Half a year has gone by in 2021. I looked back at how I spent my time, and I did not like what I found. I caught myself engaging in many unhealthy habits. I cut down on my sleep in order to continue any unfinished task I had on my hands. I was stuck in the pleasure trap for a long time, where I could not free myself out of the cycle of getting pleasure from doing something, craving for more of that pleasure, and continuing whatever I did to satisfy my cravings.
I was sure that these actions were undesirable for my health. I felt that I squandered much of the precious time I have to prepare for higher education, careers and all the things adults do, spending the time instead on fruitless endeavours that only made me feel good for a moment. To get out of this predicament, I needed some form of push to get myself on what I believed to be the right track. As for what the right track means, I define it as a state of life where there is moderation, balance and happiness in everything that I do. And that push is a Life Challenge.
Here I am, declaring the steps that I will take to remedy the ills I had been doing to myself. I hope that anyone who is reading this will be able to support the change I am trying to make, and not denounce my efforts too early on because of the widely held belief that changing one’s behaviour is hard. Changing a person’s behaviour is not entirely impossible. Our brains have a certain level of plasticity which enables it to have the potential to change itself.
I intend to maximise the chances of succeeding in this challenge by gamifying the tasks involved in this challenge. This will entail the setting of clear goals, the tracking of progress, and providing myself with rewards and penalties to help me stay committed to the challenge. I look forward to inspiring people who intend to change their life by sharing my gamification approach and the systems I used to help me with forming new habits and changing old behaviours.
If you are still doubtful, continue to watch this space for the subsequent posts documenting my progress I make with this challenge. Some goals may even overlap with what you are trying to work on, making the systems and games I make adaptable for your personal use.
The game is on. Challengers, ready your move!
Here comes the all-important rulebook, which also contains links to the supporting documents:
My Blockheads #2 | Restarting life in another world
New phone, new Blockheads
As I have recently switched phones ( iPhone 6 ➔ iPhone X ), the data saved in the Blockheads app of the old iPhone 6 could no longer be retrieved. This put a halt to my plans of basing the current series of posts on that device's app, where I have played for years.
Alas, without being able to share the rest of my previous world, Theodocosm, I will now bring whatever lessons I have learnt there over to the brand new world that I will be playing at!
This must be why The Blockheads did not grow to be a popular game. Despite its functionality and the variety of environments it offers in its worlds, progress could not be saved across devices, unless you have enough Time Crystals to make the world a multiplayer one, which either requires you to watch many hours of advertisements, or to cash in on them using real currency. Deleting a world is no joking matter, especially if you have poured in countless time and effort into building it up...
Actually, while I am at it, I might as well try the multiplayer option to see whether my world can be salvaged.
No! There is no getting it back and I cannot go on multiplayer unless I choose the local network which is only a temporary measure. I can only delete the old world...
Getting started on Blockheads
Tip: click on the picture to enlarge it.
Step 1: World Creation
Figure 1
An offline, virtual and free world greets the player when the game opens. I decided to name the world "Edensia" (Figure 1) to pay tribute to my ideals for this world, which is to become a paradise where my Blockheads (the blocky humanoid character that a player controls in this game) would not have to worry about survival and be able to free to do as they wish, just like the Biblical Garden of Eden.
I understand that this name might sound a little cliche, so I might rename it as I go about playing the game.
Step 2: Character Creation
Figure 2
Figure 3
One of the most peculiar functions of this game is how a player's characters are born. Every Blockhead must be warped in via the portal for the game to start (Figure 2).
Before warping in the Blockhead, I got to customise the Blockhead's name, appearance and clothing (Figure 3). These are purely for the visual appeal, and have no bearing on anything in this game on single player mode, as far as I am concerned.
I decided to warp in a man and name him "Alephus" (Figure 2). The inspiration for this name was out of a desire to name my Blockheads in a sequential pattern that would save a lot of my time and my energy in trying to find a unique name. The name is taken from the first letter of the Hebrew alphabet, Aleph. I like how you can add suffixes to common words to create a new combination of letters that sound like names and to add a deeper meaning to the name
Step 3: Expand your horizons (literally)
Figure 4
Figure 5
The game's tutorial will start once the character has been warped in through the Portal (Figure 4, see Figure 3 for what the Portal looks like).
Instead of being only able to see the Portal, the view has now expanded to part of the surrounding landscape. I am now able to see the sky, the dirt, the trees and my Blockhead. As I tap on any icon, the corresponding description shows itself.
However, not to worry! The game tutorial launches automatically and I was soon having a "Survival 101"-themed crash course on how to survive on this blocky world. I will first have to walk around to see what materials I can work with (Figure 5).
Step 4: Dig (or pick something). Craft. Repeat.
Figure 6
Figure 7
In the tutorial, not only will anyone be able to explore a bit more of how the game works, specific instructions will be pumped down to help them learn about the most basic functions of the game.
For example, the first thing that the tutorial will ask you to craft would be the Workbench. A Workbench is a tool that is essential to crafting, as it converts materials to other useful tools and items. The tutorial also tells you what materials are needed, what tools you have in your inventory (the square spaces that can be filled with items at the bottom of the screen) and how to use the tools to get the materials (Figure 6, 7).
Through the tutorial, a player will learn: 1. How to warp in a Workbench at the Portal using dirt. 2. How to dig to gather dirt or to make a cave. 3. How to dig for flint and what flint looks like. 4. How to use the flint to make tools. 5. Where to find sticks and ways to gather them. 6. Using the sticks to craft a campfire. 7. Using sticks to craft out a Craft Bench. 8. Using the Craft Bench to create baskets.
Now that I have learnt the basics of this game, what should I do?
Anything! This is a world where you can explore at your own pace by controlling your Blockhead. It is important to ensure that the needs of each Blockhead is taken care of so he/she survives and you are able to control him/her to play this game. The tutorial also helpfully suggests that you can refer to the Achievements (located at the pause button) to look for things you can do if you ever run out of ideas for what to do in this game!
