzzi with a glass of wine (or two...). From there, we made our way to the Fullerton's chocolate buffet. So decadent!!! Yes, THAT was dinner! Mmmm! Here's the info from the Fullerton's website:

"Fulfill your chocolate fantasies with a rapturous buffet of chocolate desserts, melted chocolate drinks and a chocolate fountain overflowing with irresistible smooth dark chocolate, every Thursday to Saturday."

The next day, the dragon boat team had a happy hour. I was already exhausted, but still managed to stay around for a few drinks and dinner. Saturday, there was a swing event, but by that time, I was so exhausted; I opted for my bed! :-) Wow, I can't wait to see how I'll celebrate my 35th birthday!

Moving on

2007-01-27T04:50:00.000-05:00

I came back from Burma long enough to go to court (a dodgy travel agent ran away with 3000$US. Yes, I won!) and to prepare my resume: I finally made it into the Bangkok recruitment fair. This is the best fair to attend if one wants to stay in Asia. I was undecided: South America would be a new adventure for me and a great opportunity to learn Spanish, but Asia now feels like home---or maybe that's just Singapore! Anyway, I figured by signing up for the Bangkok AND Boston fair (the latter being a more world-wide fair), I could afford to be picky about saying no to any job offer that didn't fit me to a T. If I found nothing interesting in Bangkok, I could go to Boston. If still not satisfied, I could always teach scuba diving in Asia for a year, relax and travel.

I was hot stuff at the fair. It felt good for a change to have schools chasing me, instead of the other way around. Hey, I am entitled to ride on my school's reputation, no? I've paid my dues, no? First Jakarta, with the scariest, most incompetent colleagues I've ever had (drugs, prostitutes, the works!). Then to Beirut, with PE colleagues that were a bit more qualified, but didn't believe that they could make a difference in these students' lives. They didn't care; this was a pay check, that's it. SAS has been wonderful, challenging me in a positive way, working with an exceptional group of teachers (we have about 20 PE teachers here) that really believe that all of us are life-long learners, that we will achieve great things if we work together and share our victories and our mistakes. Too bad my boss didn't see it that way. It was better for me to resign and I was confident I would find a school that was an even better match for me.

At the fair, before ever handing out my resume, I had over 1o requests for interviews. I only said no to the ones looking for an elementary PE teacher. I don't care how cool the countries or the schools are, I just can't be happy working ONLY with the little ones. I can handle a range of different ages (K-12) if it's a great offer, but if not, count me out! I had interviews with Dubai and Kuwait first, figuring these would be my "warm-up interviews", as I don't think I'd go back to the Middle East (never say never, though!). The others were from a variety of different places and the sizes of the schools were also very different from one offer to another: Beijing, Shanghai, Tokyo, Jakarta, Hong Kong, Chiang Mai and Bangkok, etc. Where would you have gone??? My first two choices: Shanghai American School, teaching full-time MS health education (yes, that includes sex ed!) and Jakarta International School, teaching MS dance (and a bit of PE).

People that have known me a long time would think "NO WAY IN HELL would Cat ever go back to Jakarta!!!" Well, as I said to my sister Colette when I finally left at the end of my first year overseas, "I would only consider returning here if I could work at JIS". Well, it happened: JIS made me a great offer and Shanghai wanted to interview other people before making a possible offer. Should I have just held out for the Boston fair? No freakin' way! Yes, Jakarta will still be polluted in every sense of the word, but I will be working in a school with a great reputation (same type as SAS), I will be moving to a place with lovely, friendly people and to a country where I already hold my own when it comes to the language. Even my Indonesian maid in Singapore wants to follow me to Jakarta. Imagine that!

It will be so hard to leave Singapore. It breaks my heart every time I think about it. I thought I'd be here for the next 10 years. I have great friends at work, in the lindy community and the dragon boat team. I will miss all of it, but all of this will be a 2-hour flight away. Life throws weird things at us, and I've learned that whenever a door closes behind me, there are always a couple of others that are just ready for me to jump through...

What kind of trip would it be...

2007-01-27T03:15:00.000-05:00

...if I actually didn't go diving??? The only non-diving trips I have had in the past 3 years were to Sweden (both of those summers, I went diving just before leaving for Europe, though) and that one week I visited Alex in Istanbul. So as you would expect, here are a few of my diving pictures:

Porcelaine crab in anemone.

Visibility was very poor on this day, and that's why the water appears green. I have seen many baracudas on my dives, even large schools of them but this was the first time I actually swam IN the school. It was awesome!

Don't let the pink and pretty colors fool you: the stone fish is hard to detect among the coral and is very venemous. Divers and swimmers, beware!

CA, voici d'autres photos, juste pour toi! ;-)

2007-01-27T00:08:00.000-05:00

Sunrise over Bagan, Christmas morning. The night before, I had a trishaw "driver" take me to see the sunset. This was a bad spot for it, as it was one of the temples closest to the river; there were no outlines of pagodas in front of the colorful sky. I was upset, but when I turned my back to the river, the view was amazing! What a great spot this would be to see the sunrise, I immediately thought. I marked the spot on my map and vowed to come the next morning, hoping I'd have this little temple all to myself. I rented a bike for the next day and went to bed early. Next morning, I tore the thick blanket off of my bed (Burma before sun rise is freezing at this time of the year), put all the clothes I could find on and set off to find my temple on my bike. At 5:00am, it was pitch black and I looked ridiculous: I had a frontal head lamp strapped to my forhead (good purchase!), trying to peddle with a huge bag on my back, struggling to hold the blanket around me at the same time as I'm holding the bar handle of the bike and figuring out where I was.... I found my temple unlocked and deserted. I managed to find the steps to make it to the top and got ready for a long wait. The light show began maybe 20 minutes later. The colors were beautiful and the fog starting rolling in from the river. It was magical.... until a huge tourist bus turned the corner and parked right in front of "my" temple... I was now stuck with about 20 loud-mouth German tourists... Oh well, at least I had some time up there by my lonesome! I took this picture before the noisy tourists spoiled the moment.

