Rules of Coffee

"One kopi o kosong upsize, take away. thx"

PERSONAL RULES OF COFFEE CONSUMPTION
1. Only consume coffee if it preceeds exercise (meaning a RUN or GYM session, not an extended walk)
2. Coffee can only be obtained after a walk exceeding 30 minutes. Wake yourself up.
3. Do not use coffee more than 4 times a week.

So I've been trying out coffee as a stimulant to exercise. Findings so far from taking SAFRA Ya Kun's coffee in the morning, roughly 1 hr after waking (before any meals) are as follows:

-The full effects kick in 15-25 minutes after consumption. FOR ME.
-A second wind occurs at the 1h 45min mark.
-While it does not make my body less tired in the gym after a set, it keeps my willpower strong, which will push me to do more. It's like my mind throwing my body around.
-Excellent for endurance training (distance runs)


That's all so far.


-Zan

Monkey Talk

So I was walking up Mount Faber.

Before entering the canopy-like entrance to the green, upward trek, a new set of signs caught my eye. They provided guidance to dealing with monkeys. One instruction, in particular, was worth significant attention and subsequent over-thinking: "DO NOT CARRY PLASTIC BAGS".

This must have resulted from previous occasions of monkey thievery on the bright, hanging plastic bags of innocent nature-lovers. I wondered what the first time must have been like.
A curious ape must have ventured enough to grab a bag at some point, in lack of visible food items and the presence of a desperately hungry belly. (Or it might have smelt something in the bag, but whatever.)

Grabbing the bag, finding foodstuff, and eating it would encourage this monkey to do the same the next time he/she/it saw a plastic bag. If it were a particularly communal monkey, which is generally the case if you have a family of your species to help feed, it may have communicated to less daring apes that going for the bag is a good idea!

And now I begin over-thinking.

I entertained the thought that the monkeys may have some sort of language between each other, an oo-oo or aa-aa that would make sense only to them. Some kind of verbal structure, within which each unit (like a word or letter) meant something.

But what if that were not the case? what if verbal sounds were just that - meaningless sounds?
How then, would a precise message be conveyed? Telepathy?
Then my imagination kicked in. What if monkeys instead conveyed certain states of emotion to each other that LED to the receiver doing what the communicator wanted the receiver to do? Lets say Thing A wants Thing B to do Action X. Thing A makes a sound that causes Thing B to be in a particular psychological/physical state that leads to the performing of Action X.

In our context of the monkeys and plastic bags, it would be something like..
Monkey George finds out that raiding plastic bags can be awesome source of food. No monkeys in his tribe before him have done so. He wants others to do so. (Because sharing is caring.) George, Monkey Bubbles and Monkey Kong watch from the trees as an innocent auntie dawdles along with two plastic bags. Bubbles and Kong see no visible food, and so do not wish to bother the innocent auntie. George makes some sort of sound conveying the mind state 'suspicion' and 'curiousity'. (maybe it would sound like a questioning "ooo...?" to humans. haha i dunno) Bubbles and Kong may not know it, but hearing this sound makes them wonder what lies within innocent auntie's innocent bags. And they go pester this poor woman.

Come to think of it, even we do such things - implanting certain states of emotion with verbal sounds. The simplest example I can conceive is the war cry. It is, more than anything else, a sound. a sound that ignites excitement and physical tension and vigour in the minds and bodies of others.

I didn't go much further after that, just branched off a little into the implications for sea creatures and things that may be isolated from each other in communication.

My main point is - HOW COOL WOULD THAT BE IF IT WERE INDEED THE CASE? I do think it is totally the case though. But bah what do I know.

ciao



-Zan


 PS: I find that one can say Thought moves like a bolt of lightning. Not in terms of the speed, but moreso of the shape / action. It bolts in one direction (the main thought), briefly stimulating other branches in this process, which bolt (albeit slightly more weakly) in their own directions (secondary / tertiary thoughts).
If the strength of the secondary thoughts was not weakened, and the mind branched infinitely outward into increasingly divergent directions, I would liken this to a fractal-like mind. But I think such a state would be one of insanity / genius, or of a fellow drugged by something that prevented the weakening of secondary synapses from a primary 'bolt' of thought.

Reflections on Thinnest Cookies Ever

Just recording some knowledge for further use.

Made cookies with a new recipe this time, just for experimentation.

The cookies were SUPER flat, SUPER wrinkly, and super chewy.
They turned out like little puddles, much like so.

