https://www.ronaldoli.com/lifePersonal field notes on cities, learning, design and games.en-GBhttps://www.ronaldoli.com/life/notes/what-to-build-with-stronger-toolshttps://www.ronaldoli.com/life/notes/what-to-build-with-stronger-toolsSingapore / A question about making<p>Two questions from a NUS guest-speaker session on 22 October, revisited while continuing this website.</p><p>In a NUS guest-speaker session on 22 October, we were asked what defines professional value when a job title no longer tells the whole story of what someone can do. I spoke about creativity: coming up with useful ideas, connecting them to a goal and thinking about the value they might create over time.</p><p>I want to keep the useful part of that answer in view. An interesting idea still needs a purpose. What problem does it help with? Who might use it? How would I tell whether the result is worth keeping? Those questions give creativity something concrete to work towards.</p><p>Later in the session, I asked another question. As AI and the baseline capabilities it makes available grow stronger, what happens to the expectations placed on someone entering a field or moving into a different role? I brought it up as an open question. Better tools make more things possible, and they also change what people may expect to see.</p><p>This website gives me a place to explore that tension through something I can actually make. An original project can sit beside an explanation of the choices behind it. A small interactive exercise can let a reader change an assumption and inspect the result. I can keep returning to the question of what each addition helps someone understand or do.</p><p>Kopi gives that question a specific form. A detailed interface invites attention, but the records behind it still determine which decisions it can support. In the greenway work, a diagram becomes more useful when the assumptions and limitations remain close enough to inspect. These are different projects, and both give me a reason to pay attention to the connection between an idea and what it can demonstrate.</p><p>I want to keep building, while getting more deliberate about the next thing to build. For this site, that means giving a visitor a clear way in, something worth trying and a route back to the material behind it. Finishing a feature is one step; returning to see whether it earns its place is another.</p><p><a href="https://www.ronaldoli.com/life/notes/what-to-build-with-stronger-tools">Read the original and related material</a></p>https://www.ronaldoli.com/life/notes/ask-what-the-data-can-answerhttps://www.ronaldoli.com/life/notes/ask-what-the-data-can-answerLife / Returning to a project<p>After the Kopi presentation, I returned to the three management questions behind our three screens.</p><p>The Kopi &amp; Co exercise began with a very definite brief: a fictional COO, forty minutes, three decisions and exactly three screens. I liked having something concrete to build. There was also a question to ask before filling each part of the interface: did the records contain what that decision would require?</p><p>In my early individual branch, one row described an outlet over a week. That made comparisons between outlets possible. If waste looked unusual, I could identify somewhere worth investigating. A product decision needed another level of detail: which products, with what sales, waste and margins?</p><p>Labour raised a similar question. Weekly hours and an efficiency gap could help begin a discussion. To build a workable roster, I would also need to know when demand arrived, who was available, which skills were required and what service coverage had to be maintained. The next useful question became much more specific.</p><p>At the 7 September presentation, I explained why outlet-level waste could not establish which product line to pull. Our team had built a fuller demonstration using synthetic product records. My separate branch kept its original data scope. Looking back, I want to keep the purpose and provenance of those versions easy to follow.</p><p>For my October individual reflection, I returned to the experience using framing and reframing. Prioritising an investigation, specifying the evidence for an intervention, and demonstrating a future workflow are different tasks. Writing those alternatives down helped me see what a satisfactory answer would look like in each case.</p><p>I also remembered the smaller audit questions. A complaint percentage could look dramatic because its starting rate was low. A priority change could leave the shortlist unchanged if no outlet triggered the relevant rule. Asking why the display looked that way was part of understanding the result.</p><p>If I began the sprint again, I would write down the three decisions and the evidence each needs before building. Then I would separate the useful next action from the questions that still need an answer. Sometimes a shorter, more precise list gives the following conversation a better place to begin.