Kaleidoscope #4 | June Edition

This issue of Kaleidoscope is going to get more personal. There will be more talk of my personal experiences online, but I will still touch on some current affairs.

As the post may be long. Here is a content page to help you find your way through all the good stuff:

• Virtual travel
• A good watch: some elevator-themed mini-documentary to uplift your spirits!
• The plastic crisis and a sustainable future for our world

Virtual travel

The coronavirus pandemic has made it harder to be out and about for people worldwide. Increasingly, virtual travels, which simulate the travel experience on a virtual space, is becoming a popular option on the Internet. According to an article by the August issue of Straits Times Asia Insider, many tour operators are developing virtual travel tours, with engaging tour guides bringing visitors on the Internet to explore different places around the world (usually through live streams), and using images and videos to replace the experience of actually being there.

Using digital tools as part of the tourism is not entirely novel. It has been a mainstay in popular tourist attractions in countries such as China to enhance the experience. When I visited Xi'an during an immersion trip a few years ago, I was surprised to see a large number of QR codes prominently displayed at museum exhibits and park signboards. These QR codes offer access to multimedia content, from audio guides and pictures to additional information and insights on the place. By adding a digital element to the traditional tourism experience, travel becomes more enriching. Moreover, the digital functions also made it easier for tourists to share their experiences on social media, potentially attracting their friends to visit the places featured on their social media posts.

QR codes seen in Chinese museum exhibits. Image from Google Images.

However, with physical travel being out of the question, going completely virtual for travelling is now the way to go. I have jumped on the bandwagon too, and used a somewhat less conventional way of travelling - Google Earth. It has a "Voyager" feature that takes you to popular tourist spots worldwide. I picked Tokyo as my destination as I heard much about it from watching anime and I really wanted to know some of the scenic places as well as the history of the places there. I also searched up the featured attractions on YouTube to enhance my travelling experience, so that it feels like there are tourist guides bringing me through the various locations.

Here is what the Voyager function looks like in Google Earth. I chose the 48 Hours in Tokyo tour.

This is what it looks like inside. The unique thing about Voyager is that it offers a 3D map of the place to give you a bird's eye view. Then it has a picture and a succinct description of the place. Most of the things in the map are computer generated imagery, so it does not look like the real thing, but it is close enough to give you a feel of what the place looks like.

For a more immersive experience, I tried out the street views and photo spheres in the map. They are not too bad - you can do some quick cherry blossom viewing even when it is not the right season for it. I only regret that the images are of a low resolution.

It is easy to grow bored of hopping around static images of places, so I had some videos to keep me entertained and educated. One of the videos I watched looked like this:

So, unless you know the good street view spots, it is not easy to feel good from a virtual experience. But at the very least, virtual tours can still be useful if you just want a quick escape from wherever you are right now and gain some satisfaction from feeling smarter after learning more about new places and cultures.

If these sounds like too much work, there are always free, ready-made guided tours online, such as this one which uses Google Street View:

Virtual travel experiences have challenged the way we interact with the world, and encouraged us to reflect upon why we travel. Is it for the novelty? To satisfy one's curiosity about a foreign place and culture? Or to search for one's own answers to the meaning of life and the human experience? Everyone has different reasons to travel, but I am sure what makes travelling so appealing is the innate curiosity humans have to find out more about the unknown, and using all their senses to experience what it is being like in a foreign land to satisfy whatever they are searching for.

There is another form of virtual travel asides from live streams, online researching and street view. Documentaries. I explored the rich culture and history of the Democratic Republic of Congo through a BBC Documentary. It presents a sad story of how the people have suffered under the reign of corrupt, exploitative rulers, whose greed and misgovernance have made the painful history filled with violence, poverty and discrimination repeat itself again and again.

A good watch: some elevator-themed mini-documentary to uplift your spirits!

As a person who is passionate about the subject of Geography, I find that this video provides us a refreshing perspective on how we look at cities and societies in general. Elevators have been and evolved with us for a long time. The current coronavirus crisis has forced us to relook at the way we interact with elevators. I have gained a few insights from this video:

First, smart technologies. I have experienced this first hand while I go to the ministry buildings in Singapore for studies, internships and interviews. You indicate the floor you want to go and go to the corresponding lift that will take you there. From what it looks like, it seemed that there was an algorithm that optimises the load between the elevators and distribute people with different destinations in mind as evenly as possible to reduce waiting time and overcrowded lobbies. This will become more important in the midst of the pandemic, where safe distancing has become necessary.

Second, high-rise cities. Without the invention of elevators, building structures that go beyond six, seven storeys high will become more and more unfeasible, since it would be tiring for most people to scale many flights of stairs just to get to the storey they want. Elevators also made it possible for elderly, people with disabilities, and large groups of people (like families) to be able to access their homes if they reside in high-rise buildings. Elevators literally defined how modern cities look today, by making it possible for architecture to go higher. Not to mention how the high-rise buildings they made possible gave rise to a new kinds of sport - vertical marathons.

Third, vulnerable groups such as the disabled and low-income people. These people are more affected by the coronavirus crisis since they do not have access to functioning, safe elevators. It will be harder for them to maintain safe distancing since the elevators they use are more likely to break down, in addition to sharing poorly ventilated places of residence, yet they are the ones who cannot afford the technology to work at home, and will have to go out at work. As such, it is more difficult for them to contribute in stopping the spread of Covid-19.

The plastic crisis and a sustainable future for our world

The plastic problem is one that exists on many different levels. From its production, to its use and then its disposal by Singaporeans and many others worldwide, people are just becoming too wasteful.

First, let us focus on what we can relate to most - plastic use.

