A breathing space in a world of rush
Just found another amazing pole dance video, or rather, as they call it ‘Pole Art’.
httpvh://www.youtube.com/watch?v=i4vKsiSEgzI
It really is an artform, compared to the traditional mindset of pole dancing.
Pretty excited to watch the upcoming event in Singapore, SG Pole Challenge, where one of the top pole dancers, Suzie Q will be in town to perform!
I wrote a bit about the Slow Carb Diet in my earlier post and tomorrow is the day I am going to start the diet.
Again, for those who have not read the book, The 4-Hour Body, the slow carb diet is essentially a diet that replaces most of your meals with slow carbs, or food with low Glycemic Index, as well as increasing your protein proportion. There are many other small nitty gritty details, and you would have to read the book to understand them. Things like having a cold shower, eating within 1 hour of waking up, and all the other small stuffs. Tim Ferriss’ theory is that small things in itself do not do much effect, but adding them together will present a much larger synergistic effect. This together with his theory of Minimum Effective Dose.
I do have 1 big problem though. I don’t eat vegetables. I have not eaten any green vegetables, or vegetables in general since I can ever remember. Save for carrots, potatoes, fruits and seaweed, I practically have not eaten any vegetables. So there lies the problem of eating low Glycemic Index foods. Argh. Will have to figure how to deal with this in the next 4 weeks. Haha!
One idea which I will use to overcome this non-vegetables issue would be to increase the protein intake, as well as trying out different legumes. The problem with this is that essentially the amount of carbohydrates taken in will be increased significantly to a more vegetable friendly diet. The main reason being that vegetables have a low caloric density, whereas legumes have a high caloric density.
At this moment, my general plan would be:
Breakfast
2 half boiled eggs + some baked beans + some lentils + 2 cups of ice cold water
Lunch
1.5 serving of meat (Either chicken, fish since it is easier to find outside) + 1 cup of legumes (I currently have red kidney beans, chickpeas, lentils, baked beans. Have not eaten most of it before) + *maybe* carrots (though carrots is not recommended in the diet) + mushrooms (Also not mentioned in the diet, but that could be a American thing, since mushrooms have been traditionally an Asian food)
Dinner
1.5 serving of meat(Probably fish or beef, since more prep time is available) + 1 cup of legumes + carrots and mushrooms.
I would also have mixed nut bars available during the day, in case I get hungry. Have to see how on the first week. I might add seaweed also. Seaweed is not mentioned much by Tim Ferriss, and I suspect it is probably similar to the mushroom thing.
Throughout the day, I would also have green tea to increase the Basal Metabolic Rate, and I have also gotten the supplements recommended by Tim Ferris, which would be Alpha Lipoic Acid, Green Tea Extract, Garlic Extract and Policosanol. Let’s see how these work. Essentially they are known for minor weight loss effects, but the effects are quite small. Again, the Minimum Effective Dose theory and the synergistic effect. Hmm.
His theory was that a person would not have to increase his physical activities by too much in order to lose significant amount of weight. Thus, this 1st month of experimentation would not have any increase in physical activity. Let’s see the results!
As a record, as of this morning, I’m 80.6kg, 24.6% BF (based on 4 point bioimpedence), and total inches of 268cm (add up the measurements for belly, both upper arms and both upper legs). Wish me luck!
I just got an iPad recently, and being the fiscal conservative I am, I got a 2nd hand iPad1 with warranty left. Pretty good deal if I must say so myself.
So being my first apple product, I didn’t know what to expect, since theres always stories that apple tries to lock people into doing what they want them to do.
Unfortunately, it’s true.
You can’t share photos and songs, you can’t copy things to it without itunes, you can’t install apps that is not apple approved, you can’t plug a usb drive or a sd card to it (unless you pay more for the accessories), you can’t this, you can’t that. They even try to prevent you from using facetime or skype if you are using 3G, rather than wifi. Gah.
So anyway, it seems one of the easiest ways to have access to things is to install DropBox.
Essentially DropBox is a cloud computing model, where you would have a 2gig (and more) space online. You would then install a software on your computer and any other devices. So once you copy a file into the designated directory on your computer, the DropBox software will automatically upload it to the cloud space, and then you can download it with any of your other devices. The key thing is having it as seamless as possible, by having the directory recognised as one of the local directories.