Look out for more posts under this series to see what I am doing with this sandbox game! For the terms that are unique to this game, I will try to explain them and include more pictures of them so that everyone will be able to understand how I can have so much fun in this game.
After half a year of break, the Story Creation Challenge is back with Round 3! Months of conceptualisation went into this, and I am excited to reveal the events that are going to happen under this challenge.
Initially, I wanted to give myself three weeks for a round of challenge. However, I may be too pressed for time to be able to deliver quality content, so why not let this challenge be three months long instead? Within these three months, I am going to bring in lots of fun ideas to try out and to sharpen my creative writing skills.
There will be one event per month, so there will be plenty of writing to do!
March 2021: Spring Equinox celebration - The WrAIter’s Challenge
With the season that brings us life comes forth new ideas to enliven all sorts of stories. This challenge is for the one who is troubled by writer’s block and desires for a constant flow of inspiration in one’s stories.
How does it work? Simply write out a coherent story using a cheat, that is any artificially intelligent (AI) programme that responds to whatever you write. Such programmes are indispensable in creating your own text-based role-playing games.
For me, I will be trying out world-building and exploring a genre that I am mostly unfamiliar with to challenge my creativity to the greatest extent possible. The “AI Dungeon” app allows me to do this. I cannot wait how it’s AI programme will surprise me!
April 2021: Sequel Writing Event - Arc 2 of the Free Frontiers world
I must confess that it was presumptuous of me to call a mere five chapters a “book”, and I think it will be more appropriate to call it an “arc”, as with how it works in popular culture.
The theme for the second arc is the resolving of a crisis. After being trapped in an enigmatic parallel world within a game that smells of danger, Garner will attempt to clear the quest in that world and unearth some of the troublesome truths that underlie virtual reality.
I shall name the second arc as “Escape from Ophelia’s Dreams”.
Some of my plans for this arc are inspired by the “Chaos;Child” anime. The philosophies and views expressed in this anime can give me some sort of direction for the story of this arc.
May / June 2021: Birthday Special - new blog post series on local tourism
Recently, I have spent much time exploring the various attractions around my country of Singapore, where I have had various experiences and takeaways. Under this series, I will share my exploits and my thoughts on them.
This series is also significant to me because it is also a way for me to test out new ways of how I use the blog. With this series as a launchpad, I hope to explore the possibility of using the blog more as my personal diary than its being a scrapbook of whatever interesting things I find on the Internet. I also intend for the blog content to be more bite-sized and fragmented, much unlike its wordy predecessor.
It also ties in with my birthday, which marks the anniversary of my revitalisation of the blog. That one-year mark is a good opportunity for me to look back at what I have done, and how I could further improve on what I do for the blog.
Time really flies! It has been more than three months since the official release of this challenge. At the time of the release, I have already had a Google Sheets prototype of a game to help myself figure out what gamification should be like. That prototype was called “Gamechanger”..
“Gamechanger”: a bar set too high
“Gamechanger” was a game where you play the role of a character and go through different stories, gaining useful items, social connections and skills on the way. The aim is to make the character a successful person, measured by the “Satisfaction” metric, which is influenced by various factors such as wealth, health and quality of relationships. However, all these had a catch: a player needed to complete tasks in real life, track the time spent on doing them, and use formulas to calculate into “Offering Points” which can be offered to Gamechanger in order to exchange for a certain amount of time that can be spent playing it.
The creation of this game was a fulfilling process. Gamechanger was my attempt at imitating how a role playing game would be like without actual graphics and game engines and very complicated code. It was pretty hard to create something fun without the proper software: I had to think hard about how to create timers, how the scores should be updated, and what kind of design I would need to make the game interface as clean and functional as possible.
However, the method of progression in this game, updating of the stories and transferring of the content from one spreadsheet to another was too much of a hassle, so I discontinued work on this prototype. Although it left me wondering whether I could have started on something simpler, I managed to learn how to create cool things such as countdown timers and stopwatch going by the minute, progress bars and graphs with a tracker point that can display your progress at any point of time.
“Commitment Tracker”: the master planner and schedule
The Commitment Tracker appeared in the later stages of my work on Gamechanger. It gave legitimacy to the concept of Gamechanger as a game to incentivise productive work.
I started creating the commitment tracker while I was hospitalised for severe heat exhaustion. The original idea was to organise everything that I was doing into specific commitments, then try to fit all of them on schedules that repeat themselves after a certain frequency of time (which I call “cycles”). This would help me to balance how I spend time on all of them, as well as to better track the amount of time I spend on each of them.
I first input the commitments within a column and the dates go on a single row. Within the space governed by both axes, I shaded each box corresponding to the date and a certain commitment according to its completion status. The shaded boxes would act like plots on a graph, charting out what I have been up to during a certain period of time. This design was inspired by the idea of the duty rosters for cleaners we see displayed in some public toilets, where there is a rotation between different cleaners for cleaning a toilet. When cleaned, the duty cleaner would sign on the roster, and it can be audited by someone else to certify that the cleanliness of the toilet had been checked.
To help me manage the commitments better, I categorised the commitments and added a filter to find the commitment that is to be updated more quickly.
In order to help me better prioritise my tasks and feel better about my progress, I started assigning multipliers to commitments to define the value of doing them. The multipliers would multiply the duration of time I spent on different commitments to derive a score, which I named Offering Points (OP). Why name it as such? It was to reinforce my purpose of doing all the tracking, which was to keep a tab on any kind of contribution I made to improving and preparing myself for future challenges. The multipliers, in addition to the cycles gave structure to how I should sequence my commitments when I schedule them on my calendar.
After spending some time using the first design of the tracker, it became harder to locate and make modifications to individual squares on the graph. Also, I wanted to be able to include more information about a commitment to provide more content for feedback on how to improve upon how much I gain from each commitment. Instead of a graphical representation, I put all the information into a list view resembling a computer database.