According to a study  led by six alumni students from the National University of Singapore’s Master of Science (Environmental Management) programme in May 2020, Singapore households generated an additional 1334 tonnes of plastic waste during the two-month Circuit Breaker period, where nearly everyone had to stay at home.

This comes with a rise in food takeaways and delivery of goods for online shopping, where plastic packaging is inevitable. The plastic situation had become so out of hand that there are long queues of people outside of plastic distributors, waiting to get their hands on more plastic packaging materials.

Asides from takeaways and groceries, plastics have found themselves in many other applications:

• Shields and barriers in taxis and hawker centres
• Face masks and face shields
• Laboratory equipment
• Storage of medication, medical waste, samples, etc.
• The list goes on...

This plastic frenzy has been exacerbated by unvalidated concerns over health and safety, with food and beverage outlets imposing temporary bans on reusable containers to prevent cross contamination. However, medical experts have since clarified that such concerns are unfounded as well-washed reusables are safe when the coronavirus can be killed with regular dish soap and sanitisation.

On the other hand, concerns on reusable materials are much more serious when it comes to the clinical context. Many medical professionals rely on disposable plastics to maintain a high standard of hygiene and safety when it comes to handling biohazards and medication, since this is a matter of life and death.

The consequences of so much plastic waste is detrimental - our only landfill, Semakau Landfill, gets filled up faster, and we will soon see that our trash has nowhere to go. Even countries like China and Indonesia are refusing to take in waste imports for sorting and recycling.

To sum up what has been said so far, Singaporeans consume a lot, demand a lot of disposables and generate a lot of waste. Retailers have also worsened this problem by unfounded fears.

Now, before anyone reading this starts to crack from the guilt and horror from the shocking statistics, let me step back from consumers for the time being and go on to explain the second part of the problem which we consumers have no control of - oil.

One important fact to bear in mind is that plastic does not only come from crude oil. Plastic is made from natural, organic raw materials such as plants, coal, natural gas and crude oil. However, we see so much of our plastics made from crude oil because it is cheap.

Crude oil has been an extremely lucrative business, so when a deal to cut oil production between the largest oil producers in the world, such as Russia and Saudi Arabia, expired this year, they launched a price war in a bid to gain market share. In other words, these producers want to have a bigger share of the pie, so that their crude oil exports can give them more profits.

As such, oil prices had plunged more than 50% for the past few months, dramatically lowering the cost of producing plastics from crude oil. It is only natural that plastic distributors will want to buy these low-cost plastics, and not the more expensive alternative - recycled plastics. Otherwise, they would not be able to sustain themselves financially during the pandemic.

We cannot help it that so much plastic is produced and we often find ourselves in need of it, but the third and final issue of our plastic problem is something that we definitely can do something about - where our plastic waste goes.

There is much talk about Singapore going zero-waste, but that goal could be unreachable if we do not buck up in our recycling. Plastic recycling is, well, dismal, at about 4% according to the latest statistics.

Why are so much plastics not recycled?

1. Entire batches of them had to be discarded away once they were contaminated by food and liquid waste.
2. Not all plastics can be recycled in Singapore's context. Polyvinyl chlorides (No. 3) and polystyrene (No. 6) cannot be recycled here. Biodegradable bags cannot be recycled too! Although their chemical composition is meant for them to decompose in landfill environments, they go straight to the incinerator in Singapore.
   

   

   Image found from orgayana.com
   

3. Not all types of plastics have the same value. Higher value plastics, which are No. 1 (PET - polyethylene terephthalate), 2 (HDPE - high density polyethylene) and 5 (PP - polypropylene) are more likely to be recycled as they are more profitable. For the low density polyethylene (LDPE - no. 4), they are soft to the touch and are low in value. As such, recycling companies will incur costs if they recycle LDPE.
4. Also, coloured plastics usually have a lower market value as they cannot be dyed flexibly and are not often recycled since they are harder to identify with automatic sorting machines.
5. The most unfortunate fact of all - most plastics can only be recycled once or twice. More than that, they get downcycled and cannot be used again anymore. This is unlike aluminium, which can be recycled indefinitely.

Underlying all these problems are the cost of plastic recycling, technical limitations, widespread ignorance of what are considered recyclables by the local population and severe limitations in where our trash could go, now that countries are refusing to take in our waste.

If the statistics and technicalities are too confusing, here is a video that illustrates how plastics get recycled in Singapore:

What can we do for a better future? Here are some of my ideas:

• Do away with the ignorance!
• Spread awareness of container lending programmes, to maximise the use of reusable containers. Or even better, bring your own reusable container whenever you want to get a takeaway!
• Follow social media accounts and personalities who are very knowledgeable about recycling, and level up your recycling skills on the way! This is important because there are actually a lot of products like snack wrappers and masks that are made from composite materials (plastic combined with a lot of other things like rubber, paper, aluminium, etc), and they cannot be recycled locally as we lack the technology for this.
• Businesses and government policies can consider imposing on a plastic tax to better reflect the environmental costs of plastic use, while giving rebates / reusable containers and bags to lower income groups for them to still be able to get their daily essentials.
• Or, they can invest more in recycling research so that we can overcome all these technical and cost limitations that is stopping us from becoming a zero-waste nation.
• Delivery options can change too. 
• There are already suggestions calling for delivery companies to make no cutlery and no straw as the default option for deliveries. This is important because disposable cutlery like these cannot be recycled.
• Since large group of people like families and companies are ordering so much online, maybe online retailers can allow them to order in bulk and group orders of the same kind into a single packaging. We can save on packaging costs and it is more convenient this way, as long as consumers feedback to them about wanting their deliveries to be done this way.
• Instead of ordering so many deliveries, we can explore other ways of getting food. I think during the pandemic where it is harder for people to go outside of their homes, vending machines can be a safe and convenient way of getting food and drinks.
• A more direct way to reduce the need for plastic is to pick up cooking as a skill and learn to make our own food. It is a rewarding experience, perfect for curing boredom, and is beneficial for our stomachs and the environment!
• Create your very own waste management strategy. Using what you have learnt and research online, see what needs to be reduced, reused and recycled. Make it a habit to find out more about what the things you use are made up of, and plan how to dispose of them accordingly when you are done with it. Personally, I feel that reducing our consumption is the best way to protect our environment, but we also need many more people to start reusing and recycling things in order to reduce the waste we generate and incinerate.