</p><p><a href="https://www.ronaldoli.com/life/notes/ask-what-the-data-can-answer">Read the original and related material</a></p>https://www.ronaldoli.com/life/notes/bugis-beyond-the-pricehttps://www.ronaldoli.com/life/notes/bugis-beyond-the-priceLife / A conversation in Bugis<p>A bag, two buyers and a conversation after class. Looking back at a small negotiation in Bugis on 5 March 2026.</p><p>After class on 5 March, a classmate and I went to Bugis Market. A bag was marked at S$25. I took an active part in the bargaining, and the conversation became a small, satisfying part of the afternoon.</p><p>The offers moved from S$25 to S$23, then S$22. We left and later returned. Eventually, we proposed buying two bags at S$20 each, and the seller accepted. The quantity was part of the offer, not a detail added afterwards.</p><p>Before paying, I checked that the point-of-sale system showed S$20. That final check mattered to me: I wanted the amount we had agreed to be the amount I actually paid. The receipt and the bag made the result quite concrete.</p><p>I was pleased with the reduction of S$5, or 20% of the marked price. It felt like a realistic result for this purchase. I did not need an extraordinary discount to enjoy having asked, tried another offer and reached an agreement.</p><p>Looking back now, I notice how easily I could tell the story using only its first and last numbers. Yet buying two changed the offer too. The price is easy to remember; keeping the other condition in the account makes it a more useful experience to revisit.</p><p>That gives me something to put beside the El-Tek classroom reflection. In that exercise, our team found itself concentrating heavily on price and restrictions. Bugis was a different setting, with a much smaller purchase, but it gives me another occasion to ask what the whole offer contains.</p><p>I like keeping a story of this scale on the site. Studying in Singapore includes the coursework, and also afternoons after class when a familiar concept turns up in an ordinary conversation. A bag I bought can carry a small memory of both.</p><p><a href="https://www.ronaldoli.com/life/notes/bugis-beyond-the-price">Read the original and related material</a></p>https://www.ronaldoli.com/life/notes/giving-an-idea-a-shapehttps://www.ronaldoli.com/life/notes/giving-an-idea-a-shapeLife / Making and revisiting<p>A lecturer, a shield and a classroom tower. Looking back at the small conditions that make an idea easier to develop.</p><p>When I asked for a Hrothgar black mage imagined as a lecturer, the role gave the image a place to begin. There could be a robe and a staff, but also a room, a gesture and something being demonstrated. A character becomes easier to imagine when there is a reason for the objects around them.</p><p>The catfish mage kept some of that scholarly setting and changed the mood. The point of the two images is partly the pleasure of trying another direction. I can enjoy the elaborate costume and the little luminous companions, then come back and ask which details make this particular character feel coherent.</p><p>The battle image brought a more specific request: adjust the area-tankbuster marker and make the black mage&apos;s Manaward visible. Those were small parts of a busy composition, yet they mattered to the scene I wanted. Bringing a reference back into the discussion made the next revision more concrete.</p><p>Looking at these images now, I see a useful connection with project work. The Kopi &amp; Co prototype starts from questions a Monday meeting needs to answer. A useful brief gives the next person something to work with: a question, a constraint, an example, or a detail they can actually check. The images and the prototype make that idea visible in very different ways.</p><p>The classroom tower supplies another kind of check. Our recorded result was 21 cm; the chosen option had a 30 cm target and three eggs. A measurement gives a conversation something definite to return to. I can remember enjoying the group challenge while still keeping the target and result clear.</p><p>I want this website to leave room for that kind of looking back. A full image is enjoyable on its own. Beside it, a short note can explain what I asked for and what a particular detail contributes. A project can show its original material, then offer a tool that lets someone try a related question. Both invite a closer look.</p><p>That is also how I want to keep improving the site: notice the part that feels vague, give it a more definite form, then see how it works in the whole page. Some revisions will be about language, others about an image or an interaction. The worthwhile ones make it easier to understand what caught my attention in the first place.