By the way, MOAT stands for "Mother of all tasks", which originally took the form of a large, messy checklist that contained all of my to-dos on Google Keep.
“Motivation System”: the place for my breaks and rewards
Then finally, the motivation system. The reason for my creating of this system was in response to the question of what to do with the OPs when the chances of Gamechanger being operational became more and more unlikely. The Motivation System was a place for me to track the OPs I have earned and spent, which was mostly to exchange them for rewards I developed for myself. They can be things I already enjoy consuming such as anime shows, or games that I create.
This system once had a space for tracking the number of points earned on a daily basis, a place for exchanging points for rewards, and some room for the administration of penalties. Now it has become a pretty messy place, and I am trying my best to find out how to simplify its functions.
Soon, I added more features that I felt would keep me motivated in my doing of my commitments. I had analytics tracking changes in my OP and how much time I spent on each commitment. I had penalties for procrastinating and missing deadlines, while coming up with remediation plans to tackle these problems. I even had a shop which sells virtual rewards, a game that can potentially replace Gamechanger, and a place for self-help whenever I am feeling low, and it helps support me by reducing stress and helping me see the uplifting, positive sides of life.
Eventually, I dropped some of these features because I found out that they were of little use to me and some even started to overlap with the Commitment Tracker. To remedy this, along with the many other problems I found in the rest of my productivity systems: Calendar, Google Keep, Habitica and Commitment Tracker, I had a really long reviewing of systems which took me the last few weeks of year 2020 and the first two weeks of year 2021 for me to finish.
I did away with the penalties and remediation plans because they made me dwell on my failures and caused an aversion to going back on doing the commitments because I did not want to spend so much time thinking about my failures every time I use these features when I knew that having these problems were inevitable. It would be better if I could just reflect on myself and not penalise myself so much, otherwise I would just get more disheartened and avoid trying again.
All these systems work together to form my personal productivity system
If you think what I had described was too complicated, I have created a presentation to summarise what all these mean to me and my productivity:
What I learnt from trying to master time
One: Starting small brings better outcomes
My plans were initially really ambitious when I started out completing this challenge. I wanted to build a game from stretch using simple code. I aimed for a system that could track anything meaningful I did efficiently. I desired for a mechanism that could help me balance out my commitments, my breaks and my rewards. As such, the duration I spent on this was overstretched, and the process of gamifying what I want to do evolved faster than I could keep track. Large investments of time are often risky. And when faced with much uncertainty about what I should do, it is much better to set manageable targets which would enable me to be adaptable, because if one failed, I could easily work on something else right away.
Two: Coming back to my purpose can expedite my work in this challenge
Creating a game has been more exciting than I had thought, so there were months where I was too carried away with exploring new concepts and building new features that everything became messy. By reminding myself of what the systems I designed were for, and to include more reviews while I tried out and created the systems. It was to this end that I put Gamechanger to a stop and focused more on the tasks tracking and rewards tracking.
Three: Gamifying my tasks provides the good mix of creativity and data that would help me to improve more rapidly
Designing gamified systems gave me the opportunity to think of stories and objectives that give greater meaning to what I am doing. It also allowed me to see how I am spending my time. Just the awareness of where my time went alone had a lot of effect on my deliberately cutting down on anime consumption, as I knew that I needed to clear more tasks before the reward would be able to serve its purpose of feeling good from having accomplished something. I also thought a lot about motivation, and what kept people coming back to games. At the most basic level, people would be motivated to do something that fulfils their needs. For most games, it would be the need to unwind and escape from the stresses of daily lives, and find a channel to express one’s creativity and to socialise with others. This meant that the success of my systems would be defined by the meeting of my needs - having a body of data to help me make better decisions and habits in time management.
For the first time in my life, I am actively involved in Singapore's 55th National Day Parade. This year, with the pandemic raging across the world, the whole spectrum of programmes for the celebration had to be rethought. Instead of gathering Singaporeans in masses to watch a parade plus evening show at Singapore's city centre, it became a daylong birthday bash with activities taking place in both the heartlands and virtual spaces. The graphic below encapsulates the whole gamut of events on 9 August 2020, the day of celebration.
If not for the title and the descriptions, I totally would have thought that this map was depicting what could happen when war befalls Singapore. With all the pyrotechnics and military vehicles, it bore an uncanny resemblance to the maps representing the Battle of Singapore during World War II which I read from the history textbooks. Maybe it was because of all the reminders of the significance of this battle when marching through the same paths taken by the battling soldiers during the course of my National Service that led me to draw comparisons between what I see today and the historical events of the war. Nevertheless, it was obvious how bustling the island nation was on the 9th of August.
Another remarkable thing about this year's NDP would be how the concept of celebrating the anniversary of my nation's independence had evolved from parades involving displays of military might and community spirit, to expanding the concept of a "parade" to include programmes that every Singaporean can enjoy and participate in, so as to make the celebration more personal and organic.
A pack for everyone
Preparations for the big day started only a month or two in advance due to delays caused by the reconceptualising of the National Day Parade. It had be done to ensure that celebrations were carried out in a safe manner to protect the public from possible community transmissions of the coronavirus. However, there were still many things we can do for NDP other than all the parading and performing. I am referring to the SG Together Pack, a rebranded fun pack which was the mainstay of the NDP of previous years and were mostly given to the parade audience.
As I have promised in my July 2020 Kaleidoscope post, I will be sharing my experiences working behind the scenes of the packing of this special pack. Unfortunately, as I take care not to divulge any confidential information that may compromise the nature of the Army's operations, there will be some details that I cannot go into.
The packing of the SG Together pack was a special time for my unit and I. As a soldier that had just enlisted this year and got drafted into the Second Singapore Infantry Regiment, I had the privilege of getting to contribute to the nation with my battalion (along with other units who were working in other camps). This would mark the very first operation undertaken by my battalion, and to do so before we were deemed to be operationally ready was a rare occurrence in the Army.