A Pa Dong Karen woman, from an almost mythical Burmese-Thai tribal group better known by their nickname, the Long Neck Tribe. The women's necks aren't actually stretched. Rather, the weight of the rings gradually crushes the women's collar bones, producing the illusion of long necks. At least, that's the official explanation. In person, the effect is sufficiently striking to overwhelm thoughts of any rational explanation. The necks seem eerily elongated. The women look like giraffes. A few young girls also wear the brass rings, but the tradition seems to be dying out. The costume is so elaborate, with the head scarf, the rings around the neck, as well as the knees and wrists, etc. I asked the man standing next to me what the Pa Dong Karen men wore. He laughed and told me that he was from the tribe and I was taking photos of his mother and wife! They don't really have a traditional costume. They just wear the longi (a kind of sarong/pareo), like all other Burmese man. His sister had decided not to wear the rings. It was up to every female to decide if they wanted to adhere to this tradition or not, no arm-twisting! This lady in the photo was so cool. We joked for a while and I sat next to her, trying to fit both of us in the frame of my camera. Not great...

Yeah, I know: not a great shot and a bit culturally insensitive.... But doesn't it look like I pasted her head on the top of those rings??? So surreal!

Details of my trip to Burma, part 1

2007-01-25T20:38:00.000-05:00

I had planned to spend Christmas in Canada, something I haven't done since I left--6 years already! Two weeks before the holidays, an altercation at work made me decide to resign from this school. I love Singapore and SAS, but there has to be a place out there where I won't feel like my boss is out to get me....

So this means I will probably have to go to Boston for a recruitment fair (www.search-associates.com). I tried to get into the Bangkok recruitment fair, but it was full and past the deadline to register. It would have been the best fair to attend to stay in Asia. Back to the topic: if I fly to Montreal and then fly to Boston not even 6 weeks later, that's major $$$.... Better to just call the whole thing off and travel locally for the holiday, then spend my hard-earned cash to fly to the States in February. That's when I decided to go to Myanmar, before tourism messes up the country even more! To find out more about why "the decision to travel to Myanmar should not be taken lightly", check out http://www.lonelyplanet.com/worldguide/destinations/asia/myanmar and scroll down.

I flew into Rangoon (also Yangoon, so confusing!) and spent the first day just strolling around. Went to see my first sunset at a temple, something I did every dusk during my stay in the Northern part (12 days). I met a "novice" there (a young monk--17 years old). We chatted for a few hours and I finally left him behind because I was getting serious hunger pangs! Next day, more strolling and I arranged for tickets to Mandalay for the next morning.

Mandalay was "OK", but nothing great. I started my day meating yet ANOTHER monk during sunset at a temple (what is it with these teenage monks and women travelling by themselves???). We chatted for quite a while. He invited me back to his school--7000 students!!! but not all monks---where I visited their new free clinic, catering to whomever needed medical care. I also taught an impromptu English class, which was quite fun. I was commenting to the headmaster (OLD monk) that Owen's English (my new young friend) was quite good. He said that Owen wasn't shy and that enabled him to learn many things. I was asked what I was doing the next day and was offered Owen as a guide, in exchange for a meal and a lot of English conversation. Wow, best offer I had had since my arrival! We had a great day and Owen knew many things about his country, both historically and politically (who knew these monks would be so political?). Here's a picture of him the day we met.

My last evening in Mandalay, I went to see a traditional puppet show. It was pretty cool; once in a while, they would pull up the panel hiding the puppeteers, so you could see them manipulating the strings and all. Next morning, I left at 5 am to take the ferry down to Bagan. This took the whole day and I was FREEZING! ---I don't know how if I'll ever be able to live in a cold country again; I'm such a wuss when it comes to the cold! Anyway, beautiful views of the life on the river and towards our arrival points, we could see the outline of Bagan's ancient site on the banks of the river.

I spent 5 days in Bagan. I would say most tourists spend 2 or 3 days there, but how do they take in this wonderful place in such a short time? I even brought a book along and would find a deserted temple, sit and read. It was just a magical place to be. Bagan is said to have had 13 000 temples built between 1100 and now. About 2200 are left.

"There are two preeminent ancient religious cities in Southeast Asia: Bagan in Burma and Angkor in Cambodia. Both sites are notable for their expanse of sacred geography and the number and size of their individual temples. For many visitors Bagan is the more extraordinary of the two cities and this because of the view. The ruins of the more than one hundred Angkor temples stand alone and isolated in thick jungles, and only from the top of the tallest temples it is not possible to see others in the distance. Sprawling across a vast dusty plain, the ruins of Bagan are unhidden. There being no trees to obstruct the view, one may gaze over forty square miles of countryside, upon literally thousands of temples. (from: http://www.sacredsites.com/asia/burma/bagan.html) I don't know if this picture actually gives you a clue of how many temples are out there.... If you look between the temple at the center of the picture and the temple on the right, what you see in the background is not an outline of trees, but the outline of more temples, stupas and pagodas.

You can see a few of my Bagan pictures in the next posting (I put them there yesterday, so just scroll down). I have hundreds of picture, but these are just a few. If you want more, just let me know and I'll put them on Kodak Gallery.

My last destination before heading to the beach was Inle Lake. Sadly, I had to change my plane ticket and only had 24 hours in Inle, so it was a mad rush to see what I wanted to see! After landing, I found a cheap homestay, dumped my stuff and hired a boat and a guide. He took me all around the lake, where I saw the fishermen, the temples and floating markets, the long-neck women, etc., etc. Wonderful day and I was exhausted when I hit the sack. Next morning was so cold that I would not have been surprised to open the door to my room to see some snow on the ground. Hohoho?! Argh, why did I only bring a thin sweater???