</p><p><a href="https://www.ronaldoli.com/life/notes/giving-an-idea-a-shape">Read the original and related material</a></p>https://www.ronaldoli.com/life/notes/leave-room-for-the-replyhttps://www.ronaldoli.com/life/notes/leave-room-for-the-replySingapore / Learning to listen<p>Two moments in October: a question in a NUS classroom, and a small change I began to notice in group conversations.</p><p>In a NUS guest-speaker session on 14 October, I asked about Leadership DNA, career and life trade-offs, and whether passion and values change as we move through different stages. I had several connected questions in mind. I wanted to understand how someone makes those choices over time.</p><p>Looking back, there are two parts to that kind of exchange. I can prepare what I want to ask, but I also need to leave space for an answer that takes the conversation somewhere I had not planned. The question gets us started; listening gives me something new to work with.</p><p>Four days later, after a group call, I noticed a smaller change. I was still eager to contribute, but I was listening more and waiting for other people to finish before responding. It was a change in the rhythm of a conversation, and I was pleased to be noticing it in myself.</p><p>I am interested in that combination: keeping the energy to speak while becoming more patient about when to do it. A thought can wait for a moment. Hearing the end of someone else&apos;s point may change what I want to say, or give me a more useful question.</p><p>The negotiation experiences I have kept on this site give me another way to revisit this. In a classroom exercise, our team reflected on how much attention we had given to price. In Bugis, buying two bags became part of the offer. Looking for another person&apos;s priorities takes room in the conversation as well as preparation beforehand.</p><p>This is one of the quieter things I want to remember from studying in Singapore. Alongside the presentations and finished assignments, there are habits I can pay attention to in the next discussion. For now, one is simple: let the other person finish, then see what I actually want to ask.</p><p><a href="https://www.ronaldoli.com/life/notes/leave-room-for-the-reply">Read the original and related material</a></p>https://www.ronaldoli.com/life/notes/one-moment-different-citieshttps://www.ronaldoli.com/life/notes/one-moment-different-citiesLife / Cities and time<p>Singapore, Beijing and the cities where I studied. Comparing the sky brings a few familiar places into the same frame.</p><p>Living in Singapore, I can put Beijing beside it on a clock without changing the hour. The same time still belongs to two different ordinary days. The weather, the light outside and the questions I bring to each place can be quite different.</p><p>Ithaca and Bloomington add another rhythm. They are part of my education, as well as names in a time-zone selector. When I put them beside Singapore, the comparison brings a small part of that longer journey into view: informatics, systems engineering, management, and the places around those studies.</p><p>Walking is one way I make a city familiar. I have talked about ten to fifteen thousand steps on an ordinary free day in Singapore, and longer days in Sentosa. A weather chart becomes more interesting when the next question is something I might actually do: how much daylight is left, and what does the forecast look like around that time?</p><p>A grey sky brought a different set of questions. Our discussion moved from Singapore’s haze to Beijing’s history of air-quality improvement. I wanted to understand both the number on a screen and the longer changes behind it. A single view from a window can begin a much larger conversation.</p><p>The city observatory on this site grew out of that curiosity. It puts two cities on the same timeline and lets a reader inspect weather, air forecasts and daylight. I like being able to start with a familiar place, type another city in either language and see what becomes worth asking next.</p><p>It also rewards a little care. A forecast has a collection time and a model behind it; a local clock has a time zone and sometimes a seasonal change. Putting two values beside each other is only the start. Looking at when they refer to makes the comparison much easier to use.</p><p>A personal site can hold those connections without needing a major occasion for each one. Beijing, the American university towns and Singapore already belong to different chapters of my life. Here, I can bring them into one small view, then leave the screen and continue with the day.</p><p><a href="https://www.ronaldoli.com/life/notes/one-moment-different-cities">Read the original and related material</a></p>https://www.ronaldoli.com/life/notes/after-the-chequered-flaghttps://www.ronaldoli.com/life/notes/after-the-chequered-flagLife / Following Formula 1<p>Sometimes class or a busy day gets in the way of the broadcast. I still want to understand how the race unfolded, not just where everyone finished.