The packing area was extremely spacious, so as to accommodate the safe distancing measures between the various functional groups (each was the size of a platoon, or about 30 people, just in case you are wondering). Everyone wore masks and gloves to prevent cross contamination of germs. These were testaments to the many safety measures in place.
With these measures being enforced, we got to work in July. Production lines were set up, motivational speeches were given, and music boomed from the speakers throughout each day of packing. My company's role was special as we were not directly involved in the packing of items. Rather, we supported and facilitated the entire packing process through the delivery of raw materials that came from stockpiles, as well as packing the finished packs up and transporting it to their designated pellets before they would be distributed to collection centres around the country. It was a tiring job which involved a lot of walking and lifting, but it was fulfilling because I got to interact with so many new people. Taking on a support role also meant more hours spent on accounting for all the stock involved in the packing, and that was when my mental sums were put into good use.
At the same time, we had other obligations going on too. During the month of packing, there was very little training, but we did some exercises every week to maintain our heat acclimatisation regime. This acclimatisation was done to adjust the body to the heat from the environment and from the body through carrying of heavy loads and wearing of protective suits. There was also guard duty where we needed to patrol around the camp in order to keep it secure from outside threats.
Amidst the sweating and toiling, we had our fair share of fun. There were a wide variety of snacks given to us during tea breaks, including milk tea, ice cream and dim sum. The people leading the Army, our division and brigade also came to cheer us on. They even engaged in friendly competitions with the packers to see who could pack faster. No one had managed to beat the packers, because they were so well-trained and productive at their work that tens of thousands of packs were churned out in one day. Combined, it was as much as the fun packs that were produced for 3 years' worth of NDPs!
This period of time was a particularly memorable time for me as I had taken on an additional role as the safety advocate for my platoon. I took pride in my job, as I created makeshift handwritten infographics educating everyone on how to protect their backs, raised up safety risks to the higher-ups and provided possible solutions to mitigate them. I was overjoyed to learn that my work had earned the praise of my commanders.
Theme song
One of the things to watch out for before National Day is the rolling out of the theme song for the year. Having theme songs to mark the mood for each anniversary of Singapore's independence is a meaningful way for Singaporeans to reconnect with their national identity and rediscover what they are working so hard every day in this country for.
It is also interesting to see the mixed responses by locals to the new theme songs each year, as it can serve as a reflection of local attitudes toward the homegrown music industry. While many previous theme songs have starred renowned artists such as J J Lin and Sun Yanzi, I am heartened that more recent songs have been featuring a greater variety of music makers. I believe that regardless of talent, skill level and the number of achievements, it is crucial for every Singaporean artist to be given a fair chance at showing what they have to offer. For the creative industry to work, it must be based on organic and enthusiastic groups of young artists who have sufficient space to pursue their dreams. The National Day Parade is one such important space for them to showcase their skills and creativity.
Interestingly, the preproduction phase of the year's theme song, "Everything I am", occurred during the onset of the COVID-19 outbreak in Singapore. This meant that masks and safe distancing measures were included in the production process. However, masks had not been a thing then, when the decision by the authorities was to not wear one unless sick, so there are a lot of scenes that still did not felt like the pandemic even existed. The music video was slow-paced and zoomed in on the lives of everyday Singaporeans trying to adapt to the new normal and overcoming adversity. In doing so, it expresses the gratitude of the sacrifices made by many selfless Singaporeans for the betterment of all of us.
The tempo of this song is so hypnotically slow that rather than feeling galvanised by it, I could not wait for the song to end. Some helpful viewers have commented that watching the video at 1.5x speed will make the song sound better, and I wholeheartedly agree with this. I felt that although this theme song was well-intended, what we need is less of tired faces and lyrics that sound weak-minded, and more of positive beats and driven appearances of people prevailing against their adversities during this coronavirus crisis.
Fireworks security
Another highlight of my NDP experience this year was my active involvement in the security operations on the day itself. My role was to collaborate with the Singapore Police Force to facilitate the security of the fireworks installations and work with Safe Distancing Ambassadors and Enforcement Officers to enforce safety measures to minimise the risk of the virus spreading around the audiences.
To put this into context, fireworks were set in different locations around Singapore, which includes the heartlands, this year because of the safe distancing measures and the NDP Organising Committee's wish to bring NDP to everyone's homes. Indeed, in an age where everyone had to be separated, we are fortunate to share the same sky, which sets the stage for these loud and colourful aerial displays.
It was a really eye-opening experience, because I got to learn how to manage different kinds of people and deescalate any kind of situation to prevent conflicts from happening. I was heartened that most of my worries were unjustified as the audience had been very cooperative with the security and safety measures in place. This was a unique opportunity for me to contribute to my nation in a different way from military exercises.
Sadly, I did not get to enjoy much of the fireworks even though I was in front of the Singapore Flyer, where there would be the best view of the fireworks setting over the Singapore River, as the smoke produced by the fireworks obscured much of the night sky in front of me thanks to the wind blowing it towards me. Luckily, I can still see the fireworks online, and not just from the NDP show itself, to make up for my regret:
(Animated gif taken from online)
This experience showed how worthwhile National Service could be. While all Singaporean men (and some women) would be able to look forward to different experiences in their services, I believe that the memories made and the life lessons learnt over the many years of service would be the best reward they could get in return. Thinking to this point, I had gained another reason in support of my faithful defence of my country.
People tell me I am slouching my back, but is poor posture just a matter of appearance, or is there something more to it?
“Stand up straight, dude. You are slouching again.” This is what my friends and family members often say to me.
Bad posture can be a pain in life
I was told ever since I had my growth spurt as a teenager to stand tall and straight, instead of slouching. I did not take heed of this classic posture advice because I never paid heed to my posture and had a relatively uneventful life so far.
