busy girl thoughts

I came across this story on Time.com, and I found it amusing. This was quoted as a sarcastic analogy for Israelis and Palestinians’ peace agreement. But I feel this mentality in the business world all the time. I also wonder if guys use this tactics when they tell their girlfriends that “yeah, we’ll settle down and get married in a year.”

Once, long ago in Russia, a Baron decided to expel all the Jewish peasants from his estate. The peasants pleaded with the Baron, but he sat there bored, petting his favorite wolfhound. After a few minutes, he waved them away. Just as they were leaving, a rabbi who had noticed how fond the Baron was of his wolfhound, said: “You know, we’re very talented at making dogs speak.” Intrigued, the Baron allowed the Jews to stay on for a year, to teach his dog how to talk. Outside the Baron’s castle, the Jews wailed: “Rabbi, how can you make such a promise? We’re doomed!” The Rabbi replied with a shrug, “Anything can happen in a year. The dog could die. Or the Baron could die. Who can tell?”

This past weekend we went down to Breakwater at Monterey bay to complete my PADI open water certificate program. Breakwater is also known as Coast Guard Pier. Most of the scuba dive beginners and night divers get their certification here for its calm water and gradual decent.

I hate to admit, but I’ve been worried about this trip as soon as the diving class started. I was relatively comfortable in the pool sessions but I was afraid I’d panic in the ocean and shoot up to the surface at the slightest discomfort. I tend to forget some of the prep procedures, such as turning on the air, connecting the tank to the BC. I’m clumsy at putting my fins on with one hand, and my mask keeps sliding off my face or gets tangled up in my hair. In class, my buddy was always 10 steps ahead of me and had to assist me just so we could hurry up and get into the pool; the dive masters in the class usually had all their eyes on me as though something would go wrong with me the moment they take their eyes off me, while the other three classmates roam around freely in the pool. Besides, I didn’t know what to expect when it comes to the water temperature at the ocean.

All my worries proved to be unfounded. The weather was nice over the weekend. It was sunny and around 60-70 degrees, and the water temperature was between 52-56. We started debriefing at 7am just so we can get good parking spots and don’t have to drag our gear too far. The parking fee is reasonable, at roughly $1 per hour. Most students will dive twice on Sat and twice on Sunday, but my group voted for 3 dives on Sat and 1 on Sunday. I didn’t like the idea too much, but my buddy and the other two classmates from Texas (we call them “the texans”), who all are excellent swimmers and in tip top shape, happily said to the instructor that “don’t worry about Rebecca, she’s outvoted.” Word of advice - bring your own friend to a scuba diving class! No just kidding. My buddy is a great guy and all my classmates are really nice and have a great sense of humor.

Back to the story. The dive masters warned us about the poor visibility at Breakwater, but I was still shocked as soon as I started descending to see that it’s pretty much in a milkshake condition. I could barely see my buddy 3 feet away from me. Breakwater has sandy bottom, and is packed with beginner divers who can’t control their positions and tend to kick up the bottom with their fins.

We breezed through all the drills (a few required drills in every dive). I don’t know if it’s because they’re easier to perform in salty water or because we’ve got plenty of practice beforehand. All of them felt as easy and natural as breathing. After we proved that we could perform the required tasks, we went on tours with dive masters. So during the weekend we went on 4 tours in total.

I saw decorator crabs .
They select pieces of seaweed and small animals from its habitat and fasten them to hooked setae (Velcrolike bristles) on the back of their shells, to camouflage themselves. I saw giant kelps ,
lots of other colorful seaweeds, and countless sea stars.

I didn’t see that many fish, but it’s not hard to guess that they want to steer clear of beginner divers. I imagine at any another dive site nearby we’ll see more abundant sea life.

Anyway, I really fell in love with scuba diving. The underwater world is so fascinating, and it’s really different seeing it with my own eyes than from the Discovery channel on HDTV. It’s quiet and dark down there, and I could hear nothing but my own regulator and the bubbles coming out. I also like the weightless feeling. The combination of senses and seeing these amazing creatures in their natural habitat is beyond words.

(photos are from Monterey Bay Aquarium’s website.)

I didn’t have a very high expectation after watching the trailer. I thought it was a rental.  But then the review came out on rottentomatoes.com, and it got a surprisingly high score.

I absolutely loved this movie.  I’d say this is the best movie i saw this year.  The story line sounds simple: a newly promoted, nice-looking blonde had a one-night stand with a chubby stubby underachiever, an aspiring porn site entrepreneur, and she was… knocked up.

It’s the kind of movie that the story line sounds worse than it really is. It has so much more to it! I laughed until i was out of air throughout the movie, but most importantly, the issues the characters struggled with are deeply heart-felt.  The issues raised are commonly seen in movies, such as irresponsible men vs. responsible women, bored husbands vs controlling wives, stable family vs exciting life experience… What’s refreshing is how the characters react to the problems in this movie.  Too often we see movies that offer surprising but unrealistic twists that magically melt the obstacle, or present characters that have high enough EQ to solve the conflicts, or comedians who laugh everything off. In "knocked up" though, the characters pained through the struggles, tried to solve them but didn’t always work out. They tried to ease off the tension with humor which occasionally backfired.

One of my favorite scenes was that at the daughter’s birthday party, the father holding the cake was called by a friend as "..a bad husband", when he was kicked out of the house by his wife and went away to Vegas not too long ago, but just reconciled with his wife.  "I was expecting the story to take a down turn again, but he just paused for a sec, and happily walked out the yard singing "happy birthday" with his head up.  Hard to believe he’s the same guy that told his friend that

"marriage is like a real Everybody Loves Raymond, only that it’s not funny and it doesn’t last 22 minutes. It lasts forever!”

I laughed a lot and had tears in my eyes for a few scenes. Overall it’s witty but not pretentious, some jokes are dirty but not in bad taste.  There are a lot more important characters than shown in the trailer, so the story is richer than it seems.

It’s funnier than 40-year old virgin and it touches your heart. A must see!