Christmas in Burma

2007-01-25T00:07:00.000-05:00

Smoking at the temple...

Sunset on Bagan

worshipper in front of reclining buddah.

Thanksgiving

2006-12-03T04:57:00.000-05:00

We had a 4-day weekend for Thanksgiving. I went to Phuket with 2 of my girlfriends from SAS. We all started at the school at the same time. What did we have in mind for this holiday? Some beach, good food and lots of time at the spa! Of course, I ran away to go diving for a day (what did you expect???) It was relaxing and just what the doctor ordered...

The "gals" on Karon Beach, Phuket.

Black spotted porcupinefish with 2 remoras. Like the puffer fish, the porcupinefish is able to inflate themselves but have additional large spines which point outwards when inflated (during stressful events). The remora usually attached itself to sharks or other large pelagics (large fish), but these guys must have been desperate to hang on to this small guy! This slender suckerfish is easily recognised by the sucking disc on the head and nape, that helps this guy to attach himself by suction to other fish, turtles and whales. Food is obtained when the host is feeding. (Source: Asia Pacific Reef Guide)

It is quite hard to spot decent sized shrimp during the day, but these hinge-beak shrimps were easy to spot. It was hard to take the picture, though, with all the sea urchins around. These guys are also known as the dancing shrimp: they move around carefully, only to stop after a few movements, as do tango dancers (Source: CRUSTACEA Guide Of The World)

Breast Cancer Survivor World Dragon Boat Championship

2006-12-03T04:19:00.001-05:00

Did you know that many breast cancer survivor do dragon boating? Apparently, a doctor in Canada decided it would be good therapy and now, there are breast cancer "boats" everywhere. In October, Singapore was host to the first World Championship for these ladies. We had women from New Zeland, Australia, South Africa and Canada fly here for this special regatta. The Canadian High Commission hosted a dinner for the teams from Canada and invited the Canadian women from our canadian Dragon boat team (most of our paddlers are not from our fair country, but decide to paddle for the best team around!) There were 3 of us there with 100 breast cancer survivors from Canada. No mistakes, A HUNDRED women came to Singapore to celebrate winning their battle with this terrible disease. They kept on staring at these 3 youger ladies with quite healthy boobs and asking us if we were survivors. I felt so "out"! It was kinda funny though.

On that weekend, these ladies competed in the 250 and 500 metre races. It rained, and the whole area ended up being a big mud pit. We took part of the invitational races. It was a disaster! We ended up crashing into another boat when our cox (person "driving" the boat, at the back) lost control of the boat. After the impact, another boat crashed into us. It was crazy! As the other boats raced to the finish, we decided to paddle back to the starting line and had our own little private race... Strange, I know....

For the last race of the weekend, they had organized a novelty race: teams could have men racing, open to anyone. The only condition: use pink in a creative way. Melissa and I were in charge of our team's costume. We decided that all paddlers would be little piggies and the cox & drummer would be the big bad wolves (3 little pigs storie). We were a hit! Everybody liked our costume. The abundant mud everywhere even tied into our theme quite well! Sadly, when we got to the dock, they had made a mistake in the race order and we had 2 races in a row. We ended up with half our team racing with strangers because my boat didn't get back to the dock on time for the next race (which was the novelty race). Too bad! Our team decided to race backwards, to make sure not to beat the unexperienced breast cancer supporters that were taking part in the same event.

Alicia and I, in our piggy outfits.

The Canadian team with a few visitors.

At the end of the weekend, one boat was assigned to each country to paddle out in front of the crowd with flowers. They played a song and observed a minute of silence for all those women that had lost the battle to breast cancer. Most of the women on the boat were crying and the whole crowd had a hard time holding back their tears. It was a moving moment.

Breast Cancer Survivor World Dragon Boat Championship

2006-12-03T04:19:00.000-05:00

More pics from my Black Manta trip

2006-11-28T09:08:00.000-05:00

Yellow-headed moray

Morays constantly open and close their mouths, a behavior often perceived as a threat, but in reality the action simply moves water through their gills for respiration. By nature morays are not aggressive, although they can inflict a nasty bite if molested. During the day, most species are reclusive and tend to hide in dark holes. Normally they are sighted with only their heads extending from holes. (Source: Reef Fish Identification--Tropical Pacific)

Hawksbill turtle

People always like the turtles, so I didn't want to disapoint anybody ;-) This is a hawksbill turtle, munching on some coral and sponges. It stayed put for a long time, just munching away while I was staring at it and getting closer and closer to it. It never swam off: i eventually had to turn around and find my dive group, that had moved on.

Some kind of decorated flabellina, a kind of nudibranch (also known as sea slugs). I love taking pics of nudis: they don't move around too much while I'm trying to photograph them, they are always colorful, there's a huge variety and these guys are small, so they are hard to find, so it's quite rewarding when you can spot one. OK, I know, you're thinking it's just a slug... To each their own!!!

Black Manta trip, October

2006-11-27T09:07:00.000-05:00

Divers hanging on to the line during their safety stop.

Hermit crab. The shells used by this species are nearly always coverd with small anemones. This relationship provides comouflage and protection for the crab, and gives the anemones the opportunity to feed in many different locations as the crab moves. When disturbed, the anemones expel long stinging threads called acontia. The crab benefits from these acontia and uses the anemone as protection against predators. (source: Crustacea-Guide Of The World, by Debelius)

Common marble shrimp (photo taken during a night dive)

I spent 5 days on a live-aboard (diving boat with bedrooms and all), scuba diving on some of the most famous wrecks around Singapore, Malaysia and Indonesia. Most of these wrecks were very deep dives, therefore didn't last very long---the deeper you go, the shorter your dive (this has to do with the amount of nitrogen in your body and how your body reacts to it). I now realize that I prefer longer, shallower dives. These dives give me more time and light for photography. It's also safer. On the deep wreck, you also have less life and coral. Still managed to get a few decent pictures, all of them on shallow, relaxing dives.