</p><p>Sometimes I get through class or a busy day and realise I have missed the race. My next question is usually a big one: what happened, from the start all the way to the finish? The classification is useful, but I want the story that produced it.</p><p>I like following the choices as they become available. What was happening to the tyres? How large was the gap before the stop? Did a safety car change the cost of pitting, or did someone have to make the call before knowing whether it would arrive? The timing matters as much as the choice itself.</p><p>A small detail in the broadcast can send me down a different path. During a rain delay, I asked why the medical car was on track, what its spray could tell us and how visibility affected the next decision. Waiting for the start became a reason to understand more of what I was watching.</p><p>The championship adds another scale. I have asked about the points still available, the combinations of results a contender would need and how a new weekend changes the outlook. When a probability is very small, I also want a comparison that makes its size easier to understand. A number is more interesting when I can follow the reasoning behind it.</p><p>That is part of why I enjoy a proper review. It can move between a single lap, a race-long strategy and the season around it. I want room for the excitement of a surprising result, then time to look again at pace, decisions and the opportunities that appeared along the way.</p><p>The F1 pages here give me a few ways to keep asking those questions. The strategy study lets a reader vary assumptions; the lap explorer puts selected data side by side. Neither replaces the race. They let me slow down one part of it and see what is worth looking at more closely.</p><p><a href="https://www.ronaldoli.com/life/notes/after-the-chequered-flag">Read the original and related material</a></p>https://www.ronaldoli.com/life/notes/the-next-pullhttps://www.ronaldoli.com/life/notes/the-next-pullLife / Returning to a fight<p>Three ranged jobs, a familiar fight and the small decisions worth taking back into practice.</p><p>Bard, Machinist and Dancer are the three jobs I return to most often in Final Fantasy XIV. I like having that familiar place in a party while still finding a different rhythm in each job. Knowing where I usually stand does not mean every fight feels the same.</p><p>There is a satisfying moment when a mechanic starts to make sense as part of the whole encounter. A movement is no longer just a direction to remember: it connects to what came before it, the next cue and the action I want to use afterwards. I enjoy working on those connections.</p><p>A good clear can make me want to look again. I have spent plenty of time with Logs, including a memorable Machinist result in M6S. The number is enjoyable; the details behind it give me something to practise. I want to know which choices I can repeat and which worked because that particular run was kind to me.</p><p>Returning to a tier brings a different sort of satisfaction. In an early-October update, I had cleared M9S on the first pull and practised M10S beyond the second surfing sequence. The useful next step was to make the next stretch familiar too, rather than treating the whole fight as one undifferentiated task.</p><p>Party finder adds a conversation before that practice starts. A short strategy name can hide a difference in grouping or movement. I would rather ask what the party means, compare the relevant guide and begin with the same plan. It makes a later mistake easier to understand as well.</p><p>That is what I want the raid desk here to help with. Pick the encounter, write down the actual agreement and leave a question for the next pull. The record can be brief: the cue I missed, the movement I want to check or the point where I stopped knowing what came next.</p><p>There is room for chasing a great run and room for an ordinary evening of getting back into it. I enjoy both. Sometimes the most useful thing to keep is simply one clear question, ready for when the countdown starts again.</p><p><a href="https://www.ronaldoli.com/life/notes/the-next-pull">Read the original and related material</a></p>https://www.ronaldoli.com/life/notes/what-a-handoff-needshttps://www.ronaldoli.com/life/notes/what-a-handoff-needsLife / Making work usable<p>A request, a project report and the information that needs to travel with a piece of work.</p><p>When I look back at a piece of work, I often find myself asking a fairly ordinary question: could someone else pick this up and keep going? It changes what I notice in a document. A neat result is useful; so are the definitions and decisions that make it understandable.