Will have to test it out further, but from the looks of it, it should be good news! But as usual for apple, I would expect a lot of limitations. Don’t understand these apple fanboys.
Also, they have this referral program, where if you have someone open an account with DropBox, you and your friend would get an additional 250meg in your DropBox, up to a maximum of 8gig! Pretty decent indeed. Definitely worth a try for iPad users!
One of my favourite inspirational clips.
Do watch the show, Facing the Giants, if you can.
httpv://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XyPkUXGq1S0
How true.. We sometimes quit even before we start. We don’t think we are strong enough sometimes or it is just simply impossible. But we have to endure it for in the end it is worth it!
I just managed to get hold of Tim Ferriss‘ latest book, The 4-Hour Body, from a friend. I have read his first book, The Four Hour Work Week, before and I thought it was quite an unconventional way to look at things. And thus, I was pretty excited to take a look at what he has to say about the human body. Basically, it was about reaching the peak performance of the human body, and he segregates it into Fat loss, Building muscle, Improving sex (definitely a core indicator 
), Perfecting sleep, and many other topics.
Just 5 years ago, I was 68kg. At the peak of my physical health due to my physical activities, busyness of schedule, and basically just the lifestyle I had. Unfortunately, I am currently 80kg and lifestyle has definitely changed to one of a typical white collar worker.
So when he mentioned the concept of Slow Carb diet, it made some sense, since it was not new information to me. Things about taking low glycemic index foods so that your body stores less fat due to insulin reaction are already concepts I knew. The biggest difference I got was that he managed to get his father to lose from 245lbs (111kg) to 203lbs (92kg) in 3 months with no additional change in physical activity. Just because of a switch of eating habits from typical diets to a slow carb diet. Now that got me thinking. How much of my excess fats can be trimmed using just a clean up of diet?
Of course, physical activity does make a difference. Eventually his father reached 186lbs (84kg) after 6 months on the program. One of the biggest problems with diets is the sticking factor. The ability to make permanent lifestyle change to a person. Else, the weight will eventually come back on again. The slow carb diet does seem like a diet that makes it easy to stick to.
Basically he has 5 main rules.
1) Avoid “White” Carbohydrates
2) Eat the same few meals over and over again
3) Don’t drink calories
4) Don’t eat fruit
5) Take one day off a week
I can do that!
I have decided to embark on the diet as on Monday 30th May. Just as a test of how effective this can be. I would not be increasing my physical exercise significantly. Probably just some of the stuff I have been doing for the last few months already. The last time I went to the gym, was easily 6-8 months ago.
One of the main points he keeps repeating is to increase protein and legumes. I’m generally okay with that, but food choices in Singapore would be quite limited, since its all about noodles and rice in Singapore. More updates to come!
The internet has changed many things in our lives. One of the biggest change in the last 2-3 years is online shopping!
In the past, people would go to shops to buy CDs, bags, shoes, clothes etc.. But now, CD shops have all but closed in Singapore, since everybody either use online streaming or amazon.com anyway. The blogshop phenomenon has pretty much taken the world by storm, seeing how blogshops are popping up like wild mushrooms! Essentially, anything that does not require you to physically touch can be sold online!
The biggest consequence of this is that retail malls become boring. There is less diversity in shop types and almost every shopping mall would only contain clothing outlets or food outlets. Not only that, but the same clothing outlets would be repeated in almost every mall!
One of the things I have been buying online for quite a while is nutritional supplements. Things like multi-vitamins, fish oils, probiotics and your standard vitamin Cs are my regular purchases. Places like GNC, Guardian, Watsons are seriously overpriced in terms of these supplements, especially since it is generic and so widely available. I used to get my stuff from other places, but more recently (okay the last 1-2 years), I have been getting from iHerb. One of the reasons initally is that they carry the highest rated Multi-vit, Source Naturals Life Force Multiple, which is still the same one I am taking now. Of course, after trying them out for sometime, I basically shifted all my supplement purchase to iHerb. For now, I regularly buy Omega 3 fishoils, Probiotics (since our diets consists of a lot of processed food nowadays), and vitamin C once in a while. The other good news is that shipping to Singapore can be as low as US$4 for orders below US$80. Pretty decent in my opinion. For those with bigger orders, they use the usual international shippers and the goods can reach as fast as 3-4 working days.