This was finally the first trip where I would have the opportunity to test my new dive computer (looks like a watch). On my second day of diving, while decending on a deep wreck, the computer fell off my wriste and fell to the bottom, 46 meters below. The whole dive, i had tears in my eyes: it would be impossible to go search for the computer: the bottom was at 46 meters and the maximum allowable depth for recreational divers is of 40 meters. It was gone forever! When I came back on the boat, everybody offered their sympathies for my loss.... And then, Vicent, the owner of the boat, offered to go back down on TriMix to search for it. TriMix is a mix of 3 gases. You must be a technical diver to use these and it allows for deeper dives. This is what commercial divers use. Well guess what? The guy found my 800$+ computer! It took him 15 minutes to find it, but because it was so deep, he had to decompress for well over an hour before being able to surface. I am so grateful! Thank you, Vincent!

Primate talk!

2006-11-26T02:13:00.000-05:00

At school, the 7th grade students have a primate unit, covered in science class. The 3 science teachers invited me to talk to our 300 7th graders about Madagascar's primates. I was soooo nervous! I prepared my first powerpoint presentation ever (and if you know me, you know I'm not so IT inclined...). It was huge!

Anyways, did my little thing in the Drama Theatre and it went pretty well! I think the students and teachers enjoyed it. We'll see if I get to do it again next year.

Skipping to the end!

2006-11-26T01:38:00.000-05:00

OK, I've procrastinated forever and now, I don't really feel like blogging about Madagascar anymore. I feel like I need to get to more recent events, but before I do that, I absolutely cannot skip the Sainte-Marie part of my summer trip!

I spent about 10 days in Sainte-Marie, a small island on the East coast of the country. I started and ended with some scuba-diving. The weather was wet and not so warm, but people flock to Sainte-Marie at this time of the year to see the humpback whales that come to give birth and reproduce before going back to the cold waters of Antartica. It is illegal to scuba dive with these 30 ton mammals, but while diving we could definitely hear the males trying to seduce the females with their songs. Even on our way out to the dive site, we could often see them swimming around.
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Then I spent 5 days at the Princesse Bora lodge, going to see these gentle giants up close and personal with a foundation called Megaptera. I learned so much during my time with these people that spend the season collecting data to help the humpbacks. It was a very wet experience and plenty of sea sickness to go around, but I would do it all again in a heartbeat!

You can check out http://www.princessebora.com/en/observation.php?m=7&s=1 for more information about Princesse Bora's eco-tourism project.

To find out more about humpback whales, look at http://marinebio.org/species.asp?id=39

There were plenty of other fascinating things I did and saw in Madagascar. I guess if you want to know more about it, you'll have to sit down with me! ;-)

Photos for Part 3

2006-09-23T09:24:00.000-04:00

Parc National d'Isalo, my last stop on La Route Du Sud.

The famous ring-tailed lemur, also called the catta, in the Réserve Privée d'Anjaha.

The smallest specie of chameleon, in the Parc National de Ranomafana

Madagascar part 3---Trekking along "La route du sud" (suite)

2006-08-25T05:51:00.000-04:00

After Antoetra/Sakaivo, it was time for lemurs! The best spot was in Parc National de Ranomafana, where I went for a 4 hour trek in the morning and a 4 hour evening hike to find the nocturnal animals. The only disapointment was to see all the collars on the lemurs: researchers were trying to keep track of the different spiecies.

Parc National d'Andrigngitra was beautiful, but I had no luck there: I did not see a single lemur :-(

Not too far from Ambalavao, I got my first glimps of the famous ring-tail lemur (also known as the catta lemur) at the village reserve of Anjaha. They had tons of them! I only saw one other group of tourists. They came, took 2 or 3 pictures and left. I sat there for at least 90 minutes, enjoying the play-fighting of the cattas. They were also feeding and sunning themselves. No other lemurs in sight, but this was a real treat to be able to watch them for so long!

My last memorable stop along the Southern route was the Parc National de l'Isalo. I decided to take a 2 day hike, starting in Le Canion des Makis (maki is another name for lemurs), where I insisted on staying until we could find the Verreaux's sifaka (see below). To me, this is the most beautiful lemur and the one I first saw on a kiddy show called "Zaboomafoo" with the Kratts brothers (these guys now have a show called "Be The Creature" featured on National Geographic's channel). Tourists came and went (tons of tourists= yuck!), but we stayed in the Canyon until we finally found 4 of them up in the trees. We followed them through the jungle, until they found a spot to rest. When they would be back on the move, we followed them again. Awesome! I also saw the ring-tailed lemurs, but I had already spent time with them further North, in another park, so I was really obsessed with my nice white sifakas. We then hiked up the mountain, into the valley and up the other side to go swim in La Cascade des Nymphes. The water was freezing!!! I was alone with my guide. I asked him to take a picture, but as usual, people take shitty pictures when they don't know how to work your camera... So no pictures of Cat in a bikini, swimming around in the cascade ;-) We made our way to camp, where our cook was waiting for us with dinner (he had taken a shortcut). Next morning, we went to La Piscine Naturelle (Natural Pool). Gorgeous spot! I met other travellers that needed to go North and were supposed to take the taxi-brousse (local transport. A note on these taxi-b: if there are 20 seats, once they are full, the driver figures he can still stick another 15 bodies in, including flying chickens and pigs just dropped on your lap!!!). I offered for them to ride with my driver. I had company for a day and the driver earned a few bucks (like 10$). We took 2 days to make it back to Tana.