Finally, what I think is the most important in fighting the surge in plastic waste, along with a whole range of environmental problems, is cultivating a respect for our things and the environment in general . This respect can be about valuing our possessions, which go through so many stages of making, processing and transporting to get to our homes, only to serve us. Each possession we have takes a lot of effort, time and ingenuity to be produced. Yet, when we find no use for them, we discard them unthinkingly. And many people (including myself at times) have the cheek to make excuses of ignorance and inconvenience when it comes to sorting waste and recycling them. Ensuring that our waste are treated responsibly instead of letting them endanger natural environments is the least we can do in return for how much our possessions have done to make our lives better before they become waste.

We need to cultivate a culture where we treat our environment and things with more care and respect. There are already legends and folklores that celebrate that and inculcate such values to young children. One example that I know of are a group of monsters called tsukumogami, which came from a belief that gods and spirits reside in everything of this world, including the objects that we use.

[Live] Raison d'être for "The Rumination" series, progress on blog posts

LATEST UPDATES: (1) 12 Feb 2021 - New post under "Dear Diary of Year 2020" published! (2) 7 Mar 2021 - New post under "Life Challenges" published! (3) 20 Mar 2021 - New post under "Story Creation Challenge" published! (4) 12 Apr 2021 - New post under "My Blockheads" published! 

This post is live. It will be updated in accordance to any changes to the content in this blog.

Raison d'être (reason for being)

Ever since the blog post I wrote on 9 May 2020, so many different series have popped up, each representing different ideas, concepts and my thoughts on what is happening around me. The format for this blog is inspired by the columns that magazines and newspapers use to feature content dedicated to certain topics, but I have made it a bit more messier here (so that it is more fun to surf) and grouped the series using labels. Still, it is not easy to tell what to expect for future blog posts, and whether any series will be continued or not. As such, it can be difficult for anyone who visits this site to look forward to the content they may want to see.

It has come to a point that it has been difficult to keep track of whatever is happening on this blog, so I have asked Rumia to bring order to the content that I am writing here. In honour of this, the series to unite the rest of the series will be named "The Rumination". For now, I intend to update this once every few months, so that I have enough time to fulfil whatever I have promised for this instalment of "The Rumination" and set my sights on what is coming up next. 

According to Google, the definition of the word "rumination" I am using is:

rumination

/ruːmɪˈneɪʃ(ə)n/

Learn to pronounce

noun

noun: rumination; plural noun: ruminations

1. 1.

   a deep or considered thought about something.

   "philosophical ruminations about life and humanity"

It fits nicely into my intent for this series, which is to dive in deeply behind the scenes of what kind of blog posts I am crafting. Also, the first few letters of its spelling matches with Rumia's name.

Progress on blog posts

Before I continue, I will like to first give a breakdown of the whole process of writing a blog post.

STEP 0 | Ideation

Even before anything is set in motion, I am already constantly thinking of ideas that will be suitable for me to write on and use as content for my future blog posts.

STEP 1 | In production

This is the very first step, as it involves my decision on whether to write about something. At some point in time, I have come up with different ideas on what to write for this blog, but I will shoot them down if they are not interesting enough. For the series that are already established, it means that a post marked with this is already scheduled to come.

STEP 2 | Planning

This is the most painful stage, as it involves finding out sources that makes whatever I write factual and look at what kind of topics I want to write on.

STEP 3 | Drafting

At this point, I will be putting everything together and writing out the post, adding in multimedia elements on the way.

STEP 4 | Published

Asides from adding labels to the post, this step needs no explanation.

Here is what will be happening for the different series on this blog (as there are many articles that I am writing or intending to write, I apologise in advance if the lack of deadlines frustrates anyone):

• June issue: Published (16 August 2020)
• July issue: Published (will be out earliest in September)
• August issue: In production 
• Final issue about year 2020 to summarise the events of the year

There had been changes to the upcoming posts. Series title also changed to "Dear Diary of Year 2020"

Published #3: Unit Life in the Army during the Coronavirus Pandemic (25 October 2020)
Published #4: National Day Parade 2020
In production #5: Hospitalisation and Heat-related Issues

• #2: Restarting life in another world Published 
• #3: Food production Planning

Published #2: Inspirations and Aspirations (+ announcement of new blog)

Published Habitica Crossover #3 x Life Challenge #4: Gamification Challenge

Published #4: Becoming the backburner

All of the posts are In production :

• Challenge #3 
• Free Frontiers story: "Escape from Ophelia's Dreams" story arc
• Story based on the "AI Dungeon" app
• Stories based on my personal experiences

Published Life Challenge #3: Bookworm Challenge | Part 2: Progress update (19 September 2020)
Published Life Challenge #3: Bookworm Challenge | Part 3: The finale (25 October 2020)
Published Habitica Crossover #3 x Life Challenge #4: Gamification Challenge (completed posts on 7 March 2021)

Published #3: Body posture

Note: this marks the start of theme-based articles for "The Query".

Emotional tracking and management

As I enter adulthood, and step out from protected environments such as schools and army camps, I would be thrown into a society that can be incomprehensible and stressful. In order to survive and thrive in life, which to me involves putting myself in an ever-changing environment, having a high emotional quotient is necessary, since it will allow me to better manage my emotions and make decisions that I will not regret later on.

