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It was time for the one part of my PADI Open Water Scuba Diving course I'd been quietly dreading... At a depth of 18m in the big blue sea, I had to take my face-mask all the way off, briefly exposing my nose to the water and running the risk of breathing some in. This may sound easy enough to avoid, but practising this skill in the shallow section of the pool the day before, that's exactly what I'd done. Despite concentrating hard on breathing only through the regulator in my mouth, I'd taken a bit of water into my nose too and had had to rise, spluttering and coughing, to the surface. There'd be no chance of that here - you have to rise slowly from that depth or run the fairly serious risks of decompression sickness, ('the bends'). Focusing hard, I took a couple of deep breaths, gathered my thoughts and then pulled the mask slowly away from my face. Cold seawater rushed in, and I had to close my eyes against the stinging saltiness. So far so good - but as I pulled the face-mask all the way off my head, I somehow knocked the regulator
you breathe with) out of my mouth. So there I was, my nose and mouth both exposed to the water, eyes tightly closed against the salt, clutching my face-mask in one hand, feeling around for my regulator with the other, 18 metres down...

Scuba Diving with Bruce Lee

Michael Meadows
2006-10-23 12:57:11

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it was in Sweden, (he came over on exchange when I was half-way through mine), that I really got to know him. We had a chance to take some interesting trips together - Russia, Belgium, the Netherlands - and it was always an adventure to travel with Jason/Bruce. For one thing, we shared a similar mentality regarding accommodation standards - when our Belgian friend's room was too full, it was Jason & I who volunteered to sleep out on his rooftop, (a more sensible idea than it sounds in print). And when we arrived late one night on Gotland, (a beautiful island off the east coast of Sweden), Jason was the one who opted to save a few kronor with me, sleeping out under the stars in a random field near the harbour. Last year, Jason went ahead and did what I had avoided like the plague; he graduated, and then found a job. I'd been looking forward to his visit ever since he let me know work might give him some time off and that he was up for some Thai adventures.

Bangkok
In a strange twist, Jason arrived the night before last term's exchange students flew back to the U.S. Picking him up from the airport, I barely gave him time for a shower before we were back out the door, heading downtown to join the others for the tail-end of the night. It was
a great night out, at Bangkok's famous Q-Bar, but tinged with sadness as everyone prepared to go their separate ways after an amazing term together. It was especially hard for Jen and I, as she was scheduled to fly home to Korea just a few hours after the others' group flight, and we didn't know when we'd be seeing each other again. I really hadn't known Jen for all that long, but we'd become close very quickly and I knew how much I would miss her, (or I thought I did - in reality it was much harder than I'd expected).

It was a long night - as everyone finished packing, cleaned their rooms, swapped photo CD's & home addresses, ...