Madagascar part 2---Trekking along "La route du sud"

2006-08-24T05:20:00.000-04:00

This part of my trip was a big gamble: I was going to test "the feet" out. Could I now manage to walk for more than an hour? Time to give it a try. If it didn't work, I had my diving gear....

If you look on the map of Part 1, this "route du sud" (Southern route) goes from Tana (Antananarivo) to Fianaransoa and then goes West toward Tulear. My plan was to make it all the way to Parc National de Isalo and back to Tana, 8 days South and 2 days without stopping to make it back to the capital.

The reasonable thing to do on my first trek is to take that 2 hour trek, in and out of this region. BORING! If I'm in this part of the world, I need to live it up a little, so I went for the overnight trek over the 2 mountains separating me from the Zafimaniry people, known for their woodcarving, in the village of Sakaivo at the other end.... I was told it would take 5 hours to get there and the same amount of time to come back, the next day. Guess what? It took me 3.5 hours!!! Wooo-hooo! The feet survived!!! re-wooo-hooo!!!

When I got here, all the adults were out of the village, building a road to get here. There were only kids around. They were so camera shy, I couldn't believe it. All that changed when I was able to show them right away the pictures I was taking. Then, they just wouldn't leave me alone! Here, I'm holding up the camera towards us, but on the other side, there are a few little boys holding on to the camera, looking at the screen. I don't know if they had ever seen themselves (I didn't see any mirrors), so they were all asking for a photo and wanting to see it right after. What an experience for all of us!

Madagascar part 1---Nosy Be

2006-08-24T04:43:00.000-04:00

I know I've been back in Singapore for a while and haven't updated my blog, but I couldn't upload any pictures on blogger and figured you guys would rather get the pics...

I had an awesome summer! I had been waiting for this trip for a long time. Some people think seven weeks is too long to visit a single country, but quite honestly, I didn't even get to see everything Madagascar had to offer. Need to locate the country? Here you go:

Want to figure out the itinerary as you read on?

To start off smoothly, I started with a week of diving in Nosy Be (North-West). The diving didn't compare to what we can see in South-East Asia, but it was still good. I got to see my first school of sharks (10 of them swimming together), my first eagle rays and a small manta. I saw nudibranches I had never seen before. Most of the dives had an average depth of 25 meters, so most of these dives were shorter than what I'm used to, with no shallow reef to prolong the dive. Too bad! You guys have seen so many of my dive pictures, I figured I wouldn't post any on this trip.

I had changed money at the airport, but I needed to buy a ticket out of Nosy Be. I went to the ATM, but they didn't accept my ATM card or my credit card (only advances on a Visa were possible). I started freaking out and went back to the hotel. I met other tourists that told me that Air Mad (nice nick-name, no?) took the master card. When I turned up there, they said that their office didn't take MC and they were the only ticketing office on Nosy Be (an island, by the way). Crap! I had enough money to fly back to Tana (the capital, Antananarivo, is shortened to Tana), but I didn't like travelling with no pocket money... Oh well, this was just the beginning of my money nightmare...

As I was eating lunch by the beach when I saw these two ladies walking by. I rushed out of the restaurant to take this picture.

This is actually the first of many chameleons I saw during my trip. I was so keen on finding one. When I asked my dive guide where I could catch a glimps at this cute creature, she said: "you're welcome to walk around my garden; there are plenty of those walking around!" I thought I'd have to work a lot more to find them...

Competition in Boracay, Philippines

2006-05-17T07:15:00.000-04:00

40 people from Singapore, training on different dragon baot teams, got together to form the Singapore Barbarians. 20 of us were from the Canadian team (only 4 Canadians, though!), peeps from the Australian, British and Irish team as well as a couple from a local team (SPC). This promised to be a great trip. People that participated the year before kept on raving about how cool it was to race in the clear water of Boracay, with the sun and the beach, the crowd standing in the water while small waves lapped their ankles....

Well this was by far the worse trip I've ever been on: the travel agent screwed up every step of the way, we got hit by a typhoon and I got sick (probably because I was stuck in the continuous rain for 2 days).

We arrived at the beach at 6:15, the morning of the 250meter races. The wind was strong and the waves were way too high. We have to race following the shore line, but with the waves, we would have had more than one boat capsize. We waited for an hour to be told races would take part on the other side of the island at 10:00. We went back to bed!

At 10, there were more delays (boats weren't there, it was raining and some teams had not found the race site yet). We finally started racing around 12:30. The waves weren't too bad, but the rain reduced visibility so much that we couldn't see the finish line from the start! The races took so long and the tide was moving out. They had to move the starting/finishing lines to deeper waters. We had the women's fastest time on the water, but we had gone first, when there was loads of water under the boat (so the boats were faster early on). No semi-finals or finals on that day. We didn't know if they would just use the times. This would garanty our women's team the gold.

We walked in the rain to get to dinner. Mid way through our first drink, chairs are flying all over the place, the restaurant's walls looses pieces.... The typhoon is at it's full! We still sat and enjoyed our dinner, but the winds were so strong that it was hard to hear the conversation. Walking home was scary! When we woke up the next morning, there were trees on the ground everywhere, but the race was still on.

We did the 250m semi-finals and finals. It took forever! Our women's boat finished 3rd. Then we proceeded with the 500meter races. Hey, I already have a medal, so can I please just go back to bed?? It was decided that the winners of each heat would moved to the finals AND possibly the fastest of all the second place finishes. While boats would paddle out to the start line, they would just disapear into the rain after a few minutes...

We finished second. Shoot! We were done but still needed to stand in the rain for a few more hours to encourage the others. I packed my stuff away and went back in the rain to take pictures. The tide went out again and the water was so low that our men's boat, during the race, had to jump out of the boat to push it along!!! Needless to say they finished last... Guess what? Out of all the teams, we had the 2nd fastest time, so we ended up with the silver!

