By Akiko Tada - The Star, 29th December 2004 IT HAD been another calm morning with the promise of great weather when we set off for a dawn dive from Gapang on Pulau Weh, an island renowned for its dive sites to the north-west of Aceh.
By 7am the four of us ? two British guys, a French girl and I ? were underwater with hopes of catching another great view of sea-life in the clear waters just like we had the day before.
Unknown to us, the tectonic plates of the seabed were crashing just off Sumatra, the epicentre of a cataclysmic underwater earthquake that caused tsunamis across South Asia killing tens of thousands on Sunday.
We heard a disturbing noise like the rumbling of the engine of a big ship and it went on for a while. It was towards the end of the dive so we were about 5m to 10m underwater and we looked at each other because it was unusual to hear big ships around here and then I realised that this might be an underwater earthquake.
The current was also a little bit stronger than usual but what was really unusual this time was that the fish, even the big ones, were hiding inside the corals, while the moray eels which usually hide were all rushing out from their holes.
On our way back to Gapang, we realised that something was amiss.
All of use looked at the surface of the sea and commented that it looked very strange ? because there was one part which was completely calm, there was no movement at all, it was like a mirror.
Then another part had whirling currents ? it looked like a washing machine, while yet another part had cross-currents.
As we were coming up to Gapang we could see that all the beachfront cottages had been smashed to bits. From the boat we saw huge waves gathering height and smashing against the beach, bludgeoning buildings and sending bits flying onto trees and into the ocean.
We found later rabbit fish in the bathroom on the second floor of the dive shop!
We didn?t feel anything on the boat, well just the usual rocking but we waited almost an hour until the waves calmed and then came ashore to find Gapang beach swept away by the tsunami. However no one on Gapang was injured.
Most of the tourists and locals know that when the tide recedes as far back as 2m, there was going to be a big wave and everyone would run uphill where the resorts were.
As far as I know a Malaysian couple, whose names I only remember as Han and Angie from Kuala Lumpur, and another couple, Agnes and Hamid from Perhentian Island, were safe.
There were aftershocks the whole of Sunday night and we could tell when the next one was going to happen as the dogs would start barking just before the aftershock. It felt like tiny volcano eruptions but one of the Japanese dive instructors said that these tremors and even the big one that had caused the tsunami was by Japanese standards not really that bad.
On Monday, six of us decided to get a fishing boat from the ferry jetty to catch our flights from Banda Aceh, little knowing about the devastation in the capital city of Aceh.
We saw the extent of the damage in Banda Aceh ? there was a lot of stuff floating all over the place ? pigs, refrigerators and lots of dead bodies. The city was covered with mud, buildings were torn down and there were lots more dead bodies lying on the ground ? they were rotting.
We saw the military police digging a big hole, probably to bury the dead, and we walked through the rubble and headed for the airport.
Luckily, the airport was still open and our 2pm flight to Medan was still on the tarmac even though it was already after 5pm.
It was only when I got back to Singapore that I realised how narrow an escape we had all had.
Akiko Tada is a secretary who is also an avid diver and was in Pulau Weh at the time of the earthquake on Sunday. She is now safe and back in Singapore where she works for a Japanese multinational.
call me with any nick that you want.. but i'm just being myself..
yesterday.. i read this article.. this guy or gal who wrote it.. expressed everything that i had bumbling around in my brain.. so here i paste the article..
.: What's a friend? :.
I'm writing this for people who get depressed and suicidal because of their friends.
I've noticed that one of the biggest mood effecters is friendship. Most teens tends to get easily upset by their friends, and sometimes their friends don't even know it. I too have been through this growing experience.
I think friend is a luxury. If you have one, great! If you don't have one? No big deal, you'll survive.A firnd is someone who makes life fun, who can help you and not just say they will and instead do nothing. A friend is a person who cares, not only when bad things happen but even when they don't.
Human beings naturally look for people who can help them to solve their problems and maybe have a good time with. They call them their best friends so that they can further help solve their problems at regular rate without guilt and without going through all the formalities. It's sad but true.
Being called someone's best friend doesn't mean you have to be their best friend. I learnt it the hard way when i was six and told my 11 years old neighbour that she was my best friend.
"Oh," she said nonchalantly. "Well, you're not my best friend. My best friend is in school." Ouch. But then, I was six : I didn't realise that she was my only friend.