When I was still in schooling, I had a hard time trying to be resilient in stressful situations because I struggled to deal with the uncomfortable emotions that were building up within me. In order to help myself grow and move on from my troubles, I found Youper, a smartphone application which acts as an emotional health assistant incorporating mindfulness, meditation and cognitive behaviour therapy techniques to help me navigate through my emotions and make myself feel better.

Sadly, I began to experience crashes while using this application in recent years, so I had quit using it and tried to find my own way of managing my own emotions. That was when I remembered reading about Ekman's Atlas of Emotions, which was a map commissioned by the Dalai Lama. It details the different types of emotions and how they are categorised based on scientific research, and presents us the whole process of feeling an emotion, from its trigger, to its symptoms, then to our responses to it. It gave me a methodology to start understanding my emotions better.

I decided to incorporate my experiences with the Youper app and Ekman's Atlas into my very own dashboard for tracking and managing my emotions. It looks like this:

Designing this dashboard (still a work in progress) in a spreadsheet allowed me to have more flexibility in analysing my own emotions. The emojis (which only worked on my smartphone) enabled me to visualise my emotions better so I can put whatever I feel into words faster. Also, the definition of each emotions and the management of different types of emotions were included inside too so that I can gain more insights from analysing my own emotions.

So far, reflecting on my emotions has allowed me to be able to stay rational in a range of situations and prevented me from getting sucked into my emotions. It allowed me to be able to find out what to improve and what to stay away with. However, this dashboard can be quite problematic in these areas:

• It is difficult for me to address my emotions if a few different emotions were experienced at the same time due to the same trigger.
• It can take quite a bit of time to fill out all the fields in this dashboard, discouraging me from updating it consistently.
• It is hard to pinpoint what kind of intensity my emotions are, and boxing emotions into a specific set of rules and countermeasures can remove the many nuances of feeling and responding to emotions.

Still, I will still choose to believe in this dashboard because it will allow me to gain a toolbox for managing a wide range of emotions and detach myself from my emotions more so that I would not run wild from uncomfortable emotions. But trying to update this on a consistent basis can be quite difficult. This is why I needed to find my purpose for doing this. By articulating the reason for tracking and managing my emotions clearly, like what I tried to do in the first paragraph for this post, I hope that I can find the strength to continue analysing my emotions and be in control of myself.

Life Challenges #3: Bookworm Challenge | Part 1: Challenge Rules

Works of the written or spoken word are unidirectional time machines, mind readers and windows to imaginary worlds. There are countless ideas we can gain and apply to our daily lives by interacting with the people of the past through words in various mediums. These mediums can be books, newspapers, journals, magazines, documentaries and many more. Going through any of the words left by people who have walked down the paths of their choice can be immensely meaningful. They allow us to understand how we come to be, and where we will be heading.

It is in such a magical world that the third in my series of Life Challenges will be founded on. This challenge is called the Bookworm Challenge, and this post is about its rules.

1. The challenge is to happen over a duration of 4 weeks, from 1 August 2020 to 30 August 2020. If you are wondering why the math involving the 28 days (4 weeks) does not add up, it is because 2 more days are added at the end (29 and 30 August 2020) as a contingency plan against any incomplete tasks.

2. A daily reading routine lasting 15 minutes will be implemented. What is to be done in this duration is up to me.

3. I am to finish reading a book during the challenge duration. For now, I am planning to read a Chinese book. It is a translated version of the biography of Elon Musk, "Silicon Valley Iron Man".

4. I am also to catch up with the news for at least two days per week. The news is an important source of information on current affairs which will be helpful in drafting future Kaleidoscope posts and help me understand more of what I am reading. I have freedom in choosing what kind of news to read and the method of consumption. It can be videos, online articles or infographics. As long as I learn of something, anything is good.

5. Finally, I will submit at least one reading note every fortnight. Submissions will appear on the Vincent Academy website. This component is expected to be the hardest as it requires the most commitment. However, I believe this can be done with consistent effort in trying to read.

I hope to be able to cultivate the good habit of reading widely through this challenge. This can also help me improve on my vocabulary and knowledge which is necessary for writing better blog posts. In addition, the various writing styles I get exposed to through reading can help me to come up with higher quality work for future Story Creation Challenges!

My Blockheads #1 | New series, new world

Welcome to a new series of blog posts dedicated to gaming! The game that I will write about is the Blockheads, a (mostly) 2-dimensional virtual world that is built by, unsurprisingly, blocks. It has much resemblance to Minecraft, an immersive sandbox game where players can craft their own world in the game's servers. In fact, I started out playing this game around 5 years ago as I wanted to feel how building my own world is like but could not afford to get Minecraft.

But why focus on a game that many consider as dying? Well, my most important reasons for playing this are its accessibility and freedom - it is free for all to play (unless you are into Time Crystals which can help you save time crafting, though I personally think this takes away the fun from the game) and I can do anything I imagine inside, bound only by whatever the game has to offer. In a sense, this game is like a canvas where I could express myself through whatever I do with it.

Here is a quick look at what I have done in the past 5 years:

Most of what I have done is exploration of my world, so there is not a lot of crafting going on. This explains why buildings are so sparse in this world.

Towards the left of the Portal, there is a tower with rooms on top of it shaped like a honeycomb (and called "The Honeycomb"). It was intended as a mixed-use space where my blockheads could live and do crafting in. But without enough materials to start with, it would be hard to do anything inside there, so my blockheads spend most of the time outside.

The caves and sky islands underneath and above the Portal respectively are part of a mega-project that was years in-the-making. It was an exploration project to find shorter pathways to the various places in this world and to discover new materials for use in crafting.