After being outside all day, you would want a nice, hot shower, wouldn't you? Well, our hotel's water heaters were kitted up with solar power... Cold showers all around :-(

Major party followed. That was good fun. Even during the race, we had a few cool moments: the local team took drums out and everybody started dancing. Experiencing my first typhoon was quite memorable, too (but i could have done without!)

A few pics:

Drummers brought a bit of sunshine to our wet day.

The Singapore Barbarian team (I'm in purple and PINK on the left).

Women's 500 meter boat: silver medal!!!

AbFab ball

2006-04-25T09:07:00.000-04:00

Got to look all girly for the evening, something I rarely get the opportunity to do!!! ;-)

With Jim, with whom I teach scuba-diving after school.

This was the best weekend in a long time! There was the Dive Expo in Singapore, with many underwater photography presentations. The ball and the dive award evening kept me busy, too. Next weekend will be a long weekend. What will be in store for me then???

The cute tarsierss

2006-04-15T01:09:00.000-04:00

The tarsier is not a monkey, but it is one of the smallest primates in the world. Aren't they cute? We were supposed to go trekking in a national park to take a peek at these guys and the cuscus (another primate from Indonesia), but time was passing by quickly and the diving was so incredible. We ended up going to this guy's house that had an "animal collection" (I know, bad idea to encourage the illegal pet trade).

They have great big eyes and long fingers. They can turn their head around like an owl can. Wikipedia says "their feet have extremely elongated tarsus bones, which is how they got their name". Check out http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tarsier for more info.

Macro pictures in anemone

2006-04-14T23:52:00.000-04:00

OK, all these things are about 2 or 3 cm long. A few years ago, my advance open water instructor, Paul, taught me that if you dive just to see the big stuff, you're going to be a really dispointed diver. These creatures are definitively harder to spot, but great subjects to photograph!

Porcelain crab

Banggai cardinalfish

Commensal shrimp

2006-04-12T05:48:00.000-04:00

Sorry, the pictures wouldn't fit in my last posting!

Here's the stargazer, burried in the sand. I totally thought this was a fossil!

This is what the stargazer looks like once out of the sand:

Manado diving trip

2006-04-12T00:22:00.000-04:00

Wow, this was an awesome diving trip! I had been to Sulawesi, Indonesia before. I had been there in 2002, with my sister Colette. We spent 4 or 5 days in the Togean islands.

This time, I was back with Craig, to visit the famous Bunaken Marine Park, off the Northern tip of Sulawesi. We stayed in the Bunaken park for 4 days. The best diving was done off the walls right in front of the village. These walls go down well below what we can see, although visibility could be 20-25 meters on a good day. The coral is in fabulous condition. I was expecting more damage; this place is visited by so many divers, it was bound to show some strain. Well, I guess I was wrong.

We had a fabulous night dive on day 2. I saw some spieces of crabs and crustacians that I had never seen before and reefs really come alive at night. The colors were fabulous. Sadly, I had set my camera to a setting that wasn't optimum, so I don't have many good pictures from Bunaken.

I had heard so much about the diving in Lembeh Strait. It is becoming the "capital of muck diving of the world". I had no clue what muck diving was. It didn't sound too interesting but I thought we should check it out. Also, we couldn't find anywhere to see the tarsius (smallest primate in the world). Anybody that knows me well knows about my fascination with primates, monkeys and apes. I just had to see them and I heard that they had a national park close to Lembeh where you could find the tarsius. Craig is always up for anything, so it wasn't too hard to convince him.

We had 3 days in Lembeh. The hotel/resort was still in construction and they sent half of the staff from Bunaken to follow us in Lembeh. The rooms were better and service was very personalized!

During the first 5 minutes of the first 2 dives in Lembeh, I thought we had made a major mistake by switching over from Bunaken. Where was the beautiful coral? There was NONE!!! It was just black sand everywhere, just muck!! Yeah, I know, I should have expected this if it's called muck diving, duh! but after the initial 5 minutes, I was able to see creatures I had never seen before. We saw 2 different kinds of octopus on our first dive. We saw a sea horse and all sorts of weird things on each ones of our dives. We were even able to find the smallest sea horse: the pygmy seahorse (about 1.5 cm in height). I was even able to spot them without the help of the diving guide. I had never seen a frog fish (or angler fish, in certain books), but I saw at least one on every dive. I saw a stargazer (had never heard of those before). These fish dig themselves into the sand and only keep their heads out of the sand. Their eyes are on the top of their flat-ish heads and look like they're staring at the stars (hence the name). When the guide pointed the head out, I thought to myself : "cool, a fossilized fish". How is this possible? He wiggled his hand over it to dust some sand off to further expose it. No movement (why would a fossil move???). When I was done with my photos, he took a stick and dug it into the sand to lift it out. The thing started swimming away!!! I had no clue this thing was alive! I gasped and swam slowly after it to take another picture. OK, here are the two pics of the stargazer and a seahorse (the pygmy shots are not clear enough==they're so small!).

2006-04-04T08:54:00.000-04:00

Blue ribbon eel, Lembeh Strait, Sulawesi, Indonesia

Juvenile Barramundi, Lembeh Strait, Indonesia

Smashing mantis shrimp, Lembeh Strait, Indonesia

James Bond Island and update

2006-02-03T22:37:00.000-05:00

People have been asking me via email in which James Bond movie this place was featured (why they don't just ask the question in the "comment" section of the blog, I don't know...). This is what I found out:

"James Bond Island is featured in the film The Man With The Golden Gun starring Roger Moore as James Bond, Christopher Lee as Francisco Scaramanga, Britt Ekland as Mary Goodnight and Maud Adams as Andrea Anders. But not forgetting Hervé Villechaize as Nick Nack. "

Anybody that knows me knows I suck at movie trivia, but I did a bit of research to be able to give you a bit more info ;-) Je ne connais même pas ces acteurs, sauf Moore, bien sûre!