However, my slouching was due to no accident. I have been bending my back because of many reasons.
Firstly, being the introvert I am, I tended to look on the ground so as to avoid eye contact with others while walking, this had led me to the habit of bending my head and back while I look down as I walk.
Also, there were a few years when I was at my grandparents’ place for after school care, and the square table at the living room was much shorter than my sitting height. The other rooms were not as appealing for me because they were more stuffy, and the tables would usually be cluttered, so I was left with the sofa and the small square table in the living room. This led me to having to bend my back whenever I did my homework and revision there.
Finally, when I got my first iPhone after graduating primary school, I used it quite frequently for messaging, research and entertainment at school. I usually do not have any place to rest my arms while I hold my phone up, so I had to bend my back while using the phone with my arms supported by my thighs.
(Image from Today Show) Looking down while I walk and poor posture when using a handphone shaped my back to the slouch it has today.
I lacked the concept of maintaining a good posture then, and lacked ergonomic furniture and personality too. As such, the bad posture stuck with me.
My slouching was not a particular problem that stood out, but it had caused my life to be more troublesome. For one, whenever I took photos, I would look awkward because I was slouching and my neck seemed shorter as it was bent forward. Another example could be that I was not able to stand for long periods of time because my lower back will become sore, my hamstrings start complaining, and the soles of my feet get hurt. I might have been able to sustain myself for longer if I had stood up straighter.
DISCLAIMER: Oddly shaped bodies are not always due to poor posture. Please do your research properly!
My younger sister developed scoliosis a few years ago. My parents were convinced that it was due to her lifestyle that led to poor posture habits, giving rise to her body not being well supported and her body weight not putting pressure on the bones that were supposed to support her body. They claimed that she was using her phone and laid on the bed in most of her free time (which is not a healthy lifestyle!), so her back was not well supported and the curvature of the spine grew to be an abnormal “S” shape.
I could not get pictures of her X-ray, but this image might show how this scoliosis of hers could have looked like:
(Image from verywell) Graphic of scoliosis, which is when the spine shows an S-shaped curve.
She had to wear some kind of mold (it is actually called a spinal brace) to support her back, but I could not remember whether she underwent surgery. Wearing the back support was unpleasant because she had difficulties maintaining in the supported position, it felt stuffy and she was unable to scratch any kind of back itch. That was the extent of the seriousness of her poor posture. Eventually, the mold came off when her condition improved.
However, scoliosis is not caused by poor posture. According to authoritative sources, current expertly-reviewed medical literature does not show any conclusive link between poor posture and this condition. Instead, genetics are more likely to play a larger role in such a situation.
There are also other problems stemming from poor posture, asides from looking less smart. Poor posture could lead to “postural kyphosis” or rounded back, which could worsen into back pain if uncorrected. Postural kyphosis can usually be treated with physical therapy to correct one’s body posture and strengthen the back muscles and to improve the condition. However, if left untreated, these conditions may worsen and lead to degenerative conditions of the spine in adulthood and may affect daily activities.
There are many other posture problems too. These include sticking your bottom up in a “Donald duck” posture, poking chin posture and hunched back posture. These guide to poor posture and fixes from the NHS will be worth a read if you can relate to these problems: https://www.nhs.uk/live-well/exercise/common-posture-mistakes-and-fixes/
Sounds like you?
Yes, if you had a similar life story, it goes to show how important maintaining proper posture is. Asides from avoiding the straining of your muscles and not having to go for surgery, there are other sensible reasons to hold up a good posture. Look at this infographic to find out more!
To sum up, not only will good posture make you look and feel better (no more stiff back!). You lessen the strain on your back and help yourself breathe more easily. You will also not get sick as often as you do not put pressure on your organs by allowing your core muscles and backbone to do the job of supporting your body weight.
Maintaining good posture and what to do if you already have bad posture
Mitigation
Learn the signs of good posture and start doing them in your daily life. Get someone to help supervise you so that you can really get it right!
There are two kinds of posture: static and dynamic posture.
Dynamic posture is how you hold yourself when you are moving, like when you are walking, running, or bending over to pick up something.
Static posture is how you hold yourself when you are not moving, like when you are sitting, standing, or sleeping.
The key to good posture is to focus on your spine. Ensure that the spine is straight as much as possible. It gets strained and injured easily when you apply too much pressure on it. So, ensure that when moving things or getting seated, much of the weight is focused on the lower body (from the hips onward) instead of the back.
The interesting thing about posture is that there is no single correct posture. As such, experiment with what is the most comfortable for you to sustain in.
To make things easier, get furniture that is suitable for your own height to avoid having to lean forward or bend down. Do get chairs with backrests and ensure that your joints are well supported. If you want to be really sure, spend some time getting to know about the study of all these things. Known as ergonomics, it is the process of designing or arranging workplaces, products and systems so that they fit the people who use them.
Prevention (for healthy beings and at-risk people)
According to Dr Lau Leok Lim, Consultant in Spine Surgery at the National University Health System (NUHS), “Poor posture is a choice, not a condition.”
Simple lifestyle changes can do the trick. Making a conscious choice not to use phones while walking and monitoring your posture through a mirror or reflective surface can help you become better at maintaining good posture. One of the most essential lifestyle changes is to exercise more.
Exercise is key to maintaining proper posture. It helps to build strong core muscles that ensures that the body is well-balanced and that the body weight is spread out evenly without straining the back too much. This helps the body to support itself without having to strain a specific part of itself.
Though any kind of exercise works, there are a couple of interesting exercises that I will like to share for improving posture. They may not be much proof for their effectiveness, but it does not hurt to try them out, and I have benefitted from them too!
Qi Gong
By aligning the body’s joints and distributing the body’s weight through them equally, it functions as a natural resistance training to strengthen the joints and improve circulation and posture. Poor posture puts pressure on anatomical structures surrounding internal organs, which causes diminished circulation of Qi and blood in channels, therefore leading to imbalances in internal organs.