</p><p>Requirements work at Huizhi gave that question a practical setting. A business request could involve a field definition, a payment event, a permission or an exception. The connections mattered. If two people understood the same field differently, an apparently small ambiguity could travel into the next step.</p><p>I like being able to trace one request through those steps. What does the user enter? Which condition changes the result? What happens when information is missing? How would we recognise an acceptable outcome? Writing a small example can make a discussion much more concrete.</p><p>The CUSD material gives me another view of the same question. My individual plan and the later team reports belong to different stages and responsibilities. Reading them together means paying attention to which version a decision belongs to and who needs to understand it next.</p><p>A school concept also brings use and maintenance into the picture. It is natural to spend time on the design. I find it helpful to ask who would use it, who would look after it and what they would need to know when something changes. Those questions keep the project open beyond the presentation.</p><p>Building this website has made me return to handoff in a smaller, everyday way. A link should lead somewhere useful. A saved note should be recoverable. An old version should still be distinguishable from a later exercise. Each improvement gives the next visit a little less work to do.</p><p>I do not think every handoff needs a long manual. Sometimes a clear field definition, an example at the boundary or a short record of the current decision is enough to help someone continue. I like finding that useful level of detail.</p><p><a href="https://www.ronaldoli.com/life/notes/what-a-handoff-needs">Read the original and related material</a></p>https://www.ronaldoli.com/life/notes/small-tools-from-familiar-interestshttps://www.ronaldoli.com/life/notes/small-tools-from-familiar-interestsLearning / Ideas to try<p>FFXIV, Formula 1 and a question about making something useful. Notes from exploring what to build and what it might take.</p><p>In October I started asking whether I could turn some familiar interests into a small tool. Could AI-assisted development help me make something for Final Fantasy XIV or Formula 1? What could Chat, Work and Codex each help with? I wanted to understand what was possible before choosing a direction.</p><p>My first ideas came from things I already spend time on: an FFXIV plugin, or an app around F1 and FFXIV. I asked about starting on Apple’s platforms, but also about whether an app was the best form in the first place. The useful question was what I wanted to do more conveniently.</p><p>Cost was part of that conversation from the start. Which ideas could stay inexpensive? Which would need paid interfaces or continuing subscriptions? Could existing information sources be brought together without turning a personal experiment into a large ongoing commitment?</p><p>Wanting more features brings another set of questions. Where does the information come from, how current is it, and what happens when a source is unavailable? I wanted to understand how tools, APIs and information sites might fit together, as well as the work needed to keep the result useful.</p><p>This website gives that curiosity a concrete place to try things. The fish watch follows windows, the F1 explorer compares laps, and the city observatory puts different places on one timeline. Each begins with a specific question and gives a visitor something they can inspect or change.</p><p>The app and plugin ideas are still questions I am exploring. I like starting with an interest I know well, then asking which small part would be worth making easier. The name of the platform can wait until I understand the job I want the tool to do.</p><p><a href="https://www.ronaldoli.com/life/notes/small-tools-from-familiar-interests">Read the original and related material</a></p>https://www.ronaldoli.com/life/notes/interfaces-worth-usinghttps://www.ronaldoli.com/life/notes/interfaces-worth-usingTechnology / Design<p>Theme controls, readable small type and Chinese that sounds like Chinese. What building this site has made me notice.</p><p>Building this site has given me a very practical way to talk about design. I enjoy ambitious animation and a distinctive visual identity. I also keep coming back to details that only become obvious when someone actually uses a page.</p><p>One example is automatic appearance. Following the system, following the local clock and following sunrise and sunset are three different choices. I wanted them to be understandable, with a manual choice still available.</p><p>Another is text. Some of the smaller labels needed to be larger. Light and dark themes both needed readable contrast. Friends also pointed out that parts of the Chinese felt too literal. A page can be grammatically translated and still sound awkward to the person reading it.