I started with underground exploration first. When I came up with this a few years ago, I named the project "Search for Underground Objects" (SUGO). 

• The first phase was just digging around in a systematic manner, and lighting up underground spaces using stick torchlights. The result was a gigantic grid that showed the composition of the rocks underground - limestones, marbles and stones were the most common ones. It looked cool but it was very time consuming, taking me a year before I decided to move on with something easier.
• The second phase was cave exploration, and some mining of the ores to craft out my first few metal objects, such as bronze pickaxes, tin buckets and iron cages. As the network of explored caves expanded, and as I connected and enlarged some caves by digging around, I began to run into a few problems: 
• How to move my blockheads through these maze of caves efficiently?
• What do I do with the stones I dug up?
• How do I avoid losing my way?
• Thereafter, I embarked on my third phase of SUGO, which was to make underground pathways donkey-accessible. This would address the first question. 
• The most difficult part about this was to domesticate enough donkeys by feeding them carrots to serve as means of transport. 
• And for the rest of this phase, it involves enlarging narrow spaces so that they are at least two blocks tall, enough for a blockhead on a donkey to move through. Also, to prevent donkeys from becoming injured and enabling them to move around, large cave networks are connected via pathways to make transport quicker, and the cave structure is modified so that the donkeys can jump their way through them. 
• As a vertical path through the underground space cannot be accessed by a donkey, I made a stairwell connecting the ground to the magma (the diagonal path slashing through the underground space). I named that stairwell "The Syringe" based on its appearance. For those wondering why its top part was larger, it was a remnant of some horticultural experiment to grow plants underground. The experiment ended up in failure since the trees died off quickly and required a lot of maintenance to produce much food, but the concept of riding donkeys downstairs and collecting fruit from the trees at the same time was attractively convenient.
• And for the fourth and final phase of SUGO, it was to make finding my way around these caves easier. This included making a lot of signs to direct the blockheads on the donkeys, and makeshift maps using stone and sand (the blocks of stone were to mark out other positions while the blocks of sand were to highlight the current position. Naturally, the signs would be placed on these blocks). In addition, riding the caves more frequently should help me familiarise myself with the environment.
• Note: I still have not figured out how to mark out where the ores and trade portal are with something prominent instead of relying on wooden signs which can be hard to read if you are moving around on a donkey.
• As SUGO comes to a close, there were some gaps left to close, that being what I should do with all the extra stone. That is when the second mega-project came in.

Introducing how I found all the sky islands: Sky Island Radar System (SIRS).

The concept of this project was simple, built stone pathways up into the sky and see what I would hit. Initially, I was skeptical that it would find anything, and would only be able to link up mountains at best, but the number of sky islands I found with this was astounding.

To start with, I built a vertical column of stone on top of the Honeycomb, then at intervals of around 30 blocks from each other, I built stone paths sideways. In this manner, I linked up many of the sky islands that could be found on top of the portal (there are more than 30 of them shown in this image alone). And the stone got to be put into good use!

This is my two grandest projects that made my current world look like this today. In future posts, I would zoom in to this world and introduce more of the projects I did in this world, as well as the names of my blockheads, the places and the animals.

Update: looks like this is not possible now, since I have switched phones and the world can no longer be played.

Oh yes, I forgot to mention the name of this world. I named it "Theodocosm", which means "the land willed by the gods". Of course, I am the god of this world. Asides from the blocks in this server, I made the rest. There is not much going on here, since I am a solo player, but whatever this world has in store will definitely be interesting, otherwise I would not have played this game for so long.

Story Creation Challenge Round 2 | Part 2 (End): Completion

This post is going to be a quick one. Basically, I have just concluded Round 2 of the challenge, and I will be sharing the flash fiction I wrote out. The story is based on true events, and is about over one thousand words long.

A Stressful Day at Home

What is home? For many, it is a restful place for people to recharge as they enjoy quality time with their families. But my experience of homecoming on a Thursday was one fraught with worries and frustrations.

After a long day at my army camp, I did some shopping at night to prepare for the next time I return there. Finding out the best deals and products I wanted gave me much satisfaction, but that feeling soon gave way to disappointment when I came home to the news of the Wi-fi being broken. Once I learnt of that, all I could think of was how to get enough data to get by the next day. None of my parents could offer their hotspot since it would be a Thursday and they had to be off at work, so I would be home alone with my sister to rely on mobile data to access the Internet.

Deep down, I felt like a bird who had lost its wings - grounded, helpless and anxious about what would become of itself. I had never realised how important Wi-fi would be until it was no longer there for me anymore. There were times that the connection was slow or disrupted, but that beats having no Wi-fi at all and having to go for the more expensive option of using mobile data. Meanwhile, my parents were relieved that they could count on me to look after the house and help them handle the technician who was scheduled to arrive on Thursday afternoon to exchange the modem. 

“What modem?” I asked. Thereafter, I had to sit through a lesson on some Wi-fi related technicalities by my father. By combining his explanations with some research I did online, I learned that a modem converts electrical signals into digital data which is understandable by a computer, while a router beams that data to a computer connected to the network and together with the modem, makes up what I know as the Wi-fi. 

I was also filled in the details of what went wrong with the Wi-fi. My father first suspected the software to be the root cause of the issue, and tried resetting the modem to no avail, so he wanted to try out replacing the modem first - that would be where the technician and I came in.

However, when the technician came in the afternoon and tried setting up the modem, the Wi-fi still did not work, leading him to conclude, “Your router is old, you should change it.” I was confused at first because the technician mentioned something about ten years old while the router was bought a few years ago. But, everything made sense when I interpreted his recommendations as my router system becoming out of date.

