Grace's "There and Back Again" DAY 1

Hannah picked up Grace from the airport this morning. I was not there, but from what I heard - people were smiling at their sisterly-love while they hugged each other for 10 minutes! I think any longer, they might have to be escorted out of the airport by the security :P

Grace and Hannah reached Waiheke by 11:45am, and they were among the thousands of tourists who flocked to the island to welcome the New Year. Thus, the usual idyllic island becomes very crowded! Hannah and I had planned to bring Grace to Auckland city to have a drink and welcome the new year. However, looking at the craziness, we decided to stay on the island, have a BBQ, drink some beer, just relax and get ready for our road trip tomorrow.

We got steak and beer from the local supermarket. Our friend, Janis joined us as well. After BBQ, we chilled out ... the girls playing "SET", listened to Jazz music, Grace trying to stay awake from the jet-lag, until midnight came when we made her open the "champagne" much to her delight and also apprehension.

Summer ale... perfect drink for the day

Grace "double-fisting" drinks

Janis, Hannah and Grace

Happy new year... and tomorrow, the journey begins.

Review of 2012

Today is the last day of 2012, and Hannah is off to pick Grace up from the airport. I took the chance to do a quick review of year, see what I have achieved, what have slipped through... Looking back, the year 2012 was a hectic year for me. There are lots of good things that happened, and there is not shortage of bad memories. However, I think I will just review the great significant moments, and put the bad memories as where they should be... in the memories at the back on my mind :)

First, there was the wedding... there was only 3 months between my proposal and the wedding, and although we wanted a small event, there was still tremendous amount of prep work. However, we survived, and it was a memorable and beautiful wedding at the Singapore Botanical Gardens. There....I finally got married! :)

During mid-2012, I received my first class honors MSc, and proceed on to my PhD studies. Everyone was telling me that the research topic I have chosen - marine coral microecology, is a challenge not just in terms of logistics, but also financial. Stubborn as I am, or maybe ignorant, I told my adviser - I CAN DO IT!.... and I persisted!... I secured financial and logistic support for my research in Taiwan... so I spend nearly 2 weeks in April looking for the perfect research location. I got a good line-up of professors (Kench, Davy and Tang) who will be advising me on different aspect of my research, and I am confident this will turn out to be a fruitful collaboration. Will be going back to Taiwan in June 2013 for my first stage of research, and I definitely looking forward to more research challenges in the year 2013.

Work has taken another higher level as well. I am working as a tutor in more labs, and I guess I am getting a reputation for being a tough but not-too-shabby tutor :). Hannah also started working as a tutor in the labs this year, and she is enjoying her new role in school. Financially, it definitely helps a lot with both of us working at the same time. 

Finally, diving! Although, I never achieved the number of dives I set for my goals in 2012, we still had quite a good year. We finally got around to do both the GUE Fundamentals and the GUE Rec III courses after a long time of planning. Now, we are a step higher in terms of our diving career. In the new year, we have decided to take a step back from courses, and concentrate on getting more in-water experiences, especially diving with trimix. Also, we found a easy access dive site on Waiheke - Enclosure Bay. We will be checking it out, but as it  looks right now, it will be a place where we will be getting some substantial underwater time.... well, it's free and it's near...literally 5 minutes from our house!

Looking back at the goals I set out at the beginning of 2012, there are some success, there are some which are ongoing, and there are some which I have not achieved....

1. Finish and publish the two papers I have been working on for the past 3 months (still going strong... adding one more paper to the list!) .
2. Portions of the PhD research to be done : location recce (ACHIEVED), collaborators negotiation (ACHIEVED), literature review  (ACHIEVED) , experimental design  (ACHIEVED) .
3. Publish at least one paper from my PhD research before end of 2012 (DID NOT MAKE IT!)
4. Pass our GUE fundamentals (ACHIEVED)and Rec 3 (Trimix)  (ACHIEVED)  .
5. Conduct at least one exploration dive on the Blue Creek resurgence with TechDive NZ. (CHANGE OF PLAN - CANCELLED SINCE THE EXPLORATION IS SET IN FEB 2013, WHICH I WOULD BE IN SYDNEY FOR A WORKSHOP)
6. Clock a total of at least 40 recreational dives and 10 technical dives  (did 40 dives this year, but half of it is training dives in the course...thus making it about 20 recreational dives) . 
7. Teach 2 labs per week (this will help with the monthly finances as well :) )(ACHIEVED)
8. Stick to a exercise regime (not too bad...keeping it going on)
9. Run the Auckland Marathon....(DID NOT MAKE IT :( )
10. Call home (Singapore) at least once every fortnight  (not too bad...still calling home on a regular basis) .
11. Go home (Singapore) at least one time in year 2012 (not counting the wedding date!) (ACHIEVED).
12. Go back to Iron Mountain.  (CHANGE OF PLAN - CANCELLED SINCE GRACE IS COMING END OF YEAR)
13. Training Jet at least 2 times a week.... so that he is more obedient,and I can keep my sanity. (not too bad...keeping it going on)
14. Runs at least 3 times a week, so I can at least survive the Auckland Marathon.(RUNNING ABOUT TWICE A WEEK)
15. Published my personal/ work website (ACHIEVED)

Sorry if there are grammar and spelling mistakes... did not have time to go through. Happy New Year.