I registered for SEAJam this week. This is a dance camp held in Singapore once a year. This will be my first attempt at dancing all weekend since the steroid shot I recieved last summer. All the teachers are flying in from Sweden (the Harlem Hot Shots) and I was asked to host them for 4 nights. Of course, i said yes, but where the hell am I going to put 9 people??? Where there's a will, there's a way....

Chinese New Year was our first holiday of 2006. Now starts the very long wait for spring break in March. After that, only a few long weekends till June. Ça va être long!!! Trying to organize a diving trip for March, but not sure where yet. Hopefully, we'll make it to the Maluku Islands, in Indonesia. Now that would be adventure diving! Our only problem is finding a way in. That's how remote this place is. Where there's a will, there's a way...

Also looking into attempt number 3 for a trip to Madagascar. PLEASE, let me make it this time. I want to go to Madagascar, I want to go to Madagascar, I really, really want to go to Madagascar (fingers crossed). Where there's a will... Well, you know!

Preparing for our big international basketball tournament at school. Schools from the Philippines, Malaysia, Taiwan, Thailand, Indonesia and Singapore will compete for the championship and this will be the first basketball game the cheerleading team ever performs at. The season has been long and the girls will probably never be as ready as I want them to be, but let's close our eyes and hope for the best. I NEED to stay positive, for their sake. I hope I survive!

Off to dragon-boat practice.

P.S. Thank you so much to all of you that remembered my birthday! It's always nice to get those emails and phone calls. A few more hugs would be nice, though ;-)

2006-01-24T04:55:00.000-05:00

Here's a bit of trivia for you... What James Bond movie featured this location?

Paddling away in one of the lagoons.

Finally done with the IE!

Surviving the Phuket IE

2006-01-24T04:15:00.000-05:00

What a crazy weekend! I flew to Phuket (Thailand) Friday morning and came back Monday night. The IE (Instructor Examination--scuba diving) started on Friday, with all the written exams. Saturday were all the pool sessions (teaching Open Water and a skill circuit to see if we're up to the PADI standard) and Sunday ended with a rescue scenario and 2 skills to teach in the sea.

Walking in, I saw people from different dive centers sitting together, wearing their team t-shirts and chatting with each other and their course directors. Mostly teams of 5 to 10. Then, there was me... All by my lonesome. The only one without a cute little t-shirt. No course director to tell me what to do. And the only one from out of town that doesn't know what the **** is going on :-(

We were given an overview of the weekend and our different tasks (people had different skills to perform for the examiner). For Saturday, I had to teach "breathing from an alternate air source---stat.) and had 5 skills to show, without teaching them. In the classroom, I had to teach about rescueing a serious near drowning victim. For Sunday, I had to prepare the rescue of an unconscious diver at the surface, "recovering and clearing a regulator" (OK) and the final thing: rigging and lifting an object from the bottom. What the hell??? I've never done this before! You mean I have to TEACH this when I don't even know what a lifting bag looks like? "What do you mean, I have to provide my own lift bag????" Trauma!!! What am I going to do??? Then, "Hey, Cat, you've arranged for tanks and all for tomorrow, right?"
-"Don't you guys provide that?"
-No. Everybody's course director organized that.
-My course director is in Australia....
ARRRRGGGHHH!

Anyways, passed all my written exams and managed to borrow a lift bag and some rope off of one of the course directors, a tank and a weight belt off of another one, books and props for my lesson off of another girl and a "treasure" to retrieve (for my lifting bag---had to provide THAT, too!)

Saturday evening, just before the sun set, the beach was a bit less crowded. I entered the water with my mask and snorkel, my diving torch (my "treasure" for the evening) and the stupid lifting bag to try to figure out how the damn thing worked.... Didn't have a tank, so I just blew in it to see what it looked like.

Needless to say I was mortified on Sunday! Well, I scored a perfect grade!!! Who knew that could happen? Woo-hoo!!!

I was invited to a couple of parties Sunday evening (basically invited by everybody I borrowed stuff from!) I decided to start my celebration with a bit of spa action! Went for a 3 hour treatment. Divine! Only problem is, returning to my room, I fell fast asleep and never made any of the parties!

Monday, I went on a canoe trip North of Phuket. We visited James Bond island, a few caves and lagoons. All in all, a relaxing day.

Australia, part 3

2006-01-09T23:29:00.000-05:00

More photos! Visibility wasn't as good on these dives to take good picture, but still got to see really cool stuff I wanted to share.

Top: soft coral with divers in the back. Taka live-aboard, 22 Dec 2005.

Second: Big maori wrasse. These guys are really curious and friendly. They always come to take a look at divers. Ocean Quest live-aboard, 25 Dec 2005.

Third: Turtle. Craig took this picture with my camera. Good one, no? Calypso II day trip, 7 Jan 2006.

Last: shark. Visibility was not so good on this dive, but this is one of the pictures I had most fun taking. I had never come so close to a shark before. They usually are too fast to get out of site! I came in very slowly and managed to take a picture sideways and another front shot. Calypso II day triip, 7 Jan 2006.

Australia, part 2

2006-01-09T22:21:00.000-05:00

Daniel asked for underwater pics of the Great Barrier Reef, so here they are!

Top picture: giant clam, taken while on the Ocean Quest liveaboard, 26 Dec 2005.

Second picture: school of fusiliers, same trip.

Third picture: cuttle fish and butterfly fish following along, same trip. Current was quite strong during this dive. I'm surprised the picture came out this well.

