Photoshoot - one of the unplanned things I did this year

Long time no blog so I’m resurrecting it.

It’s already slightly beyond mid-year. Time to review how I’m doing against what I’ve set out to do this year!

Recap of my personal targets for 2011 :

1 ) Celebrate 5 Years in Singapore. At least one major event.

Done but thinking of a few more small ones over the next few months.

2 ) Meet at least 5 people visiting Singapore through the overseas hosting networks you are part of.

Only 1 as of now (from Bulgaria) so 20% of target.

3 ) Relaunch blog. Improve back-end set up and ensure simpler uploading of entries and photos. Increase average daily user traffic by at least 30% vs 2010.

Relaunch not yet done but I think it looks fine. Just need to figure out the new features of WordPress and read up on how I can simplify blog updates. Average daily user traffic at 40% of target. 

4 ) Volunteer time for teens/kids. At least 2 major activities (or 1 regular involvement).

Done with 1 major activity so 50% achieved.

5 ) Weight should be within the 70′s by yearend. Sit-ups at least 3x a week. No rice 50% of the time during dinner.

At risk! No sit ups but going to the gym more regularly now. Rice target was on track earlier in the year but not right now so must get back on track.

6 ) Travel to a country you have never been to and where English is not the primary language.

Will not be achieved. No more time. Travel funds re-allocated to shopping and target #1.

7 ) Discover useful shops / services inside Singapore’s old/rundown commercial buildings. At least 10 shops.

Unhappy with progress due to lack to time but still achievable by yearend.

8 ) Maintain no more than 12 inches worth of paper (magazines) at any given time. Otherwise, scan relevant pages. Organise electronic data using available online tools.

Still buying lots of magazines but need to get those handy scanners to work soon to lessen the clutter. And oh, I also need to read what I buy.

9 ) Track expenses. Hit 2011 savings target.

Tracking expenses 85% of the time, thanks a good number of iPhone apps. Will know if I hit my target savings by yearend.

10 ) Learn how to swim by end-July then use it as another form of exercise.

Delayed. Started early July and expected to end within Q4. Will complement fitness target (#5). I must admit swimming is fun!

11 ) Twitter (or equivalent) as valuable source of instant information. Steady flow of useful tweets by end March.

Achieved but struggling to catch up with the backlog tweets I need to read at the end of each day. Tweeting regularly.

12 ) Photo-worthy casual attire on Friday and Saturday. Requires review of wardrobe and shoes. In full swing by April.

Achieved but still buying good ones as and when I see them. Still a little bit more work to be done on shoes.

Optional: Smooth transfer to new home (if necessary)

Dunno yet.

Here are my personal targets for 2011 :

1 ) Celebrate 5 Years in Singapore. At least one major event.

2 ) Meet at least 5 people visiting Singapore through the overseas hosting networks you are part of.

3 ) Relaunch blog. Improve back-end set up and ensure simpler uploading of entries and photos. Increase average daily user traffic by at least 30% vs 2010.

4 ) Volunteer time for teens/kids. At least 2 major activities (or 1 regular involvement).

5 ) Weight should be within the 70′s by yearend. Sit-ups at least 3x a week. No rice 50% of the time during dinner.

6 ) Travel to a country you have never been to and where English is not the primary language.

7 ) Discover useful shops / services inside Singapore’s old/rundown commercial buildings. At least 10 shops.

8 ) Maintain no more than 12 inches worth of paper (magazines) at any given time. Otherwise, scan relevant pages. Organise electronic data using available online tools.

9 ) Track expenses. Hit 2011 savings target.

10 ) Learn how to swim by end-July then use it as another form of exercise.

11 ) Twitter (or equivalent) as valuable source of instant information. Steady flow of useful tweets by end March.

12 ) Photo-worthy casual attire on Friday and Saturday. Requires review of wardrobe and shoes. In full swing by April.

Optional: Smooth transfer to new home (if necessary)

Good luck to me!

Compared with previous years, I felt really excited about this year’s festivities even if my family really does not celebrate CNY. We had more goodies/snacks, home decorations and CNY CD’s. The only thing we did not observe was buying new clothes. There’s not much closet space and we didn’t want to cramp the limited space anymore.

Some bits of info which I picked up from the Yahoo Q&A website :

Red as the official CNY color

According to tales and legends, the beginning of Chinese New Year started with the fight against a mythical beast called the Nien (Chinese: 年; pinyin: nián). Nien would come on the first day of New Year to devour livestock, crops, and even villagers, especially children. To protect themselves, the villagers would put food in front of their doors at the beginning of every year. It was believed that after the Nien ate the food they prepared, it wouldn’t attack any more people.