One of the main reasons why I am mentioning about them here is that for first time customers to iHerb, they are having a US$5 discount off the first shipment if you enter in my referral code, GUS932. So do consider giving them a try. For those already taking nutritional supplements, what’s there to lose?
Quite a nice sweet rendition of this song! Totally love it.
httpvh://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VG33WAINVOg
One of the nicest performance I have ever seen! Just like a ballerina in a musical box!
httpvh://www.youtube.com/watch?v=c5f3ob4_Cjc
This one is actually a competition in Singapore! Amazing.
Apparently theres another mega event in June, and the famous Suzie Q would be coming to Singapore! Who’s interested to go watch? http://sgpolechallenge.comoj.com/
Read an article on The Guardian recently about ‘Greece’s doomed generation‘. It basically talks about how Greece is hit with all the Austerity measures imposed by IMF after they hit the economic crisis in 2009/2010.
Somehow, the more ‘developed’ you become as a nation, the less you are willing to give up. This seems to resonate with me in the recent Singapore GE, and this article. In the 1996-1998 asian economic crisis, the Thai, Indonesian, Vietnam, even Malaysia and Singapore got hit by a sudden crash in the currencies. Thailand and Indonesian were the worst hit. IMF imposed measures and controls on the Government then in order to rein in spending. Essentially, that means they gave the reins of the economy to an external party, who’s job is just to cut your spending. The citizens of these country then went through pain, because budgets were cut, non-essential services were restrained. Now we see the same in Greece because they have fallen hard from grace. The difference is that because of a higher education level, and that they are used to the material comforts in life, there is massive protests.
I went to my favourite site, wikipedia, to look up on Greece and Singapore. It’s amazing how similar they are in terms of economy!
| Greece | Singapore | |
| GDP | $302 billion | $235 bilion |
| GDP per capita | $29,240.00 | $50,300.00 |
| GDP by sector | 4% agriculture 17.6% industry 78.5% services | 0% agriculture 26.8% industry 73.2% services |
| Labour force | 5.05 million | 3.03 million |
| Public Debt | 142.8% of GDP | 117.6% of GDP |
| Foreign Reserves | $5.546 billion | $187.8 billion |
Their demise came out simply because of falling state revenue and increasing government expenditures. How fast the ball changes.
The Singapore GE that just ended made me wonder. We are like Greece, with no natural resources (typically), relying on a few economic engines and largely the services industry, but otherwise, essentially nothing to fall back on. I hope I would never have to see the day that Singapore falls from grace. Before 2008, who would have thought that Greece, such a beautiful country, would fall so hard? 40% unemployment for the working class at the peak of their lives (18-24 years old) is no joke!
It has been less than 12 months since this crisis began, but little stories that illustrate the change keep bubbling up: homeless people looking for food in dustbins; friends fired without compensation, or accepting wage cuts; police officers beating up citizens who protest; schools and hospitals shutting; teachers and doctors losing their jobs; journalists censored; trade unionists persecuted; racist attacks downtown. Legality, majority, democracy and equality start to seem like odd little words.
All of a sudden, things that only a year ago happened in remote, underdeveloped places – as if to prove how lucky we were to belong in civilised Europe – are now happening here in Greece. But Greeks cannot complain, cannot react, because they are told that the crisis is their fault – even if everyone knows it cannot be just their fault.
Do spend some time to read the article here!
The GRC system in Singapore must be one of the most criticized point of the election system in the last many years! One of the main criticism is that it does not serve it’s primary pupose well, and it only serves the incumbent party in preventing opposition candidates from getting into Parliament.
But before we judge, let’s look at the Paliamentary systems of various countries.
Singapore follows a Westminister system from the British. This basically means there is an overlap of legislative and executive arm in the Government, as the ministers are typically chosen from the MPs or Members of Parliament. In simple terms, a Government typically consists of the Judicial arm which judges right and wrong, the Legislative arm which makes the laws of the land and the Executive arm, which basically consists of the Ministries and involves the running of the country. Theres also 2 main types of government, being unicameral, which means there is only 1 legislative chamber (such as Singapore), and bicameral, which typically consists of 2 chambers, being the Senate and the House of Representative. Most countries in the world would have a bicameral system, unless the country is small.
In summary, Singapore has a Westminister system with a unicameral government, consisting of 87 Members of Parliament and 20 Ministers, ruling a 5 million population on a 710 km sq piece of land.