Not only Qi Gong provides us a metaphor to guide ourselves to having a better posture, it allows us to practise movements that encourage good posture too!
Yoga
Yoga encourages one to be more mindful about its movements. The effects of bad posture are more pronounced while doing yoga poses and stretches. Doing it wrong can lead to pain and injury, so like all exercises, do not push yourself too much and approach with care.
The breathing techniques and huge variety of positions can allow one to find inner peace and be more connected to its body. It also stretches the back to minimise back pain and strengthens the core to improve body posture.
This post also functions as a teaser to the upcoming post detailing the progress of Life Challenge #4: Gamification.
This will be the last post on this series for a long while, and it will decouple itself from the "Life Challenges" series
After a few months of using Habitica, I have found it increasingly difficult to maintain it as my mindset and my tasks have more or less migrated to the two new productivity tools that I have created to organise my life and inject some fun into my clearing of to-dos. These tools are namely, “Commitment Tracker” and “Motivation System”.
I can only share some basic information about these two productivity tools because I will be divulging the details of how they work in the upcoming post about my progress in the Gamification Challenge. To put it simply, the Commitment Tracker is to help me organise my tasks my regular cycles and quantify the value for each task (assigned to a commitment) to me, while the Motivation System takes these numbers and either process them into trends that give me a bigger picture of my productivity over a certain duration, or exchange them for rewards that I can enjoy, so as to give me the last push I need to complete a certain task and to give up a certain distraction or reward.
With these systems, they have effectively rendered Habitica obsolete for me. My usage of Habitica was mostly concentrated on its task management system. In comparison to that, I spend much less time engaging with different people on guilds or on the shop and stable for the virtual rewards. The pixel art loses its charm over some time, because I find that its visual appeal means nothing to me, and I have no actual use for these pixels on the screen.
For instance, these equipment does not make sense to me, because there are no monsters that actively appear at the “Tasks” tab trying to gobble my character up if I am lax in my checking off to-dos and habits. They only serve to enhance my attribute points, for which there is little use other than changing how fast one clears the quests (which is just a progress bar) and the rate at which one's health drops for a missed daily or a negative habit.
Another example of why I do not find the rewards provided by Habitica appealing is the system on its Stable. Although I admit that the pets look cute and value-added to the visual appeal of my character avatar, after a long time trying to get along with them, I cannot quite figure out what the use of them are other than being decorative items that can only eat food and grow (which I pity the pets and mounts for not being able to present themselves as lively creatures that actively bring joy to their masters and assisting their masters with various tasks).
How about supportive communities like guilds which are one of the biggest draws to this gamified task management site? In general, I feel that many Habiticians are either talking to themselves or responding to each other’s questions quickly. Unless one is lucky enough to join into a very supportive and family-like party, it is hard to develop any kind of relationships with other users or engage in deep conversations over productivity with other like-minded people. Maybe nothing will happen if I do not get the ball rolling, but this is not where my life interests lie, and I have other hobbies and commitments to attend to. As such, there is no reason for me to continue contributing to these guilds, unless there were some extremely kind guilds that would give me gems for completing something and I would be able to unlock something cool on the shop for them (still, it will only be for a very short time).
The fear of incurring penalties such as reduced health and mana, as well as getting hit by the monster of the party quest I am on, also contributed to my lack of willingness to check in to Habitica. I know that skipping on dailies and habits will be detrimental to my personal growth in the long run, but there were days where I felt so tired and burnt out that I wanted to escape the reality of holding myself accountable or responsible for all the tasks and habits that I am struggling hard to maintain.
All these negative experiences I had on Habitica had led me to the conclusion that I am able to make something that is better than this site and I will not need to pay a single cent for anything when I am designing the reward systems and progress trackers myself. Perhaps I am asking for too much, but it is worth a try to see what I can make on my own. As such, I have decided to put Habitica on the backburner and use it mainly as a source of inspiration for future ideas about self-improvement.
The general election is a form of a parliamentary election, where all incumbent members of the parliament (MPs) are dissolved and an opportunity arises for all able men and women to become election candidates to compete over their position in parliament. Usually, most of the dominating party (the People’s Action Party) will still remain, so in order to ensure a good level of representativeness of Singaporeans, there are other positions such as non-candidate MPs (NCMPs) and nominated MPs (NMPs) to bring in different people who will introduce fresh perspectives to the conversations surrounding the governance of the country.
First, the results:
Of interest is the process of the election this year, not the results. This year’s general election is a breath of fresh air for a few reasons:
New norms for voting - time bands, self-inking pens and more eco-friendly booths
Since 2019, the Elections Department has pushed for changes to make the voting experience better for everyone. These included polling booths made of recyclable materials like cardboard (though it is still a prototype), self-inking pens (basically a stamp which is more elderly-friendly than normal pens), and more electronic documents such as online forms for nomination of candidates as well as electronic voting slips.
Thanks to the pandemic, more safety measures have to be in place. Recommended time bands are given in the voting slips mailed to those eligible for voting to avoid crowding at polling sites (since most people are still told to stay at home then). However, this could not stop long queues from forming due to safe distancing measures. Many voters complained of how inefficient the whole process was, and some were told to go home and come back later due to the long queues.The voting time was even extended from 8 PM to 10 PM at the last minute, causing a lot of dissatisfaction among voters and the opposition parties.
Campaigning goes digital
Due to the pandemic (again), most of the campaigning have to be brought online. Still, the human factor and the intimacy that can only be realised in face-to-face meetings are still extremely crucial. As a result, we see political candidates engaging with people in the heartlands - doing home visits and making their rounds in hawker centres and wet markets.
The digital space had brought in more engagement and conversations during the campaigning period. There were even memes surrounding candidates who stood out, such as Jamus Lim, who was the sensation online after his performance at the televised debates. Such conversations showed that Singaporeans are actively involved in politics, and are open to discussing their opinions online.