One time, people saw that the Nien was scared away by a little child wearing red. The villagers then understood that the Nien was afraid of the colour red. Hence, every time when the New Year was about to come, the villagers would hang red lanterns and red spring scrolls on windows and doors. People also used firecrackers to frighten away the Nien. From then on, Nien never came to the village again. The Nien was eventually captured by hong jun lao zu, an ancient Taoist monk. The Nien became hong jun lao zu’s mount.

Clothing

The colour red is commonly worn throughout the Chinese New Year because it is believed that red will scare away evil spirits and bad fortune.

In addition, people typically wear new clothes from head to toe to symbolize a new beginning in the new year. Wearing new clothes also symbolizes having more than enough things to use and wear in the new year.

Photos around Singapore

Chinatown - stalls selling goodies left and right

CNY goodies - peanut & coconut cookies, shrimp / pork rolls, pineapple tarts . Towers of calories!

Mall tour

Takashimaya mall. Believe it or not, I went stall by stall to check out the stuff. Ended up buying cornflake butter cookies (only).

Ion Orchard - These are cherry blossoms right?

(Newly-opened) Mandarin Gallery. This tiger is made up of flowers.

Vivo City came up with a directory of which shops are open during the festive season. Very customer service oriented.

Resorts World Sentosa also opened during the CNY weekend and as anticipated crowds flocked the island. Here are photos taken inside Vivo City and the nearby bus stop. Waiting time is loooooong. I will wait for Universal Studios to open before I join the queue.

Resorts World Sentosa -- taken from Vivo City

Waiting time for monorail - 45 minutes

Waiting time for buses into Sentosa - 2 hours. Of course waiting time could vary with signs updated accordingly.

More info on : http://www.rwsentosa.com/

Believe it or not, I know all those songs but cannot claim that I can reach all the high notes!

Quincy Jones recognised his talent and chose him to perform both “Just Once” and “One Hundred Ways” in his album “The Dude”. Such album resulted in 3 Grammy nominations for James — Best New Artist, Best Pop Male Vocal, and Best R&B Vocal (which won him his 1st Grammy).

Here’s a video of him performing “Just Once” :

and

“Somewhere Out There” (theme song for “An American Tail”) — a much younger James Ingram

Talented right?

So when he was here for a one-night concert as part of the Mosaic music festival at the Esplanade, I knew I had to watch the show.

We also invited Patrick to join us. He sang "Just Once" several times during his stint at Boiler Room at St James Power Station

1) … Blog entry – this one!

2) … few photos in the new year (Post-Countdown)

Sophie distracted by the New Year's Eve food on the dining table

3) … Singapore tourist attraction visited (Asian Civ Museum)

4) … shopping mall where I made a purchase beyond SGD50

5)… film watched on the big screen

Happy new year!

New hairstyle and specs going into the new year.

Here’s what I plan to do in 2010 in random order :

1 Achieve “regular customer” status in one of the bars in Singapore by end June.

2 Listen to FM radio more often to keep up with English and Mandarin pop music.

3 Lose 3kg by end March, another 3kg by end June and maintain weight with +/- 2 kg variation for the rest of the year.

4 Be more active on Saturday mornings.

5 Use my MacBook, Nokia X6, online applications (i.e. WordPress), digital media to the fullest.

6 Be involved in preparing at least one new dish per month.

7 Be more conscious of the price of goods & services I purchase and use such knowledge on a need basis. Avoid buying blindly.

8 Discover new items via online shopping every 3 months.

9 Among all acquaintances I will meet in 2010, be able to catch up again post-introduction with at least 10 of them.

10 Continue to learn more about Singapore — specific focus on (1) how the education system works, (2) CPF,  (3) buying a house, (4) its history , (5) heartlands exploration

11 Use the bus as the primary mode of transport to and from work (70% of the time).

12 Learn basic / conversational Mandarin without taking up formal classes. Sound like a pro even for a limited scope of words.

13 Read more – on print and online.

14 Undisclosed target – to be known by yearend if achieved

I realised that change is good if it means having a place with more space, keeping the same modern look & feel at a much more reasonable price.

Moving also means getting rid of the clutter (or at least knowing what could be thrown away in due course) and buying new furniture and appliances. I keep telling my family that we are only transferring to a new home within the same country, not relocating to another country hence no need to purchase a lot of items. I think we have kept that in mind 50% of the time.

My room looks neater now than before and I plan to keep it that way. It will look more tidy after the holidays as some of stuff from overseas travel meant for Christmas gifts are still in one corner of the room.

For some reason, I sleep more comfortably now even with a slightly earlier wake up time. Maybe it’s the room, the house in general or my new mattress and set of pillows.

I am also taking the bus more often as the bus stop is less than 3 mins away. I had wanted to do this ages ago but happy that I am able to do it now. Better late than never.

There a few major insights I learned throughout this experience so thought I’d write some here :

1) Several months before the move, I kept a folder containing the types of mail I receive which are directly addressed to me. Examples of these are membership-related letters, subscriptions, bills, other notices. This allowed me to track the relevant parties I need to inform of my change in residence.

