A healthier, greener me.

As part of the new year resolutions, I propose a healthier, greener me, in which it would complement my mantra for this year: BEG BORROW STEAL. Nah seriously, its just a set of initiatives to go into overdrive saving mode for 2010.I must admit, that I havent been exercising much last year, so I already planned to do more swimming and running this year. Its a good opportunity to increase the frequency, because this semester’s timetable has plenty of break in between classes in excess of 3 hours or more. This would be a great way to try out the new SAFRA Jurong swimming pools and possibly the gym. I will definitely try out the pool and it can also serve to de-stress before the start of the next lesson of the day.

So physical activity is going up and it is important as it would really help me get fit in preparation for the coming backpacking trip (crosses fingers!) around Europe at the end of the year.

Also im going to follow a healthy breakfast regime, involving good wholesome cereals and soya bean milk every morning. My lessons starts at 8.30am almost every day of the week and having a good breakfast would ensure that I would not go hungry during lectures before lunch and that I would be thoroughly alert during lessons. This would ultimately help me perform in my studies in the long run.

I will be more conscious in what I eat during lunch and possibly dinner. Eat more vegetables and cut down oily food or food with large and unnecessary servings.  Snacking will be healthier, with more fruits and biscuits rather than chips. I intend to cut down on fast food and junk food in general. Cutting down on fast food would ultimately save money also and patronize hawker food, food court rather fast food or restaurants, especially during the weekends.

Thirdly, I intend to be environmentally conscious this year. I want to make an effort to lower my carbon footprint and reduce my consumption of natural resources. I realised the sheer amount of paper spent printing my lecture notes last semester. So this year I plan to try to cut down as much paper usage as possible. Several ways include printing more content on a sheet of paper and reusing the paper if the print goes bad, rather than throw it away. I cleaned my room the other day and I managed to save almost a thousand sheets of reusable paper, almost 2 rims of paper that can be reused for rough work.

I intend to use those paper not for printing notes but rather revision exercises/practices/note taking rather than the ruled sheets.

I intend to purchase less books to read this year, and start reading classics that are readily available for free on the internet. I can download free classics to my iphone and it can serve as an e-reader, perfect for reading while in transit. I will borrow more books than I would buy this time round. It would greatly reduce my expenditures without sacrificing reading materials.

I intend to reduce electricity usage, by switching off appliances totally rather than in vampire mode. My Mac Mini has achieved this but I think more can be done. I intend to consciously switch off my monitor rather than waiting for it to be in sleep mode when not in my room and switch off my computer totally when I’m out of the house.