OVEN OCCURRENCES:
This time, without the chilling, the batter balls melted way faster.

Stage one: Ballz
Stage two: Ice cream tops
Stage three: Cookie-like structures


At this point, little mini bubbles appeared on the cookie surfaces.
One by one, wrinkles started to deflate into the cookie, from the outer rim to the centre. This brings us to

Stage four: Cookie Puddles

Soon after, (9-10 minutes at this point) I removed them and left them to cool for ~ 2 minutes.
Then cool on the racks for ? minutes (dependent on my patience).

And NOM.

Again - SUPER CHEWY, SUPER THIN (and super oily, actually).

I can't wait to see how they turn out after an overnight rest.
Note: This is not a recipe, this is simply a record for my information and future baking expeditions.
ciao


-Zan

Week 1 Review

Yo wsap

-Paleo: Going well so far, only broken today, when I had the spinach wrap at Starbucks. Should phase out cheat-day in a couple of weeks.

-Airborne: Not much to romanticise during training. I think I should revise the resolution to "Romanticise the air-borne experience as much as possible."

-Exercise: Gymming on the weekends is fine, but not enough running. Not as free and easy in camp now.

-IF is goin' good.

-Haven't drafted a letter for CDA yet. Will start by reading the last letter from them..

-Got my documents photocopied and stamped at Nanyang, haven't scanned them into one doc yet. Chop chop.


I tried making a sweet potato casserole yesterday, based on some tweaking of the recipe vic left lying around. It turned out good! I'd say I needed to roast the sweet Ps for longer before grating them into the dish. Just to get the flavour out. I'm thinking I'll just roast, peel and mash the next time. As for the topping, I learned afterward that some really hardcore whipping is required for the meringue top. I didn't have enough patience then, but the topping ended up nice and crunchy anyway, with the egg whites and walnuts.

That's all fo now.
Relatively early book-in. On a SUNDAY. Maannn.... I need to make the pain of trainee deal feel lower than the joy of man-mode. Let it come soon.


-Zan

And so marks the end of triplet dates

MAN, the second barbecue of the month is doing a number on my guts. And brain. These last minutes of 2012 are being spent in groggy digestion.

The number and proximity of recent family pig-outs has been ridiculous.
-The entire Bali trip
-Pre-Christmas BBQ
-Christmas
-New years BBQ!
Coming soon: CNY!

Here goes 2013's resolution list. I realised I missed one out for the start of 2012. Ah well.

RESOLUTIONS (want-to-do):
-Totally romanticise the Airborne course experience as it happens
-Maintain a weekly minimum of three days of exercise per week throughout 2013. (A 'day-of-exercise' = no less than a gym session / a minimum of 6km running.)
(3 minutes left!)
(Happy new year!)
-Slowly transition to paleo
-65 / 9% by June (Yay crypticism!)
-Maintain and record a steady 7-8 hour IF window throughout the year.
-Spending way less time doing NOTHING (aka youtube, music and random shit) in front of the computer, replacing it with outside activity.
-Have a regular conversation with my grandparents, via letter or other means. There's no excuse.

-Jessie's Girl - Rick Springfield

-Not worrying about striking a balance between staying academically focused vs. socially active in Uni.

TO-DO LIST (must-do):
-Prepare them application documents for when it's time to send em in.
-Complete BAC!
-Pass TP!
-Scan documents for the UoW application
 
HIGHLIGHTS (gonna-happens)
-211 BAC
-TP

-XSL
-ORD!!!
-U
-Possibly my first Christmas outside Singapore and without family / relatives. Oh my.


kthxbaiz


-Zan

The other face of Hope

Just looking hurts.

-Zan

Wet

Yesterday I walked down for some eggs and kaya toast.
It was drizzling.
When I was done, it was raining heavy.
So I walked back.

-Zan

Library Sequence

Drop off.

Magazine section. Pace to and fro. Flip flip. More. Flip flip.

Comics section. Nothing new again. Non fiction time.

Science. Nutrition. Exercise. General. Theo. Philo. Singapore section. Engi. Biog.

Fiction only if I have a name in mind. Search on the com. Walk there. Get book (sometimes).

DONE, OUT


-Zan

Busy but not really.

Today's lesson: I'm thinking maybe my standards are too high. Time to use deal breakers, instead of deal makers. Hm.

-Completely disregard of exercise
-Same pose/expression for near-every photograph (unless it's just smileyness)
-Same name as my sisters or mom
-Annoying laugh (It's a bad one, I'm sorry, I know)

PS: LOOPER. UNEXPECTED AWESOME MOVIE. Also, wallflower.