Some people tend to be confused on how a MP and a Minister differ. Basically a MP, or Member of Parliament, is someone who takes care of a certain constituency in the country, bringing up issues to Parliament to debate, and voting on these issues. As a collective, they decide on the law of the land. A Minister is essentially the head of a Ministry in the civil service. They are like your CEOs and they would execute on the plans of the government.
In Malaysia they basically have a Westminister system with bicameral government of House and Senate. There are a total 70 Senators, 2 each from the 13 state assemblies, and 44 appointed by the King. The House of Representatives consists of 222 members appointed via single member districts. Drawing a comparison, this house would be similar to our MPs in Singapore and the Senators would be similar to the senior MPs or basically people with working knowledge to serve a broader objective rather than just a single member district. I am not a political science student, so I don’t understand the full implications of this. Though it seems that the House are a representative of the citizens, whereas the Senate is a regional representative of the experienced people. The PM is typically appointed from the House and the Ministers can be from either. So in summary, 70 Senators, 222 House Representative and 22 Ministers ruling a 27 million population on 329847 km sq of land. Thailand and Indonesia has a similar system, with 400-600 members in their house of representatives. A bicameral government is useful for a large country, but may not be practical for a small country.
South Korea is one of the other few Asian countries to use a unicameral system. Basically they have an elected President, who will then choose his PM and Cabinet Ministers. As you can see, this is one of the biggest difference from a Westminister system where the legislative and the executive branch of the government is separate. These Ministers are basically chosen from the various ministries. The national assembly consists of 299 members election from single member constituency, and another 56 through other means. So a summary, 355 MPs, around 15 Ministers ruling a 48 million population on 100210 km sq of land.
Just a rough gauge, Singapore has 1 MP for every 57k population and 8 km sq of land, Malaysia has 1 Senate/Representative for every 92k population and 1129 km sq of land, and South Korea has 1 MP for every 135k population and 282 km sq of land. If Singapore has the same population ratio as South Korea, we would only have 36 MPs. But do note, most of these big countries would have their own local/regional government running things. However, the important point is that the number of law makers is small in comparison to the population.
Since Singapore is a small city state, it might be worth looking at a City. Looking at Sydney, they have 38 Local Government Areas with a total 4.5mil population on 121446 km sq of land. Most of the citywide activities are actually taken care by the State Government, and in turn the National Government. Probably this is one thing we would not have in Singapore.
From the above information, the first few things that come in mind is how roles that are segregated in other countries are essentially done by the same person in Singapore. The most obvious reason is our size. We definitely don’t have a segregation between the national governing body, a regional government and a local government. We are just 1 city state. In Singapore, the chairperson for the town council is typically the MP of the constituent. The appointed Mayor of various regions of Singapore is typically a MP. And lastly, the Ministers are appointed from the pool of MP. Some ministers would carry 2-3 portfolios even.
Now after the ridiculously long digression, let’s talk about the GRC system.
In Singapore the GRC or Group Representative Constituency essentially the creation of a larger electoral division and a team of candidates would contest for that division. This was actually created in 1988 as there was actually a decline in the representation of minority interest in the Parliament. This was probably the true reason for the GRC system, since Singapore in the 70s and 80s was one filled with racial tensions and uneven economic growth between the ethnic groups.
However, what happened then was that the GRC system went wild, and they increased from 4 man GRCs to 5, then to 6. This made it very restrictive for opposition candidates to enter Parliament, since there might be 2-3 good candidates, but still not enough to form a team to compete in a GRC.
Arguably, Gerrymandering and the GRC system has made it prohibitive for an opposition party to win seats in the parliament. In my opinion, gerrymandering is all but obselete. Social media and the internet has made a nation into a homogeneous pool. While you can target polling results down to a set of blocks, you will never know what they would vote for in the next election anyway. In the last GE2011 of Singapore, Workers’ Party has made gerrymandering more irrelevant by contesting in contiguous constituencies. This has made it such that no matter how you slice it, they would be competing on both sides of the electoral boundaries anyway. In the coming elections, if the Workers’ Party is able to gain momentum, they might be able to field teams to compete in 5-7 contiguous constituency.
Do note that according to the Singapore Constitution, there must be at least 12 SMCs.