You might say that I'm taking advantage of the people I'm describing. Well, it's up to you to see it in any way you like. But in reality, what are friends? They are people who can use each other. If you have a best friend, you must have something that your friend doesn't have. That's why he needs you and calls you his best friend and vice-versa. Sorry to say this but you're literally using each other (which is okay if it's a constant give-and-take relationship).
What if you can give your friends what they need but they can do absolutely nothing for you? You can say that you don't expect anything in return but how many people really mean it? However, you do expect your friends to treat you the same way you treat them. But sometimes that doesn't work out. Sometimes. you are capable of being more caring towards your friends while they, on the other hand can't. That leaves you feeling deprived and wondering why your friends are so selfish.
However, if you do feel that you enjoy giving even though people treat you like crap, by all means carry on, it's your life. If you don't like it, you can stop. We all have to be selfish sometimes.
Not everyone will agree with me since I'm practically asking people to be cold and selfish. The world would be less warm and friendly that's for sure but I'm only suggesting that poeple do so when they meet people who put them down. Why be nice to people who are mean to you? Why care about people who don't care about you? There's a huge difference between being noble and being stupid.
Why let them treat you like this when you don't deserve it? Why put up with something that you don't like and will never like? Why change yourself to fit your friends? Why not find other friends who are able to click with you without you having to change yourself?
I feel that we should never give ourselves holly in a friendship. Give happily and openly but never wholly. You have to know how to detach yourself from your friends so that when they hurt you, you won't be hurt.
Just remember that not everyone is as lucky as some people are. If you have great wonderful firends, good, you've found some lovely peole. But for anyone who is depressed and upset because of how your friends have treated or are treating you, I say, why let your friends make you feel this way? Who are they? Friends? I think not.
Stray lines in a curvature
seem out of place,
yet we still look for them.
Inside lines on a mobius strip
come to the surface
where no one can claim them.
We are all looking
for a good line,
but they are all curves.
Philosophy is about points and counter-points
presented as straight lines in The Curvature
which, unfortunately, go no-where.
We describe points as if we could see them,
but a point is a mathematical concept
which a physical dot merely approximates.
If a physical point is a conceptualization,
a line is a bridge between receding shores
over a flow undermining the bridge’s foundation.
A pipe can be broken, but not a river.
A balloon can burst, but not a breeze.
A pot can be shattered, but not dust.
Anything that has a beginning has an end.
If there is a face, there is a backside.
Where, though, are the surfaces of a sunbeam?
Surfaces are membranes of tension
supporting a multitude of hypotheses
as substantial as shadows.
Rumors of waves, storms and rolling surf
are neither heard nor reckoned
in the depths of the sea.
In the sea’s depth
there is no churning wave
and the currents are silent.
The deeps of sea and space
are silent, cold and void -
the heart’s depths are quiet, warm and full.
A river
is a vast flow
of moving silence.
Nature draws us,
absorbs our noise
and gives us its silence.
The voice of the divine
from the Realm of Silence
whispers sweet nothings.
Noise suffocates.
Silence is tangible -
one can breathe it.
Silence has no beginning or end,
nor can it be measured, contained or expressed -
yet it supports the universe.
Self-importance does not satisfy
and self-pity does not soothe.
They do not know Wonder and Mystery.
Longing and anguish are eloquent.
Responsiveness is active
and does not waste words.
Vision connects
what we can see
with what we would not see.
Basic Sanity
has to do with what is
and not what one imagines or wishes.
We see what we expect to see
and hear only what we want to hear
because we cannot stop ourselves.
Silence drives us crazy
to the precise degree
that we are out of touch with ourselves.
Silence
connects us
to the basic sanity of Life.
Noise is not music
any more than ‘the silent treatment’
is silence.
Music soothes the soul
to the degree it approaches silence.
Why not listen to the source?
I’ve talked a lot about silence
as if
it could be described.
A candle burning
in a glass bulb on a restaurant table
is an orb of silence.
A sunbeam makes no discernible sound
and does not draw attention to itself,
but sheds light on anything in its path.
Nature’s way is stillness and movement,
its voice, challenge, invitation or pain.
There is not much noise in the sounds of nature.