</p><p>Those comments changed the work. Chinese names, sentence order, useful link labels, a CV that opens in a reader: these are all part of how a person moves through the site. I want the polished visual moments and the ordinary reading experience to improve together.</p><p>The links matter too. Someone reading about a fish in Final Fantasy XIV may never have played the game; someone opening an F1 study may be learning the strategy vocabulary for the first time. A well-placed source gives them somewhere to follow a question without making the page carry every explanation.</p><p>I also want the two languages to feel equally at home here. That means checking the Chinese name of a driver or a game item, then reading the whole sentence again. A correct term is a beginning; the paragraph still needs to sound like something a person would naturally say.</p><p>The city observatory adds another test of that approach. An interactive chart needs a readable table, a date and a source. An ambitious effect needs to respect reduced-motion settings. A useful external feed needs a plan for the day it does not respond. Those choices are part of the design I want visitors to experience.</p><p>The city picker is a small example of how this keeps evolving. I wanted to choose a familiar city from a list, but also type a Chinese or English name and look farther afield. The country beside a result matters: choosing London should not mean guessing which London the system found.</p><p>Sharing adds a similar question. What should a link carry? For the observatory, I want it to reopen the two cities and the comparison I chose, while keeping the date and source of any new readings visible. It is another small part of making an interactive page useful beyond the first visit.</p><p><a href="https://www.ronaldoli.com/life/notes/interfaces-worth-using">Read the original and related material</a></p>https://www.ronaldoli.com/life/notes/a-grey-sky-and-a-longer-questionhttps://www.ronaldoli.com/life/notes/a-grey-sky-and-a-longer-questionSingapore / A question worth following<p>A hazy-looking day in Singapore sent me back to a subject I had not thought about for a while: Beijing’s air.</p><p>Singapore had been looking grey when I brought up the air quality in October. It also made me realise how long it had been since I had stopped to think about Beijing’s history with haze.</p><p>I wanted to go beyond remembering the bad years. What changed, how much changed, and how should we judge the result? I asked about the history, the policies, the longer-term figures and how the experience had been discussed elsewhere.</p><p>One useful place to start is the measure itself. NEA publishes one-hour PM₂.₅ concentrations alongside the 24-hour PSI. One is a concentration, the other an index; a single hour and an annual average answer different questions.</p><p>The Beijing figures below give that longer view a concrete starting point: 89.5 micrograms per cubic metre in 2013 and 30.5 in 2024, a reduction of 65.9%. That is a substantial change in the annual mean. It is also a reason to keep the year, the unit and the original source attached to the number.</p><p>There is another distinction I want to keep visible as this site grows: a model forecast and a monitoring-station observation are different kinds of evidence. A model can help compare the same hour across cities, but its grid covers an area. It cannot tell me exactly what a particular street looked or felt like.</p><p>That is the starting point for the city observatory linked below. I can put Singapore beside Beijing, or look at cities connected to my studies and work, and move through a shared timeline. The source, retrieval time and local time stay beside the chart. The historical annual figures remain here, answering their own longer-term question.</p><p>I also wanted to understand how Beijing’s experience had been discussed elsewhere. A percentage change can start that conversation, but the policies, the period covered and the local context still deserve a closer look. The next useful question is often about how the result was reached.</p><p>This is one of the things I enjoy about following a question: an ordinary observation can turn into a much bigger piece of learning. The grey sky was the beginning of the conversation. Understanding what the numbers mean is where the investigation starts to become useful.</p><p><a href="https://www.ronaldoli.com/life/notes/a-grey-sky-and-a-longer-question">Read the original and related material</a></p>https://www.ronaldoli.com/life/notes/one-centimetre-shorthttps://www.ronaldoli.com/life/notes/one-centimetre-shortCampus / Teamwork<p>Our group chose option 3A in a spaghetti-and-egg challenge and built a 21 cm structure. What I kept from the experience.