-Zan

Operation Timbre

Today's lesson - Many a time, it pays a price to hesitate. Aiyah, just go lah. Can't hurt. If it does, let it.

-Zan

Weekend self-meals are the bliss

PERFECT POACHED EGG! THANK YOU.

Start:
Blueberries.
Watermelon cubes. (Iknowit'scalleddicedshutup)
Plum cubes.
Banana cubes.
Thin slices of pear.
Oats.
Dragonfruit cubes.
2.5 huge spoon scoops of Greek Yogurt.
Almonds n Peanuts.

Middle:
PEANUT BUTTAH SANDWICH (and some honey)


End:
2 POACHED (POACHED!) EGGS
3 Ryebread toast slices with the garlic n herb cream cheese Claire bought
Chunk of wild smoked salmon, pepper
Onion slices
Tomato slices


Next week, them avocadoes are gonna be ripe.
Can't wait.


-Zan

21

1: Wake up.
2: "Happy Birthday Zan" and I hug my mom from the bed. Claire joins in too. Freeloader.
3: Shave the 5-day-old beard and mustache from my face :c
4: Decide I should at least exercise a little before the mammoth lunch and dinner to come, and I take the merrells out for a wee jog. Blisters I didn't know existed from the day before start burning, and I run back after 10 minutes. Ah well.
5: We make our way to Brazil Churrasco...
6: We all eat a TON, and roll our way back to the car, which rolls its way to Vivo.
7: Some rum n' cherry chocolate cake from Awfully Chocolate!
8: Happy Birthday cake drill done. Oh man we're stuffed. 1630H now. Gosh, I hope I can digest this pile of meat and cake before 9.

And here I am now.
Can't say I feel the same way about turning 21 than most people. I don't have insights attached to this particular number. But I guess I'll benchmark where my life is right now. At least I can look back from the future and assess myself from this point.

Primary Concerns:
-Nutrition and fitness
-My platoon-to-be in NDU
-My future education

-My future occupation
-The happiness of each member of my family
-Attaining a clear mind

 Wants:
-To draw regularly again. Haven't had a rush of creativity in ages.
-A consistently calm head

-Her
-To get rid of the little belly once and for ALL

Spends free time:
-Reading stuff on the net
-Reading nonfiction from the library
-Exercisin'
-Walking around eating from various places

Self-assessment:
 Bloody LOST. You need some form of structure, and the will to stick to it, so that your life isn't so damn in-the-moment. Ostensibly, you're doing just fine. But you know why you're not satisfied. It's just not smooth enough. It's too here-and-there. Recognise when your mind goes to the first principles, and trust them. Don't fall too much to others' opinions.

Kay, done with the introspection! Update on dinner, coming up.

Meanwhile, another phonedump:

- Young at Heart - Tom waits
- What separates ketchup and tomato sauce
- Supporting a ring
- wtf is rangoon
- Velcro-on mp3
- The sound of scissors cutting construction paper
- Bodyheat powered gadgets
- zero-calorie placebo food
- 618822
- paperpeople-shop
- 58 arab st. rattan shop
- Sinema
- culturepush.com/
- chamak by akon
- mint royale
- flavoured fibre designed as common foods
- Do it by the book, but be the author
- Animation idea. Kid terrorising lego city turning out to have effects on a real city

Man, I'm gettin rusty. Gotta get back to this thang

(PS: OH, HAI FIRST POST OF 2012!)

EDIT: Continuation from way above:

9: Stomach gets decimated by the chocolate buffet at MBS. But the view is spectacular, and I wish I wasn't so groggy so I could watch it for hours. Damn I wish my first camera phone.
10: HOME!

-Zan

Used to it. But why now?

Everything. Like throwing myself into the sea.

dang this is emo

-Zan

A Summary. An Exaggeration. But not too far off.

Pumping pumping pumping gettired pumping pumping pumping gettired pumping pumping pumping eat SWIMMING gettired eat randomtiringthingprobablyresultantinpumping sleep.


-Zan

So You Did Good, Boy

How can you screw things up now?