In spite of all my efforts in helping to fix the problem, I was disappointed to find out that there was no happy outcome and I could only wait for my father to replace the router. Still, the fixing of the Wi-fi was only one out of the many difficulties I had to deal with. More was to come, such as getting the mobile data to work and balancing between running errands for my parents and estate maintenance.

As the morning sunlight streamed into my bedroom, my sister was getting ready to report to her virtual classroom, since it would not be possible to hold classes physically amidst the Covid-19 pandemic. Concurrently, I was watching whether the sunlight would stay for the rest of the morning so that I could dry my clothes out in the sun. Various problems began to arise.

My sister complained that she could not get the mobile data to work on her laptop. After I tried fumbling with the settings for her smartphone and laptop (which uses Windows 10, an operating system I am unfamiliar with since mine runs on Windows 8). I threw my hands up shortly after that and went to try on my own phone and laptop. The tethering method, which I found after some searching on Google, worked for me. Tethering is basically connecting my phone to my laptop using a cable and turning on the hotspot. My sister’s one got to work too after a few tries, albeit not being able to find out the cause of the issue. Initially, I planned to use the data to do some research and watch anime on my laptop, but with it guzzling up data so quickly, I had to ditch that plan and use my smartphone more instead.

Just as the data was working and I thought I could finally focus on writing awesome blog posts, a lady from the National Environmental Agency knocked to notify me of a fogging that will take place at 9 o’clock in the morning. Not only would the fogging take place along my block’s corridors, it would also happen downstairs. Given the rise of dengue cases, this could not be helped, but the fogging happened later than announced. By the time all the fogging stopped, it was nearly 11 o’clock, leaving me with little time to sun the laundry.

I would have liked to leave the laundry be until late in the afternoon, but the sky became overcast and threatened to rain cats and dogs, so I hurriedly kept the laundry a few hours after bringing them out. By then, I would have to get ready to open the door for the technician who would replace the modem to come in. Could my afternoon get any busier?

Yes! In the late afternoon, block washing happened and I had to rush to close the doors and windows before the water would spray everywhere. I was surprised because nobody told me that this was going to happen, unlike the fogging in the morning when I had time to prepare.

As the day drew to a close, I was tired from attending to so many things, including the chores that I would have to do in the evening. But in hindsight, there was something positive in all this trouble, as I learnt how much it took just to maintain our living quarters, from my parents who did the chores and ensured that the electrical appliances were working fine, to the essential workers who did estate maintenance like clockwork. It seems that I have to be grateful to these hardworking people for the comfort and rest I get at home.

Story Creation Challenge Round 2 | Part 1: Rules of the game

Round 1 took way too long, so I have decided to give myself less work for the second round. This time, instead of focusing on quantity, I would like to work on the quality of my stories instead - it can be having a better character and plot development, or write with more elegant expressions that will elevate the whole reading experience.

As such, I have settled upon flash fiction as the topic for Round 2.

A flash fiction is basically a story that has 1500 words or less. To learn more about flash fiction, visit this website: https://blog.reedsy.com/what-is-flash-fiction/

For this challenge, I will write a piece of flash fiction. There are no limits on the genre or the writing style. I am free to write whatever I want, but it must feel like a narrative and not some documentary script or news article.

I estimate that it will take me a month or less to complete this challenge. This is especially so since I have longer breaks from my work. I am so excited to take on this challenge and learn new things on the way!

Story Creation Challenge Round 1 | Part 3: Submission of entry

Round 1 | Part 3: Submission of Entry

It had been a long journey, spanning a few months, with this challenge that was going on. I am happy to announce just today, that I have finished completing a story that links 5 randomly generated keywords together: Fossil, Continuation, Performance, Pasture, Pardon

The completed story can be found in this document: https://docs.google.com/document/d/e/2PACX-1vQaqquDFrQzVXvUY0oG8k1_g1HfdKJNd0C1uDzH2CquHSJYbMtL2v3TWdbaGQCdHrFFI_vxSehcmBCU/pub 

The process

There were 3 stages that I devised to complete the challenge. 

The first was some brainstorming that I did by looking up the definitions of the keywords and their related images to find out what kind of ideas I could draw from them. This was shared in my very first story creation challenge post.

The second stage was to come up with a rough draft for whatever story I am planning in mind. It was then that I set the theme for the story to be based on a virtual reality online game in a futuristic, dystopian world. You can see the results of the draft of my first chapter here.

The third stage was to firm up the story as I create more chapters and narratives and connect the dots outlined in my story. For the later few chapters, I drew up an outline of how the stories would progress before starting on crafting the paragraphs for each chapter.

The difficulties

Most of the time, the actual story I am writing would turn out to be very different from my drafts. I found out that the more time I spend thinking about the story, the more new ideas I would churn out. These would add additional plot twists into my story, making it much longer than I had expected.

I realised I started with a cliffhanger, and ended this round of the challenge with a cliffhanger. I am not sure whether this would annoy the readers too much, but I just wanted to use this chance to try out new things.

The story might not be exactly coherent, grammatically sound or as excellent as writers who have more experience or are more professional than me. I tried to use a more personal writing style in order to make the story feel less dull and more relatable, but it could have been more consistent.

The decisions

As the story is taking longer than I had expected, I have decided to serialise the story that I am writing on. The series will be called "Free Frontiers", named after the game that was the focus of this story. Any updates, reflections, spin-offs and progress would still be notified to all interested readers via this blog, but the main story, together with future versions and chapters, will be found in the same document as the above link.

This also means that the nature of future story creation challenges will change. Instead of just coming out a story from a collection of keywords, I am thinking of venturing into different genres, or create something based on actual events!

Look forward to Round 2, which will stretch my creativity and writing skills even further!

