Thursday, 9 July 2015

Environment Conscious in Singapore : My experience in toxic waste disposal

Just a quick article on this topic. Now that I'm about to move to a new house, I have to get rid of some stuff I no longer use. I don't have any big item to throw because I'm bringing my study table to the new place, so one of the hardest thing to get rid of are old electronic items. I have some dilapidated headsets and a broken hair straightener I had since I was working in Doha back in 2010.

As someone being conscious of the filth we leave mother earth, I immediately researched how to properly dispose of these items. So happy to find out that STARHUB has a recycling program called RENEW (Recycling Nation's Electronic Waste). I'm so proud of big companies like them who contribute to sustainability, so props to Starhub!

Here's a list of all  RENEW bins all over the country.

I left my electronic items in their bin in Basement 2 of Plaza Singapura.


Another dilemma of mine is how to dispose of unused paint due to a minor touch-up I had to make in my current room (yes, I try my best to be a responsible tenant). I also did some research and luckily, I found some groups who are willing to take in donations.

Pass It On - Before throwing away any of your stuff, you might want to check out their website first because someone might be in need of your items. Its a simple but great idea that makes use of the internet to help other people.
I found someone who was looking for a paint donor, unfortunately, when I contacted the person, someone has already promised to give a donation ahead of me.

Habitat for Humanity - Another organization who is looking for donations like paints, hardware items or anything that can be used to build houses is Habitat for Humanity. Contact your local HfH headquarters if you want to donate anything.
Because of my paint's small volume, it would be very hard for them to match it to any beneficiary's need, hence, they weren't able to accept my donation which was very understandable.

Fortunately, I found someone right in my own backyard! One of my colleagues who is happens to be also transferring houses soon needs to make a touch-up in her wall's paint. So I'm very happy that I don't have to throw paint which can be harmful to the environment.

These are just simple experiences but they taught me a very valuable lesson - do not throw, try to recycle or look for someone who might still find your items useful. Small acts like this do help contribute to a cleaner, less filthier mother earth.

Saturday, 4 July 2015

And I'm back!! And some recent room projects :)

Howdy!

I'm finally back to blogging after three years of focusing on work and many other things. I've been in this city working for 3 years and came mundane challenges in my life living as a single woman without any family or relatives, but still luckily, I have very few friends and some trusted people in the workplace.

Some of the usually challenges, for me, is regarding the homespace. As a homebody and introverted person, my small room is my personal sanctuary where I can do everything -- sleep, rest, eat, pursue any kind of hobby, watch my favorite TV shows, vlogs and documentaries. It's just but natural that my little space has become my passion and my hobby.

Just a couple of months ago, after coming back from a week and a half break in the Philippines, I have decided to re-decorate my room to give it a fresh look.

First thing I thought is that I needed some indoor plants in my small space. After reading some articles online, I decided to go to this plant store in Tampines called Sinflora. It's quite a huge garden and they sell a variety of indoor and outdoor plants in different sizes as well as many gardening accessories. The sales people are quite helpful too. I decided to take the lowest maintenance indoor plants, yet very beneficial to one's health as they help purify the air.

I have three small pots of spider plants and one medium rubber plant. I got the pretty pots from Ikea and I personally love the one with the birds design, because birds! I placed them on top of the white study table I purchased from fortytwo.sg furniture online store for just SGD 100. I'm happy with the fortytwo.sg purchase because of the free delivery and installation. I just water the plants about 2-3 times a week and leave a small part of my curtains opened during the daytime just to make sure that they are getting a bit of love from mister golden sun.

Another simple project of mine was born out of the necessity of having subtle lighting at night, but I also wanted it to reflect my own personality.

I bought Sardal decorative led lights from Ikea and I hanged pictures of birds and my nephews and me back when they where still fetuses haha. I was so inlove with this and looking at it every night after a day of exhausting work kinda served as a sort of stress reliever for me.

After several weeks of enjoying these small projects came the NEWS!

We received a notification from our HDB unit owner in Punggol that we need to leave our place in a month or two!! Because of a recent set back with one of my co-housemates, me and my housemates multi-laterally decided to move by end of July.

PANIC PANIC PANIC!

Panic is good because I have something to write in my next blog which will touch a little something about looking for a new place, minor DIY work on the place that I have to leave and more on the designs and purchases that I will be making on my new home. That is coming real soon!


Sunday, 15 July 2012

Samsung GT-S5300 : Review on My First Android Phone

Well before I start, let me just say, I bought this phone on the spot, no previous research, no comparison whatsoever. I was leaving for Singapore on that day and I thought my ancient Nokia 2g phone would be useless in that well-connected city. I've used Blackberry and iPhone 1 as company mobiles before (no biggie), so I already know the upsides of smart phones. Even used to own a Nokia Symbian (bleech) for a short while, good thing it got stolen LOL.

Anyway, I needed to rush buying a phone at 12 noon because I had to run to the airport by 4!! I was with my dad and bro, so I received the much needed boost through peer pressure. I must say, I got swayed by the persistent but nice salesmen from the small town hyper-mart near to where I live. 

Features that initially caught my eye :
  • Android (gingerbread)
  • Touchscreen
  • Auto rotate
  • Small and handy (great for a petite gal like me)
  • 3 gb Phone memory 
  • Dirt cheap!! Only PhP 5,000 (around US$ 120)
Things that I love :
  • Google play
  • Android apps - so far my favorite is xe currency converter which is very usable for a cheapskate like me
  • Youtube app - very accessible
  • Google maps & GPS navigation - now I'll never have to be lost again in this city, not unless GPS breaks down in the middle of nowhere (which only happened once)
Minor glitches that bother me :
  • Experienced problems sending SMS around 5 times
  • SIM Card is hard to remove
  • Home page is not cleanable- remove button is not working
  • When making calls, phone automatically locks which makes it virtually impossible to key in numbers when I top up to my Singapore pre-paid sim. I need to transfer my SIM to my old Nokia phone whenever I have to top up to my account which is a bit inconvenient.
Generally, being my first android phone, I am very satisfied with this model. You get all the benefits of having an android phone without breaking the bank.
  • Connection speed - good
  • User friendliness - good
  • Price - very good
  • Portability - very good
Will keep updating this review for anything.

Ciao!
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Just a little update on this. Last night while I was playing with my phone, I found out that you can actually delete unwanted homepages. You just have to press edit and then drag the page to the trash bin. It does work but you just need your fingers trained on how to make it work properly.






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