</p><p>Our group chose option 3A in the Spaghetti &amp; Eggs classroom challenge and reached 21 centimetres. The best group reached 22 centimetres with one egg. What I remember most is how much I enjoyed working together.</p><p>The result was visible in front of us. The difference between a convincing idea and a structure that actually stood up became clear as soon as we started building.</p><p>Looking back, an earlier measurement and a test of the structure would have been useful. Once the target is concrete, feedback should be concrete too. An encouraging impression of the design is less helpful than finding out where it bends or how high it really is.</p><p>I have kept this small classroom story alongside the more elaborate projects because it gives the same question a physical form: when should we stop discussing a plan and test it? The original browser game linked below takes that question in a different direction, with alignment and shrinking room for error.</p><p><a href="https://www.ronaldoli.com/life/notes/one-centimetre-short">Read the original and related material</a></p>https://www.ronaldoli.com/life/notes/a-small-kitchen-planhttps://www.ronaldoli.com/life/notes/a-small-kitchen-planEveryday life / Food<p>Tomatoes, eggs, butter and a few practical questions about portions. Notes from planning a meal.</p><p>In September I was working out a simple meal: tomato and eggs, with butter-fried prawns. I already had butter, eggs and one tomato. Before adding things to the shopping list, I wanted to work out the portions, the cost and how to avoid buying more than I could use.</p><p>A few days earlier, the question had been even simpler: how to make bagged Shin Ramyun with lettuce and eggs. I wanted the sequence and the small practical details, not just a list of ingredients.</p><p>Another meal plan was for two portions: tomato and eggs, shredded potatoes, and pork ribs with potatoes. This raised a different set of practical questions. How much of a shared ingredient should go into each dish? Which part of the preparation can be done together, and which dish needs to start first?</p><p>I find those questions more useful than an impressive menu on its own. A recipe can describe one dish clearly and still leave a beginner wondering how to get several dishes ready for the same meal. Portions, preparation and order are what turn the list into something I can follow.</p><p>The record here is of planning and asking about recipes. I like keeping the stage before the finished plate: looking at what is available, reducing an overlong shopping list, and deciding which details I still need to understand.</p><p>It is a useful everyday counterweight to a packed study schedule. The question is small, the constraints are concrete, and the answer should make the evening easier. Enough food, a sensible shopping list, less left over.</p><p><a href="https://www.ronaldoli.com/life/notes/a-small-kitchen-plan">Read the original and related material</a></p>https://www.ronaldoli.com/life/notes/singapore-on-foothttps://www.ronaldoli.com/life/notes/singapore-on-footSingapore / Everyday life<p>Long walks, Sentosa days and a discussion about coconut shakes. A small piece of my Singapore routine.</p><p>When I talked about my Singapore routine in February, walking was already a substantial part of it. On days without classes, ten to fifteen thousand steps was quite normal. A day in Sentosa could take that past twenty thousand.</p><p>I like that walking can be both the plan and the space between plans. There is no need to turn every outing into a carefully arranged itinerary. Getting somewhere under my own steam is a satisfying part of the day.</p><p>Even class days had their own walking rhythm: I described walking three or four kilometres home. On a free day, the distance could grow without turning the whole outing into a special event. The same city can fit a short journey between classes and a much longer day in Sentosa.</p><p>The food and drink questions were just as specific. I compared a Mr Coconut Lite coconut shake with drinks from KOI Thé, and asked what nata de coco actually was. These are small choices, but they make the record feel much closer to an ordinary day than a list of places visited would.</p><p>I also talked about meals such as Sukiya, fish soup and congee. I do not need every meal to become a recommendation or every walk to become a route guide. Sometimes it is enough to remember what I was choosing between and what I wanted to know.</p><p>A portfolio naturally collects the things with a finish line: a degree, a project, a result. I want this part of the site to hold some of the ordinary rhythm around them too. Singapore is where I study, and also where I take a walk and decide what to eat afterwards.</p><p><a href="https://www.ronaldoli.com/life/notes/singapore-on-foot">Read the original and related material</a></p>