Fawkes remodelling ..... almost there

We installed the kitchen cabinet in Fawkes. We got the cabinet for $10 from a guy who was replacing his kitchen. We replaced some rotten particle boards. A 12mm plywood was used as a backing for the cabinet, which also pulled down to become a table. Put a vinyl on the top of the cabinet to serve as a counter-top...

I don't think we will be able to stain the bed-frames before Grace arrives in NZ. However, this would more than enough to make our road-trip memorable!

Merry Christmas

We had a few friends who came and join us for Christmas celebration. We had a not-so-Christmas-dinner with BBQ. The weather wasn't really cooperating, and instead of the long-awaited sun, it was raining throughout the Christmas holiday. The food was great, alcohol was plenty, and the company is priceless.

We invited friends who had no family in NZ, and we felt that nobody should be alone during this festive season. They definitely brought joy to our celebration. Demi (one of the girls) had never tried Gin and Tonic before, so she was skeptical when Hannah offered her a glass. However, to Hannah's surprise, and Demi's delight... Gin and Tonic may turn out to be just her favorite drink now. Demi was VERY unwilling to share it with anyone else, and she drank the whole glass within 10mins!... Her face was all red, and she was blissfully drunk :)

BBQ!

Michael is the official grill master

Lydia

Christine and Demi... chilling with Hannah on our red-neck couch

Crystal and Aaron

My xmas gifts - running socks
and scuba cutting device (Triobite)

Hannah is happy with her xmas present

... interchangeable knitting needles

Doggies have been bad the whole year,
and get coals for xmas presents :P

House improvement

Took the opportunity to grab some xmas sale offers to add some personal touches to the house. Now, it is beginning to feel more like a home :)

Quite a summer so far

It has been quite a busy summer so far!.... We went to the city last week to get as many things from the DIY store for materials on Fawkes remodelling. Besides that, we found and bought a couple more items - a chair, garden shed, fish tank, cupboard for putting the fish tank on, kitchen cabinet for the van remodelling. All the items were bought used from trademe (equivalent to ebay in NZ). We also went to Martha's Backyard to get some US local food :)... We also managed to score a new grill which is highly discounted!

Putting the garden shed together was an ordeal because the instructions are so confusing. We finally gave up on following the instructions and came up with our own methods. It looks great when everything is done, although there are numerous screws which we do not know where they belong to! The garden shed is going to be used to store tools etc, so that Hannah have more space for her yard in her creative room.

Food from Martha's Backyard

The dwarf orchid is blooming as well!

The new fish tank!... Nano size... 20gal!

The garden shed

Me pretending to be a red-neck on the grill....
look at the size of the steak :)

   

Fawkes update

Update on work with Fawkes.... Work that have been done :

- Put in side panels for the seats/ bed frame
- Make laminated flooring to become the cover the frames... will nail them in next week when the glue dries
- Got foam, and Hannah has started making the covers for it
- Install curtain cables
- Got a used kitchen for really cheap ...$10.... going to take it apart and construct the kitchen/ storage using the frame.

Carina Nebula

Hannah is VERY happy today because her leggings (she ordered from Black Milk clothing) is finally here! She is wearing the dust pillar of the Carina Nebula on her legs (she keeps telling me that the dust pillar is one light year in length). She is very proud that she got it at 50% off on the Black Friday sale... for those you do not know... it is VERY HARD to get the legging you want from this clothing company because they only produce limited numbers for each design, and according to Hannah, EVERYONE is constantly eyeing on the sales!

Mission Fawkes

In anticipation for Grace's arrival to NZ, we had planned to bring her around in Fawkes, and do some authentic "freedom camping". So far, this is what we had done :
- painted (one coat) Fawkes, and changed his color from white to red... going to do a few more coats soon.
- cleaned up and repainted the interior with fresh white paint
- replace the vinyl sheets on the side panels
- new floor using 12mm plywood
- make a double seater which would turn into a bed

More to come in coming weeks....

Van gutted out and ready for work!

12mm plywood floor and double seater that covert to bed frame

New vinyl cover for side panels

Mostly Open Ocean: Conservation priorities on the Great Barrier Reef

A re-post from another site about the Great Barrier Reef coral reefs conservation efforts...

Mostly Open Ocean: Conservation priorities on the Great Barrier Reef: A recently published paper on the decline of coral cover on the Great Barrier Reef serves to illustrate an important point; even without cl...