Meanwhile, the Free Frontiers series will continue, but it may not necessarily be included in future story creation challenges, so I can spend more time thinking about how I want to develop this series.

Habitica Crossover #1: Introducing how I manage my life using it

(Note: the image above is a combination of screenshots from the original Habitica desktop website. This is not an official promotion for the game, as it is simply an original blog post written by a Habitica user to share how he plays and enjoys the game.) 

What is Habitica?

Habitica is a productivity role-playing game that allows users to create to-dos, dailies and habits to help them get things done and improve their lives. 

There are features such as quests, rewards, equipment, pets and potions in order to provide extrinsic rewards. According to its website, these provide instant gratification that helps users to feel good about getting things done and have more motivation to work. 

There are also features designed with accountability in mind, so that players can stay on track in fulfilling their goals. Players can team up in parties, or join dedicated communities about particular topics, life goals or hobbies that are called guilds. This makes it feel more like a role-playing video game.

My way of playing Habitica

Like most players, I create those normal tasks and habits using Habitica and categorise the important ones using labels. However, I have some ways of using Habitica that are different from many players. 

Habits - they can become part of your motivation system instead of using it for specific tasks

To reward myself for doing well, I can set specific rewards like bonus experience points using positive habits. Likewise, I can penalise myself for undesirable behaviour by setting it as a negative habit. This is because I find myself to be more driven by actual consequences rather than the things I can buy with the gold in the game. In this case, what I use to motivate myself is the actual progress I get in the game - basically the level, health, experience and gold my avatar has - because they represent the amount of time I spent being committed to whatever I want to do in my life. 

Examples of how habits can serve as rewards and punishments 

I have reused this approach in the form of rewards. Asides from using gold to get real-life rewards, I can also use the rewards section to design fines to penalise myself financially for bad behaviour. In this way, there will be a stronger deterrent against skipping my dailies, habits and to-dos. 

Rewards - they should be reserved for something special and not be confused with breaks

This is the most difficult section of Habitica to use well for me, since the only thing it does is to make me poorer in terms of gold. Is it not strange that you still have to purchase rewards with gold which you painstakingly accumulate by checking off your tasks and habits? I mean, I don't see very much of this in real life.

Thankfully, Habitica allows me to set free rewards. Using this, your very productivity can be turned into vouchers that you can redeem for something rewarding!

Also, I have used the rewards section to add additional rules for in-game rewards. For instance, I have set the amount of gold to pay for the taxes and fees before I get equipment or use the drops, which includes pet feed and hatching potions. These will deter me from using in-game rewards so readily since there is a chance that I will be so immersed in it that I will lose my productivity. 

Free rewards and in-game rewards to make the game feel more realistic

Do-it-yourself - achievements and challenges

Since Habitica needs money to run itself, a lot of the good stuff can be pricey. Some even requires gems, which are to be purchased (unless someone else gives you gems) or a subscription.

I was depressed about how basic-looking the things without needing much gold or money are, so I decided to make my own achievements and challenges.

For the challenges, after designing them, I have used Habitica to keep track of what I need to do and give me rewards. Once I am ready to share about my challenge, I will post it under the "Life Challenges" series of this blog. This blog can be an effective medium for me to record my usage of Habitica and what I can do to make it more fun for myself. 

To keep myself more motivated, I tried designing achievement titles and badges for myself. It does help me to stay in the game longer and have the world being mesmerised by the things I came up with myself. However, for now, the badges don't look very nice, so I am considering learning pixel art to make the style of the badges more consistent and to increase the visual appeal of the badges. 

Self-made achievements

Interaction with other players

The most fun thing about Habitica is that you can find communities you like and grow together with other players! 

There was this 'Inspiration Station' guild that I joined because I liked the idea of sharing inspiration for others to feel better about themselves and working hard. But the primary reason why I joined was because of the challenge rewards - I can finally unlock those parts of the games that require gems and make my avatar look better. Until then, I will be working really hard to get the guild leader's attention.

For some of the guilds I joined, such as the 'Life Hackers' guild, it was to get some inspiration on how to be more productive and how to make Habitica more fun. At times, I check out the wikis other than the guilds for inspiration too!

I have also sought help and contributed feedback in guilds and the tavern. I was bursting with pride and joy when I saw my tip on the 'Use Case Spotlights' guild getting featured on the Habitica blog! 

My tip getting featured. And yes, "synitheia" is my username. It is Greek for "habit". Why Greek? Because it sounds deep and it also sounds like a legitimate name.
Link to the post: https://habitica.wordpress.com/2020/06/25/use-case-spotlight-adapting-to-life-changes/

My progress

For now, thanks to the tasks and challenges I am coming up with, as well as the blog I am writing, I can churn out enough work to ensure that I level up every week. I am also having fun trying out as many features of Habitica as possible and be creative in playing the game.

For my future plans, I intend to make this feel more like a role-playing game by creating a world made of pixel-art and have nice storylines to keep me engaged in the game. This was partly why I dabbled in world creation using the Free Frontiers story series in the Story Creation Challenge I set up for myself.

Do keep looking out for the "Habitica" label, and stay tuned for more posts detailing my exciting journeys in Habitica!

The Query #2

The Query

Issue 2 (June 2020)

Here is a round-up of my searches for the past month:

What should I do if my girlfriend disagrees with me? 🔍

Background: There was this small fight between a guy and his female friend about which direction a place is at. Looking at this, I wondered, if a girl asked multiple choice questions and disagreed with my choice, what should I do to avoid falling out with her, yet settle on an outcome that is acceptable by the both of us?

>>> RESULTS >>>

Medium: 5 Things to Do When You and Your Partner Just Can’t Agree 

This article is written from a female's point of view.