From a material perspective,
silence and cold are the absence of sound and heat,
and so we think they are both evidence of lifelessness.
Silence is immaterial
at the same time it is essential -
physical conclusions do not apply.
The problem is
that perception is reality -
as absolute as inaccurate a fact.
Words touching life’s rhythms
are amplified by them
and echo through time.
Silent vibrations in words
inform us of a Voice
that speaks our language.
There was a time when words were sacred
and people respected the power inherent in them.
Now we have many words of little import.
Life is an enigma within a riddle -
there is paradox at the heart of things
and all we know is silhouette and camouflage.
The intellectual search for Truth
travels the by-path Believe It or Not
to a tavern known locally as Wit’s End.
We have to beat around the burning bush
as if we were putting out the fire
or people tend to get hot feet.
Sparkling eyes
glow with you know not what
and who cares anyway?
Veiled eyes, blank as mirrors,
until you step into view,
absorb you, unless something flashes in your eye.
Ah! The low and rhythmic voice
saying all the right things -
but can it laugh, maniacally?
Yellow sunlight and bright reflections,
rainbow fringed, off shining surfaces,
and the amber radiance of the night on fire!
The stream of consciousness
flows with gathering excitement
into golden rivers bathing awareness.
The black landscape, where dark beings stand their ground in grayness
while their red eyes glare about attempting to pierce the sweeping wind
and, almost unnoticed, the distant backdrop glow of vaulting dawn!
Our lives are coral reefs
that can only thrive in sun drenched shallows
on the shoulders of inexplicable upheavals.
Like the lotus in lakes and ponds,
we root in the mud and reach for the sun
and our bloom is as exquisite as it is rare.
There is only
radiant joy and knowing wonder
and the deepest reverence.
Can anyone understand a word we say
if they have never seen what we have seen
or felt what we have felt?
Contentment is silent.
Longing is incommunicable.
What is there to say?
The only thing worth communicating
is always between the lines.
There are no words for it....
.: jiwa remajaku.. ahahaks!! :. feeling bored.. so selongkar balik kotak2 lama.. hehhe macam2 ada.. tah hapa2 je lah.. dlm satu kotak jumpa balik koleksi album "jiwa remajaku" zaman belajar dulu.. hik!
Boyzone, No Doubt, The Corrs, Hanson, Silverchair, OST X-Files, Duran Duran, Kitaro, Kenny G, Raihan ngan Firdaus pun ada.., emm lagi..koleksi Rock Legends.. (rock on bebeh!!).. aha.. koleksi Fauziah Latif zaman rambut fringe kat depan pon ada.. ahaks.. Koleksi Lagu Raya P Ramlee & Saloma (eh yg ni akak punya.. dia mintak tlg belikan zaman dia duk kat US dulu.. dah dapat marahkan kita lak buat dia sedih tiime raya.. seb bek tak ku debik dia masa tu).. hapo punya taste memacam ada.. hekekek
apa lagi.. haaaa.. ingat tak karya Aie (Ujang) - Blues Untuk Aku.. mmg gila ngan karya ni.. selain mengerahkan bakat untuk belajar melukis cem Aie.. sempat gak disambar "Blues Untuk Aku - The Album" hehe..
OAG pun ada gak.. tapi yg ni beli sbb kawan promote suh beli.. tp not bad gak music OAG ni.. bila dengar balik album Melody Mocker bila part lagu "Creepy Crawlies" senyum sensorang lak... cem ada kena mengena lak ngan kegiatan bersama-sama best buddies.. buat atktiviti tah hapa2 je.. tp totap best.. especially part yg dihighlightkan.. yg dimerahkan tu tak terbabit..
apa lagik ek koleksi yg ada.. haaaa! butterfingers.. love their music...(love emmet hik!!)..
dooms day out
either i'm sick or purified acidity or jealousy i needn't wanna be complete retarded cause it's part of a dooms day out life since i have u ..
- transcendence
btw.. butterfingers akan keluar ngan 5th album on 16th december 2004.."Selamat Tinggal Dunia" base on official web.. a fully malay album.. have to check this out!!
About Me:
i am who i think i am and sumtimes who you think i am.. maybe i am not who you think i am.. even not who i think i am.. do i ever know who i am? do i ever know wether you know who i am? c'mon lets get some peace of mind.. who cares.. gegegeg
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