-Forget to apply while in NS
-Do the easiest thing to do regarding Uni application
-Lose A level, O level documents
-Obtaining an irreparable injury
-Pick a job I don't want
-Pick the wrong major for the job I want
-Mess up the interview
-Not send all the required documents
-Stop thinking
-Not doodle
-Let music cloud my head of its thoughts at every living moment
-Identify potential to do better, and fail to do so
-Not use full-stops
-




-Zan

MEANWHILE

Who would believe you were a beauty indeed
When the days get shorter and the nights get long
Lie awake when the rain comes
Nobody will know
when you're old
when you're old
nobody will know


No crypticism or hidden messages, I just really like the way these lyrics sound together in that song.

-Zan

Little Things: SG and Canada's differences.

Specifically, Cedar (Nanaimo) and Victoria, BC.
More specifically, In the winter season.

It's frickin cold outside (I've been there in Summer, too.)
The "green man" traffic light is white.
To be smiled at by strangers, and to smile back, is commonplace and almost expected.
"How's it going"and "Have a good one" are more common.
The sun is down by about 4.30pm.
At 10pm, the city is almost barren. Even in the pubs.
I can't believe that the DASANI BOTTLED WATER is comparable in price to the soft drinks here!
Food and drinks are expensive. Drinks from vending machines are often about $1.75 or more. In Canadian dollars.
You are more likely to be given the right of way on roads.
Cars stop really far from the zebra crossing to let you cross.
You can U-turn anywhere.
More visible homeless people.
Cars are, on average, more crappy looking.
Radio there is AAWEEESOOMMMMEEE.
Where one would find varieties of condoms near the cash register in a Singaporean mart, varieties of gum would be found in a Canadian one.
Food portions are HUGE in restaurants. In many cases, this justifies the high pricing.
When it rains, the rain is seldom a big shower. It is a little over a drizzle in intensity. It is also very annoying.
Seeing a person wearing only a t-shirt outdoors is remarkable.
Nobody wears slippers.
THE AIR. The air smells so fresh!
When you walk through a park, you step not on road, nor on concrete. You tread on the dirt, the mud and fallen leaves.
In Canada, you tip.

That's all I can mentally conjure now. I'll probably update this every time another difference comes to mind.

UPDATE: How could I forget to mention you drive on opposite sides there? In Canada, the driver seat is left, and on the roads you drive on the right lane.

-Zan

Back!

With more hair than necessary.

Summaries ahoy! But not just yet.

The transition in climate from winter-Canada to eternal-summer-Singapore has been smooth. My skin certainly agrees with the humidity. Thankfully there's been no heat shock.

I think it's interesting that, both times my plane touched down, I entered the country on a particular New Year's day. I reached Canada on the first of January and reached Singapore on the third of February (Chinese New year).

Things have changed in Marang Road. Leave for a month, and Home is no longer Home. The house got painted, Mount Faber's got parts of it blocked off for renovation (went jogging today) , and worst of all, Claire and Winnie thought it would be nice to rearrange everything in the house I own. This was cause for much anger. I'm not going to unleash it on Claire, she has enough to stress about given the schoolwork. She just needs to know why the rearranging without my supervision, direction or permission frustrates me incredibly. She must understand. That's all I need.

Looking out the balcony reminds me that trees are gone and the ground is dry and naked. It's nice to see that the grass is returning. It's wonderful to see four banana trees beginning to sprout in place of the two large stumps.

I was thinking about change during the jog. I decided that mongering about it was a futile pursuit, given that I would never escape the reality that even the things closest to me (be they people, objects, concepts, etc.) would inevitably be different in the times to come. This house I've lived in all my life could be rubble tomorrow. For about the next two years of my life, I will never see my hair grow longer than an inch or two. Trees I have been familiar with since birth may fall or be removed eventually. Even I may look through these eyes in a completely different way. There will be times where my mind is buzzing with thought and imagination, and times of dull stagnancy. I am powerless against the shifts.

What if I don't like that?

I decided that I had two options.

1) Mentally set something that would be held constant to me no matter what happened, and comfort myself with it every time a significant change occurred.

2) Embrace change.

Yea, having all my stuff rearranged hit me pretty deep.

Maybe I'm petty.

Na, don't think so.

Happy rabbit CNY!

-Zan

2=0+1+1!

Oh yah, resolutions!

I'll see what I can steal from my holiday resolutions first.
-Hold breath to inhuman limits (I did try, but progress has been slow. A recent breakthrough involved imagining myself as some creature that didn't need to breathe air. Results were very successful. Really a mind over matter thing, it seems.)
-Learn knots (Indispensable for the navy, says the father)
-Learn languages
-Polyphasic sleep (Could be especially useful for NS. The initial sleep deprivation stages, that is.)