However, digital elections can have a lot of risks too, as evidenced by the 2016 US Presidential Elections, which revealed signs of intervention from other countries through hacking of emails plus the creation of widely-circulated misinformation and fake news online. We cannot even trust videos anymore because of deep fakes, where artificial intelligence can create convincing scenes of any person speaking without it actually happening.
Female representation in the parliament is important. According to an article by Channel NewsAsia:
“There was a conscious choice to include more women candidates in this term of Parliament as women bring important issues to the table and also offer different perspectives,” said Ms Sun Xueling, the Punggol West SMC MP-elect and the Senior Parliamentary Secretary for Home Affairs and National Development.
The same article gives a good example of how female MPs usually bring up issues like caregiving that are unrelated to economic development, and pushes for more urgency in developing policies that seek to address such issues.
“Female politicians are known to be more inclined towards engaging on topics outside the traditional bread-and-butter concerns like the economy, said Ms Nydia Ngiow, a senior director at public policy consultancy BowerGroupAsia.
Citing the example of MacPherson MP-elect Tin Pei Ling, Ms Ngiow said that the parliamentarian has championed issues that were not widely discussed such as mental health and difficulties facing single parents.
Her work appears to have paid off. This election, Ms Tin won 71.7 percent of the votes in her constituency - more than she garnered in 2015, and putting her among the candidates that won with the highest election margins this year. “
Opposition parties now have more influence and powers
Workers’ Party (WP) chief Pritam Singh has been appointed by the Prime Minister as the Leader of the Opposition. This will give him more staff support and resources to carry out his duties. With such a decision, Singapore will be able to move away from a one-party state and see more balance in policy-making, as well as increased competition in the local political scene, which brings out the best in future batches of MPs. Although the concept of opposition leader has been emerging since the last few GEs, with opposition parties trying to band together in their face-off against the PAP, having it as an official position is a first for Singapore.
This is slightly off-topic, but there has been a coalition that opposition parties have been striving for in 2018, which did not go very well. It was inspired by the elections of other countries such as Malaysia and those in the West, which saw opposition parties reign over their countries. Read more here.
His speaking time will be doubled from 20 minutes to 40 minutes, which is on par with office holders.
An office in Parliament, staff support and resources, as well as additional allowance.
He will generally be given the right of first response among MPs to ask the lead question of ministers on policies, Bills and motions in Parliament. This will be at the discretion of the Speaker and subject to existing speaking conventions.
Duties:
Leading and organising the opposition’s parliamentary business.
Possibly: attending official state functions and taking part in visits and meetings with members of the Government and the public service.
Occasionally: receive briefings by the Government on confidential issues, and the matters to be briefed will be determined by the Government
These duties and privileges are based on the conventions and practices of other Westminster-style parliamentary systems, but reflects adaptations to Singapore's political and parliamentary context.
Personally, I find it quite heartening to see the members of the opposition working hand-in-hand with the ruling party to improve how Singapore is governed. I can only hope that as Singapore is able to establish an identity for herself, her political structure will evolve to be more mature and empower talented, caring people to influence decisions that will shape the society of the future. Perhaps, it can even become more robust and innovative, with parts that are uniquely Singaporean, just like our financial system.
National Day SG Together Pack
With the cancellation of plans that involves hosting this year’s celebrations at The Float @ Marina Bay, the original fun pack was repurposed into the SG Together Pack, which would be available for collection by every Singaporean and PR household starting from 20 July 2020, Monday.
I was involved in the packing of this too! More details can be found in upcoming posts of the “My Year 2020” series (will be linked there when the post is out).
The pack has received much attention in its conception stages - but for the wrong reasons.
The opt-out petitioning
The question that everyone wants to know about was, “Do we really need that pack of things as a physical token to commemorate this year’s National Day?”
A lot of Singaporeans believed that the resources poured into the making of these packs could be put into better use, amidst the pandemic crisis. Hence, there was a petition directed at the organising committee to allow Singaporeans to opt-out from this initiative.
Yes, their voices were heard, and as Defence Minister Dr Ng Eng Hen mentioned in his parliamentary address, the production will be scaled down to cover only 80% of households, as compared to around 90% to 95% in previous years. In addition, uncollected funpacks will be donated to homes and institutions who would like to have it.
However, the Minister raised a good point about the need to have these packs. Prudence is necessary, especially when the nation’s finances have been stretched. But it cannot be at the expense of overcoming the mood of despondency that has caused us to be further apart from one another. As with the unwavering, and if I may, defiant spirit that Singaporeans have shown ever since the inaugural National Day Parade in 1966, the unity and collective confidence for the future that it engendered among Singaporeans was priceless.
That brings me to the significance of the SG Together pack this year.
Significance of the pack
As I was involved in the packing of the pack this year, I could tell that it was designed with Singaporeans in mind.
Let us start with the bag. The visual design of the bag was done by students who were mostly at Primary School level. No wonder these innocent-looking designs spark joy in me. What is more impressive is that pupils with disabilities also contributed to the designs. I was told that some of the drawings were done by the visually impaired students. What a powerful message for those feeling depressed under the bleak days of COVID-19! To learn more about the different types of designs, click here: https://www.nylon.com.sg/2020/07/ndp-2020-singapore-together-pack-whats-inside-and-where-to-get-yours/
The bag is environmentally friendly too. The cloth is quite durable and my parents like to reuse it as a recyclable bag when they shop for groceries. The bag itself may look a little flimsy, but it has a velcro at the top to help close the bag, which neatly makes up for the flimsy appearance by ensuring nothing in the bag accidentally spills out.