1. Express gratitude.
   Why? Remind him that we have agreed on things before and are on the same team. This allows you to approach your new difference in opinion from a place of unity.
   
   
2. Give him space.
   Why? For some, it’s tough to embrace a “team-player” mentality following a disagreement. The disagreement, after all, resulted from the fact that you are unique individuals. Realize the space you’re giving him is space you’re giving yourself. Use it to think about what you’ll do if his initial position doesn’t change.
   
   
3. Re-evaluate the strength of your preference.
   Why? If each other's preferences were so strong that no compromises could be made, it may be time to part ways. It does not make sense for the couple to be together anymore.
   
   
4. Stick to your guns.
   Why? Everyone's identity is based on their own core values. Resentment would only follow if one were to give up their core value in favour for another's.
   
   
5. Act with grace.
   Why? Your partner's position is important to himself too, and should not be undermined. Don’t let your emotions get the best of you. Don’t lash out. Don’t say things that will undermine the relationship you shared up until this point.

I have problems finding an answer that is written by a male, but I have fortunately come across something that is more neutral, and elucidates the problem of what kind of things couples would find difficulties agreeing on.

Becoming Minimalist: How to Communicate With Your Partner When You Disagree

Do note that this post I am sharing is for married couples who are with each other for a long period of time, but we can learn a thing or two about how to defuse relationship conflicts from this article.

On marital conflicts

John Gottman, one of the leaders in the field of marriage research, has discovered that the majority of marital conflicts are perpetual. They’re continual and repeated. In fact, 69% of all marital problems fall into this category.

There are many areas in a marriage where you’re simply not going to agree. Here are a few:

• One of you wants to have children (or X number of kids), while the other says they’re not ready, or are happy with the current number of kids.
• One of you wants sex far more frequently than the other.
• You want to raise your children Baptist, while your spouse wants them to be raised Catholic.
• Your spouse is lax about housework and rarely does his or her share until you nag, igniting anger.
• One of you is a saver with money and the other is a spender.
• Or one of you wants to work towards a more simple and minimalist type of life and the other doesn’t.

How to communicate with your partner if both of you do not see eye to eye?

1. Respect - this is the important thing that allows you to like each other
   Useful note: “Respect is defined as not trying directly or indirectly to change anyone.” -Thomas Fogarty
   
   
2. Clearly define yourself - doing so means you have a deeper awareness and understanding of your beliefs, wants, needs and desires
   My opinion: the website does not give a clear reason for this, but I think that in a marriage, taking care of your own needs is as important as taking care of your partner. Marriage and love is a two-way thing, and for couples to grow with each other, one needs to have a good understanding of oneself.
   
   
3. Understand the idea of over-functioning and under-functioning - these are positions that we occupy in response to how we do life. None of us is all one way all the time. We over-function in some areas of life and under-function in others. This is determined by what’s important to you and what you value.
   Useful note: by understanding this, you will have more constructive discussions with your partner.
   
   
4. Live by what you hold dear - it means that you can live according to your own integrity and values.
   Useful note: getting into a relationship does not mean you have to lose your own individuality. Couples do not need to be in sync with each other all the time, I think that is more like a scripted act instead of a real relationship.

>>> MY TAKE >>>

Basically, what I will do is to ensure the respect is there and allow my partner to have space to share her thoughts on the subject of disagreement. I will seek with her to find out the solution that best fulfills our needs (with some compromises here and there). However, if the argument is on something trivial like our preferences, I will try my best to understand her position but I will not feel obliged to change my mind.

The interesting thing about this topic is that it is more common than we think, and is not just about marital conflicts, these tips apply for all relationships we have. I will recommend Episodes 10-12 of Sakurasou no Pet Kanojo for some inspiration on how to resolve these relationship conflicts (many of these are caused by misunderstandings).

What are the effects/symptoms of sleep deprivation? 🔍

Background: I tried to have no sleep at all for more than 24 hours on the job. I found out that I had develop sore throat and reddened eyes so I was concerned whether these were caused by the lack of sleep. Understanding the symptoms, together with the short-term and long-term effects of sleep deprivation is important because we will know when we need more time to sleep.

>>> RESULTS >>>

NHS: What happens if I don't sleep?

An occasional night without sleep makes you feel tired and irritable the next day, but it won't harm your health.

After several sleepless nights, the mental effects become more serious. Your brain will fog, making it difficult to concentrate and make decisions. You'll start to feel down, and may fall asleep during the day. Your risk of injury and accidents at home, work and on the road also increases.

 Johns Hopkins Medicine: The effects of sleep deprivation

Check out their infographic (the effect highlighted is obesity): https://www.hopkinsmedicine.org/-/media/files/health/infographic_sleepdeprivation.ashx?la=en&hash=BFEC7405D1A13CA192186C797152F475D917A116 

>>> FOR ME? >>>

So, how about my sore throat and reddened tongue?

For the sore throat, it could be due to a small cold I get from having a lowered immunity when I sleep (inferred from the various effects I have searched up. It is a reasonable explanation - though I do not know for sure - since there are many types of colds and many have mild symptoms such as blocked nose. Not having fever does not necessarily mean your body is well)

As for the reddened tongue, it could be due to a lack of saliva contributing to dry mouth, since it could not be caused by any disease for there was not any red lights in my last medical checkup. More information here: https://www.colgate.com/en-us/oral-health/conditions/dry-mouth/dry-mouth-at-night-how-to-relieve-dry-mouth-discomfort-0913 There is no link between dry mouth and sleep deprivation found, so I should not be too worried about that.

But the moral of the story is clear - from ageing brains to ageing skins, a lack of sleep is detrimental to our health. As such, I must get more sleep, and aim to sleep for at least 7 hours every night.