Now to think of newbies.
Oh, wait. I can still steal from last year's.

3: Start running regularly again.
7: Read a German book with full comprehension.
8: Read a Mandarin book beyond the primary 3 level with full comprehension.

Kay NOW to conjure n00bs.
Ahem.

-Befriend at least two students from Vic's school. Or the area.
-Write a short story. Bonus pride points if it's a comic.
-Master the drawing of no less than three different animal species.
-Keep a journal that AT LEAST lasts 30 consecutive days. Please.
-Survive NDU's "Hell week".
-Work for money during February.
-If NS permits, go vegetarian for at least a month.
-get grail
-Do best to demolish what politics may arise in my NS experience.
-Learn coin tricks. Minimum of 4.
-Not get my blog deleted.

-Zan

Christmas Conceptions

I sat in the pews at ORPC for their Christmas service, family-tradition dictate, and contemplated the presence of those without pew-seats, standing/sitting in the back. And how they could be cured of their predicament.
Observation told me that only a small fraction of the huge indoor space was being used for the audience - the floor. Gravity-dictate. Unused space existed! Also, there was a lot of empty space in the volume of air above us that could have been used for audience-spaces.

Trying to fix the latter cause (of the space-waste problem) first, I imagined a second floor above the audience, where more seats could be filled. The problem with this hypothetical, of course, was that members further back on the ground level would be obstructed by the new 'ceiling' formed by the second floor.
This could be rectified by lifting the second floor higher, but that would cost the top-floor audience their proper view of the stage. This wasn't good enough. I wanted a solution with no re-allocated costs to the audience.
I imagined antigravity, to simplify things. People could just float around anywhere to view the service at the spatial location of their choosing. Still, in this case, there would inevitably be some people blocking others as they hovered in front of them. Bah!
How would I fix that?
I came to the conclusion that resolving the wastage of space by using the free space within the volume of the room would only be simple if there was some way to render people transparent. Then, people could more efficiently utilise the room as an audience and wouldn't have their view blocked.

But I didn't want to delve into that problem (making people temporarily transparent). So instead I battled with the former cause of the problem - unused surfaces. If other surfaces could be filled, it would cause benefit by adding more audience seats without costing the existing audience their view of the stage (in this case, the choir).

The problem was like a cube. One interior side was being used for the choir, and another side - the bottom - was being used for the audience. If we could fill the other sides with audience, the problem would be greatly lessened.





















click to zoom in, by the way.
Now that I think of it, an antigravity-based solution isn't really necessary.. but whatever. I'll continue.
SO.
What popped into mind was that the church hall could instead be a cylindrical shape in a simulated symmetrical gravity. The great cylinder-church would spin to simulate gravity towards the inner surface of the tube. Like a-this:











Way more surface-efficient!
But one last problem. This way, there would be people seeing the choir upside down. To solve this, the choir would have to be organised a different way - a circular arrangement, as opposed to the usual horizontal columns. Their song would resonate through the tube in a circular symmetry.

Then I extrapolated a bit.
Say this structure of building was commonly used in a world where humans habitated space (i.e. in antigravity, woop). for buildings where a large audience was needed in front of a common "message-giver" (a choir, a musical band, a presentation, a talk, etc.) . There would exist a new problem: Text. For all of the people in the circularly-arranged audience to read the same text without tilting their heads at some angle to the side, lots of copies of that same text would have to be made, and arranged in a circle.











Whether this is done with screens or print, the same problem arises: It's pretty costly, especially if all you want to say is one letter (in the case of the illustration, ''A''). The messagers aren't getting much bang for their buck.
Then I thought: A new text/language that could be developed to suit this circular style of presenting a message. One that could be read from all angles of reading. It would have to be read vertically, for all spectators can see the text's "radius", but text lying on the circumference could only be read partially. And would have to scroll I guess. So.. example!












Liddat. Of course a more fluid text, easier to write in a circle, than mine would be developed.
I guess the circle language would have its limitations. The more letters, the more circles, and each letter would have to cover subsequently larger perimeters. So it's limited to shorter texts I suppose.
It was a cool idea in my head though. ._.

Then the thoughts ended there, and I continued paying attention. Woo! But I thought the circular text thing was a pretty neat idea. Had to save it here lest it be lost forever.

Had to get the tablet plugged up to the office to make some of this clear, would've been too confusing otherwise. FinallyI'm touching dearest tablet after SO LONG. WOOOOO


-Zan