2) There should be an overlap between the lease end date of previous and the lease start date of the new place, at least 2 weeks to a month. In my view, the extra month of payment for the new place was worth it. It not only eased off some pressure in having to move everything in one go. It also allowed some form of transition — mails, clean up of old place etc. It is also a busy time and I did not want to get stuck with relocation stuff during the Christmas break.

3) SingPost has a mail redirection service which you can pay for a certain number of months. What they then do is to intercept all your mails based on the name/s you indicate in the form and place a sticker based on the new address. There is a 1 or 2 day delay vs normal delivery time but at least you don’t miss out on any correspondence.

4) Singaporeans and Permanent Residents can update their address at the community police station. Doing so also results in a select number of government institutions and agencies to be notified accordingly. The process is quite straightforward and takes less than 30 mins. You go to the police outpost with proof of new residence and the police officer will ask you to sign a form before he places a special sticker indicating the new address on your IC.

5)  Moving is costly and one needs to set aside funds to cover : 1st month rent, 2 months deposit, service fee for property agent and relocation company, cost of buying new stuff.

6) There’s a lot of coordination that happens prior, during, and after the move. My family has been a tremendous help in making things happen as I have been tied up with work.  We treated the relocation as a project and it went really smoothly with everyone’s efforts and patience.

What’s left on my To-Do list ?

1) Get rid of some more stuff currently in organised boxes in the storage room

2) Series of housewarming parties over December and January

A few photos :

Living Room - That couch is really comfy

My bed

Sister's bedroom

Mom's bedroom

Hallway from rooms to dining area. Behind the sliding glass door is a study room which we converted to store bookshelves and shoe racks

Lots of friends, places, and adventures featured in 74 entries during the past year.

This is entry #75!

10,153 hits (average of 27 per day) is rather unexpected — didnt realise people actually find stuff on this site interesting or useful.

I feel my blog is still far from being personal (it’s predominantly narrative). Hopefully I will be able to improve on that bit over time.

On track

• Revamp casual and weekend (including night-out) wear. Priority shirt colors for this year: white, black, red. [Still need to define work clothes and casual clothes. Decided not to be too strict on colors though have preference for purple, orange, and white as of now]
• Increase your level of interest in Singapore real estate property developments (read newspaper ads, visit showrooms). [On and off interest which will shift to high gear in the 3rd quarter]
• Learn and memorize five (5) Mandarin songs by yearend and sing them in public (i.e  KTV). [About to finalise the 5 songs and will begin work on pinyin lyrics pronunciation before public launch haha]
• Lose some more weight (but still take breakfast!). Be a “legitimate” size L (heading to “aspirational” M) instead of borderline L/XL. [More comments about me losing weight than gaining weight so that's a good indication. Can fit into L shirts comfortably and jeans/shorts that are 2 inches lesser than before. The dryer better not shrink my clothes too much or else!]
• <Undisclosed target — to be shared at yearend if achieved> [Still undisclosed though making good progress]

Started but need to be more serious

• Track expenses. Minimize impulse purchases – local and overseas. [Began in January, even purchased a software but found it challenging to keep receipts, type info, etc. Hopefully I will gain more patience in the coming weeks to track whatever I can track until yearend. I guess the trick is not to spend too much so I don't need to track a lot in the software]
• Learn how to play mahjong, seek opportunities to practice, and aim to playing decently in 2010. [Learned a bit in the first quarter, missed an opportunity to practice recently but still positive about it]
• Develop basic appreciation for jazz. [Interest is there, just not enough hours to sit in a bar and listen to live jazz which is part of this target]
• Volunteer your time to give encouragement to younger people and/or differently-abled individuals. [Started in the first quarter and will resume in July/August]

Not much progress; at risk

• Have breakfast most days of the week. [Have traded this for more minutes of sleep. If I wake up 30 mins earlier than usual, this will be possible]
• Cook one new dish (at moderate complexity) per month. [This is meant for the weekend. Still possible but that means cooking two new dishes per month to reach 12 by end of the year.]
• Think green. Save the earth in your own little way. Lessen volume of paper at home (scan pages if info is useful). [Scanner is active but I still collect a lot of paper along the way, especially on weekends when I go around, i.e. brochures, pamphlets, etc]
• Take the bus and MRT more frequently. [Weekends are quite ok but weekdays/nights are terrible since I take a cab to/from work.]
• Determine your threshold for alcohol level intake (in as few attempts as possible). It’s about time you have an idea. [Not much partying as I either stay home on Friday nights or do other things on Saturday. Not really sure whether this will be met]

To be replaced as unlikely to happen

• Visit a country at least 5 hrs away by plane on holiday. [Ideally for late 2nd quarter or early 3rd quarter but with the H1N1 virus around, I am happy to stay in Singapore]