URA Concept Plan 2011

In the planning of the Concept Plan 2011, which are long term guidelines updated every ten years on how Singapore should develop, the URA is seeking public opinions on how our urban environment should develop.

This is done through surveys, broken down into four categories, each of which will take about 10 to 15 minutes to complete (but of course the duration varies depending on how much you have to say). However, you do not have to do all four.

The link to the Concept Plan 2011 survey is here: http://spring.ura.gov.sg/conceptplan2011/. Do participate in the survey if you have the time, and especially if you have some opinions about how Singapore should develop.

For example, according to the Singapore Infopedia, a resource site maintained by the National Library,

Chek Jawa was up for land reclamation, intended for military training, and reclamation work was scheduled to start in December 2001. However due to public petition and feedback to preserve the very rich biodiversity of Chek Jawa, the government decided to defer reclamation on Pulau Ubin and leave the island untouched for at least another ten years.

(emphasis mine) so if you are concerned with the long term future of Chek Jawa, then perhaps you can give it a mention in the survey.

Speaking of which, I've made my input with regards to sustainable growth, and I think my opinions are somewhat disapproving of private vehicles, with my ideas of establishing "no drive" zones and taxing private vehicles more to subsidise public transport (in a transparent manner, of course!).

A Sciatic IPPT

I just took my IPPT test a few hours ago. Considering that I'm recovering from sciatic pain, it was quite a feat, actually. Of course, my pain is almost gone now, surfacing only when I stretch my left leg.

But stretching is somewhat involved when taking IPPT. While chin ups, sit ups and 2.4 km run did not demand much elongation of the muscles in question, the shuttle run and the standing board jump surely did. On hindsight, I ought to have booked my IPPT next week, since the pain would probably be gone by then, but the thing is, that was precisely what I thought last week!

So for the jump, it was the thrust of the jump that sent sizzles down the leg, and, as a consequence, the retraction of the legs immediately thereafter was not as easy as it seems. But this was still not as bad as the shuttle run. The crisis strikes when making the turn. When bending down to touch the metal bar, I could feel the pain echoing up my leg. It was not crippling in the sense that I did not have to roll over the ground and howl like a cockatoo. But in the presence of pain, the flesh is weaker, and that leg which was suffering was the one that is responsible for setting off my acceleration.

Result: my shuttle run timing was significantly slower than past attempts, but luck was on my side in that the shuttle run is probably the easiest to clear with a wide margin even for the top score. So even though my sciatica chalked up an extra second for my timing, I was still safely in the regime of a silver award.

But no way am I going to attempt an IPPT in the future when sciatica is under progress.

Singaporeans for Haiti

Just to spread the word around a bit. If you want but have not donated to the Haiti earthquake victims, there is this fundraiser going on. It's called Singaporeans for Haiti and the proceedings go to DirectRelief International.

http://dri.convio.net/goto/sgforhaiti

You'll need a debit/credit card to donate though.

Monkey Business

I was at MacRitchie Reservoir Park a few days ago when a troupe of long-tailed macaques started marching past me from behind.

There were quite a lot of them -- about fifty -- and quite many had their young clinging on to their bellies. There's also one making calls to some other in the trees.



Whatever happened in the background, it is just like the inspiration for Paul McCartney's Beatles song, Why don't we do it in the road?.

Old Laptop to Giveaway

My Thinkpad T43, bought in mid-2005, has lasted me very handsomely through my undergraduate days, requiring only a replacement of keyboard and the cooling fan. Most of the other parts are still intact, especially the battery which is usually the first to go down. The only drawback is its weight, a hefty 2.3 kg.

However, recently I got a new laptop with stylus capability (and one that is much lighter), so that note taking and PDF annotation will be much easier. This means that I no longer need this T43 anymore, so I've decided to give it away free to any friend who might need it, and will take good care of it (sorry, some sort of sentimentality at work here).

If no one wants, I can trade it in for some cash, but I don't think I can get much from a laptop of nearly five years old anyway. So any takers?

Just a point of note: the laptop comes with Windows XP pre-installed, but I've wiped it out into Ubuntu (much faster, really). I still have the recovery discs, but I dunno if they still work.

Migratory Pain

Last week, during a badminton match with some friends, my lower back muscle near the end of the spine suddenly seized up and I cannot bend down without acute pain. It's okay so long as I don't stretch that muscle, so at least I'm not crippled or hopeless. But still, it was very uncomfortable.

That was not the first occurrence. Sometime last June, I also suffered the same symptoms when I stood up -- yes, that's right, just standing up -- from an MRT seat. Over the following weeks, the pain then slowly migrated through my left butt cheek and down to the thigh, causing me to forgo my in-camp training.

Then in October it struck again while I was ferrying some cats from their cages in SPCA. However, strangely, the pain subsided by the evening and disappeared the next day, so this is either a sneak preview or something else altogether.

I did a Google search, and it seems that I'm suffering from sciatica. True to the symptoms, the pain does migrate, and right now my butt is rather sore and my thigh muscle feels stiff. I visited my family doctor (who gave me some painkiller and muscle relaxing drug the first time; the second time I didn't bother to see him), who advised me to go for an X-ray. There could be something wrong with my bones.

And the diagnosis from the X-ray was... I'm perfectly fine, skeletally speaking. So the pain I'm suffering is just some regular thing that drops by once every now and then, though the doctor told me this usually happens to older people...

I wonder how much the heavy load I've carried in the army is responsible for accelerating my age...

Unacceptable to have Dolphins in Captivity at IR

Some thoughts about the Sentosa IR's oceanarium after reading an article.