Moving on to the items in the bag. There were very practical things like a thermometer and quite a number of face masks inside. There were also a lot of Singapore flags and symbols included in the items for us to feel that we are a part of the nation. I bet they look lovely in photos and videos. The snacks were quite healthy (biscuits, chips or energy bars, depending on what you get) and the drinks were replaced with cans of chrysanthemum drink. I loved this change because it would be a great help to those who would want to binge-eat during this stressful period and lacked awareness of healthier alternatives to the usual snacks, plus the aluminium cans for the drinks are one of the most recyclable materials out there, satisfying environmental advocacy groups who wished for a reduction in single-use plastics in the pack.
Although there were not many things in the pack, it was a physical touchpoint from the organising committee to all Singaporeans, and symbolised a whole-of-nation effort to celebrate how far our country has come despite all the challenges that were in the way. In this sense, the pack was an uplifting gift that would hopefully bring smiles for all Singaporeans.
WORLD
NASA Mars Rover Launch
As you and I may get tired from reading through all these lines and lines of text, here is a quick video to bring us up to date on what this Mars Rover is all about:
NASA’s Perseverance rover, the fourth of its kind to be launched to the red planet, has taken off in July 2020. It is expected to land on Mars by February 2021.
What will the rover bring us?
In short, it will bring back soil and rock samples from Mars. What is this for?
According to NASA, a drill on the rover will collect core samples of promising Martian rocks and soil, then will deposit them in a "cache“ (inside very clean tubes to avoid potential contamination from Earth’s microbes) on the planet's surface. A potential future robotic mission could pick them up and ferry them to Earth for analysis in laboratories by equipment too large or bulky to go to Mars. Perseverance will also help us learn more and test technologies that could benefit future human expeditions to Mars. For instance, it brought along Ingenuity, a robotic flying machine, which will be doing test flights on Mars. This will pave the way for similar machines to be used to aid rovers, landers and even humans in future exploration missions.
DISAMBIGUATION: landers vs rovers
Landers are spacecraft that are designed to land on the surfaces of another planet and last long enough to telemeter data back on Earth.
Rovers are vehicles that are activated upon reaching another planet. On their way there, they will be part of the payload in spacecraft.
One special thing about rovers that aim to land on Mars is that they need some way to decelerate when they enter Mars’ atmosphere to avoid itself from being fried alive by the heat generated from the air resistance. Find out more about the excruciating details of landing on Mars here: https://mars.nasa.gov/mer/mission/timeline/edl/
Under NASA's ongoing Mars Exploration Program, previous missions have helped us look for signs of habitable conditions in ancient times. The program's series of missions is helping us answer key questions about the potential for life on Mars. Perseverance will take it one step further by searching for signs of past microbial life itself. This will be done through the search for biosignatures through studying the texture of the rock and soil samples, as well as the composition and distribution of organic molecules. Biosignatures are patterns of texture or substance that require life to form.
We can also look forward to a richer experience of Mars than we have now, as the rover is equipped with microphones that allow us to hear the sounds on Mars, and it will have many high-end tools to research more into the various questions of scientific interest on Mars.
As this is the closest to finding definitive proof of life on Mars, we will finally be able to answer the question of whether we are alone in this universe. There are countless planets out there who have habitable landscapes that are suited for life, but only Earth is currently inhabited by living creatures. If there is life on Mars, everything we know about the origins of life on Earth could change.
Other missions bound for Mars
July has been a pretty busy period for Mars exploration. I did not plan to include the other missions in this post, but since the Seeker videos have touched on them, I will give them a quick look.
Other than NASA, Japan’s very own space agency, JAXA, has sent its spacecraft to land on Phobos, one of the two moons that orbit Mars. This will finally unravel the mystery behind the origins of Mars’ moons.
For the red planet itself, China and the United Arab Emirates have also launched their spacecraft toward there. The main highlight for China’s mission was that it was the first to send off a rover, lander and orbiter to Mars all in one go. While for the UAE, the star is its objective to better understand Mars’ atmosphere and geology by recording them for a few Martian years.
Find out more through these videos:
Japan: Martian Moons eXploration (MMX)
China: Tianwen-1 probe
UAE: Hope Probe
California’s Wildfires
California has been battling wildfires for some time now, and in the months to come, the fires would only get worse. This natural disaster is unprecedented in scale and complexity, so understanding such incidents will help us to be much better prepared for future waves.
Epic and record-breaking
The fire has been raging, burning millions and millions of acres. In October, months after this issue of the Kaleidoscope is supposed to have been published, the fires have now burned more than 4 million acres, a record for the most acres burned in a single year. The figure, which equals an area larger than Connecticut, is more than twice the acreage burned in the state’s previous record-worst fire season, in 2018.
In addition, due in part to human-caused warming and a drying climate, California recorded its first “gigafire” since modern records began in the early 1930s. The August Complex, a group of fires burning in and around the Mendocino National Forest, has torched more than 1 million acres and counting.
Effects of the fires
Loss of land, lives and properties, toxic air, the sky turning red… All these descriptions are measly in compared to the visual impact images from the fires have given us.
Here is a video that gives a comprehensive coverage of the wildfire situation:
Climate change - global warming causes vegetation and basically anything that can serve as fuel to be burnt up to be drier. Drier things catch fire from a spark more easily. That spark could come from lightning or humans setting fire, intentionally or unintentionally.
People - downed power lines, the vehicles’ rim scraping against the road surface and fireworks have all been contributing to the sparks that are needed to set vegetation and other objects ablaze. More people have chosen to live in areas that are near to forests (term for it is “urban-wildlife interface”), increasing the likelihood that some accident might cause the vegetation to blow up in flames.
Fire suppression - in the history of firefighting in the US, much of the vegetation avoided being burnt away, but that led to an accumulation for more vegetation that fed materials to keep the fires going. As such, now controlled fires are taking place to get rid of unneeded material that will contribute to the spread of fires.
Strong winds (Santa Ana winds) - each fall, strong gusts known as the Santa Ana winds bring dry air from the Great Basin area of the West into Southern California. These winds drive the second fire season which is thought to be from October to April. As these winds bring fires to urban, built-up areas, the economic losses in this season tend to be more severe.