Fourth picture: trumpet fish (might be a Chinese trumpet fish, but I am not sure), same dive, while surfacing. On this dive, my buddy (an Instructor from Israel) and I got reprimanded for staying in too long---everybody was waiting for us. It was still worth it!

Two last pictures: Clownfish (2 different species) are really hard to photograph; the little suckers are always moving around so much! Did you know that these guys are ruled by a female (the biggest anemone fish) and have a bunch of little males around. Once she dies, the strongest male then becomes a female. The red clown fish picture was taken while aboard Calypso II, Eddie Reef, 7 Jan 2005. The other one was taken while on Taka, Cod Hole, 21 Dec. 2005.

The holidays are over? Already???

2006-01-09T20:52:00.000-05:00

Well, I just came back from Australia on Sunday and as usual, I need a holiday to get over my holiday! I had a good time doing the Instructor Development Course and met many nice people, during the course and on the many boat trips I took out to the Great Barrier Reef. The diving was pretty good, but definitively not the best I have done. The diving was also more expensive than what I'm used to. I guess that's what you get for going to such a popular destination!

First live-aboard I jumped on after arriving in Cairns was Taka. We jumped on the boat in the evening and arrived at Cod Hole the next morning. This picture is taken there, where our guide fed the potato cod in front of us (the potato cod is the one with the spots).

The next picture was taken night diving, during the same trip. I found this parrot fish hiding in a hole.

This picture was takent on New Year's day, with the other IDC candidates and our course director. From left to right: guess who, Kelly, Keith (our course director) and Craig.

We went altitude diving in a crater lake. It was f***ing freezing down there at 30 meters! Craig said he couldn't even read the numbers on his dive computer he was shaking so hard and Kelly was wearing two freakin' wet suits one over the other! On our second dive there, we went looking for turtles and wanted to keep warm, so we kept above the 6 meter level (that's really shallow!). Didn't see any turtles, but swam though tree branches, saw some local fresh water fish and a lobster. All in all, it was a pretty good day, finishing with a seafood BBQ Craig dragged me to ( wink, wink!) with, among other things, the best crab I've ever had! I had sooooo much food, it earned me quite a reputation....

Here's it is!

2005-12-17T22:15:00.000-05:00

OK, I was finally able to upload my Christmas photo...

Joyeux Noël et Bonne Année!

Merry Christmas and Happy New Year!

Bisous, Cat xx

Les vacances commencent enfin!

2005-12-17T19:56:00.000-05:00

I don't know what just happened: I tried uploading a picture twice, but it's not here! I'll try again later. Just in case the pic. actually shows up when I do the post, it is from last December, but I just thought it was appropriate for this time of the year.

It's been a crazy week, with the kids thinking they were already on holiday, our teacher grading system crashing, finishing my "DM" and organizing my Chirstmas holiday. So much to do and now, I only have a few days to rest....

I am finally a dive master! I took the final physics exam while all the students were in an assembly. I just sat on the floor, right outside the door, with my calculater and all and wrote the test. It was so much harder than I thought it would be! Anyway, still got a pass on that, so I got my certification. Tonight, I leave for Australia, where I will be doing my dive instructor course. I couldn't find any dive shops holding the classes during the holidays, so I had to find a course director willing to give it to me privately. I'll be doing the course with Keith in Cairns (see http://www.fnqdive.com/ ).

I don't know how I'm supposed to bring everything they want me to bring for this course. I'm expected to have my own copy of about 16 books, my own diving gear and clothes for 3 weeks, but my baggage allowance is 20 freakin' kilos! I was told that diving gear didn't count in this 20 kg (like golf bags or skis) (thanks Anthony), but apparently, this doesn't apply to all airlines. I called my travel agent and nope! 20kgs max! Aïe! Qu'est-ce que je vais faire??? We'll see if I can charm my way through this one ;-) Last time I tried this (Sweden, last summer), got what I wanted--nice guy lets me take an extra 10 kg without any charge, but the problem was that when I tried coming back with my stuff, they weren't so nice (I had put all my heavy stuff in my carry-on--could barely lift the damn suitcase---but they weighed that too!) Ended up costing me 250$US! Arrrggggh!

I hope all of you have a merry Christmas, surrounded by your family (c'est le moment de l'année le plus dure pour moi) and a great new year's eve party. May you all find peace and happiness in this next coming year!

Je vous embrasse bien fort!

Love,

Cat xxx

(Happy birthday, Dad. I miss you so much...)

READ poster

2005-10-31T15:37:00.000-05:00

Have you ever seen those READ posters around? We have them in a few places at school. They are usually pictures of Hollywood stars reading. Our middle school decided it would be cool if each teacher would pose with their favorite books to create our own posters, and show kids that we were all active readers. Well, here's my picture! The books are a bit out of focus, but I still like it.

Pool monkeys!

2005-10-03T09:20:00.000-04:00

Took pictures of my students during my swim class. I thought they were so cute! I had my scuba gear at school, so I told them to come and visit me in the deep end if they wanted me to take pictures of them. They were everywhere! They looked like little mermaids/ merkids! They also had to compete in a biathlon today, so I let the winners of each class take a few pictures themselves (the close up with the girl that seems to be screaming was taken by an eleven year old girl). The other two pics are my 7th graders. If you want to see more of these pictures, they should be on the school's website tomorrow (just click on the link to the Singapore American School), along with a few pictures I took from our weekend of open-water certification for students.

Well, we're done with the pool for the moment: tomorrow, we start indoor wall climbing. I suck at it, but the kids don't need to know ;-)

Growing fast!

2005-09-29T08:45:00.000-04:00

My new baby: my first pinapple. Isn't it cute? I have had the 3 plants for over a year now, but this is the first one to give me the fruit. Right now, it's smaller than my fist and doesn't have much on the top. It's really red, too. I wonder if this will change with time. I'll post pictures when it changes.