But then, there must be a benefit of having a GRC right? GRCs allow us to pool together resources of a larger town council. A typical Single Member Constituency has about 20,000 to 30,000 population. A 4man GRC has around 80,000 to 100,00 population, and up to 180,000 for a 6man GRC. The truth is, not every constituency needs a stadium, a sports complex, or a hospital. A bigger GRC creates a kind of a township to allow for some form of planning since technically, it is the job of the MP to pursue for benefits for his constituency. Of course, theoretically there are government bodies such as the Ministry of National Development, Ministry of Transport, and various other ministries which are suppose to be in charge of this kind of planning. But it is suppose to be the job of the MP to lobby for such benefits for their constituency.
A bigger GRC also allows for sharing of manpower. If 1 part of the constituency requires more manpower for the short term, people can be pulled over from the other parts of the same GRC. This is basically used to create an autonomous division with it’s own facilities and manpower. In a way, it is somewhat like a regional government.
However, one of the things that a bigger constituency will lose out is the human touch. By having a higher ratio of MPs to population, the MPs are more likely able to keep in touch with the people on the ground. Take a look at Chiam See Tong in Potong Pasir where he is able to know the residents of the area intimately during his time there.
Another problem created by the GRCs is the argument that someone who knows how to run a SMC, might not know how to run a 6 man GRC because of slightly different skill sets. But that means it leaves us with a small group of people able to run large townships. Definitely not a good thing for the long term.
One of the biggest problem for the GRC system is the all-or-nothing scenario in elections. When a team wins a GRC, all the members get in, regardless of their ability. Likewise, when a team loses a GRC, all members gets kicked out, even if there are competent people that the people might want to retain.
But what should be done? One of the most common ideas mooted is to abolish the GRC system. I personally feel the GRC system still has its uses. Perhaps we can have only Single Member Constituency, but having an appointed Mayor from the MP of the wards to cover a larger area.
Tan Kin Lian came out with a few ideas, such as the segregation of MPs and ministers. This would mean another step away from the Westminister system. I think this can be useful too, since there might be people who are interested in policy making, but not interested in grassroots work, and there might be people interested in execution, but not so much on policy making.
Singapore has one of the highest MP to population ratio, but yet, still the lowest absolute number of MPs. This is inherently due to our small size. 1 interesting idea is to turn everything into Single Member Constituencies, but with a higher population of say 70k to 100k. This would be like a size of a 4 man GRC currently. However, make it such that only 1 person stands for election and will become the MP. He would have 3 other assistants appointed by him after the election to become head of the town councils and other roles in the grassroots. These people would also appear in the Parliament, but not with the same voting rights. In effect, you have a group of senior ‘full voting rights’ MP, and junior members. This can be combined with the idea about regarding the segregation of MPs and ministers.
Another idea worth considering is to retain the GRC system, but to allowo the seats to be won individually. A few concepts can be used for this, such as the change of the voting system from Plurality voting, to Plurality-At-Large voting. Our current Plurality voting is basically a winner-takes-all system, where the winner of the vote will take everything and be the sole winner. One of the most common problems about Plurality voting in Single Member Constituencies is the formation of 2 large party as the rest tend to get wiped out and alternative views will get ignored. An example is the recent Punggol East SMC, where the only 3 corner contest took place. PAP and WP swept 95% of the votes and SDA taking only 4.4%. Plurality at large basically preserves the GRC system, but instead of voting by teams, you would vote individual candidates. So for example, for a 5 man GRC, PAP will field 5 members, WP will field 5 members. The original requirement of having 1 minority for the GRC still stands. So now, the population would mark up to 5 people on the ballot to give their votes. The ones with the top 5 votes will be fielded. If there is no minority in the top 5, then the highest ranking minority would get in. Simple. Plurality-at-large can still produce landslide victory where 1 party will win all the seats in that GRC, but that’s already not much different from the Plurality voting anyway. I believe this is an interesting concept that should be explored.
In the next 2 decades, the politics and system of governance in Singapore would probably have to change dramatically in order to keep pace with the world. This is more so because we are a small nation with no natural resources. We need to maximise our usage of resources, and at the same time, take care of the people. A very tough balance if you ask me. GRCs are probably here to stay, weather you like it or not. There are benefits of having the GRC system, but with any system, there are always loopholes, exploits and flaws.
PS: I am not a political science student, just a simple worker in Singapore. Please share your comments below!
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