1. Exercise: Embark on a fitness challenge
The start of these month-long heightened restrictions is like New Year's Day - a chance to reset and make good those fitness resolutions.
Starting a programme, with curated daily workouts over a set period, can help keep you accountable.
Alo Moves, for instance, has a variety of series including a 21-day yoga sweat programme led by instructor and fitness influencer Briohny Smyth. A monthly membership costs US$20 (S$26).
The Nike Training Club app also offers multi-week programmes, which you can customise based on intensity, frequency and duration.
To spur you on, the app awards badges and trophies when you hit milestones, such as working out thrice in a week.
Info: Fitness apps to check out
2. Listen: To a podcast about extraordinary lives
Pandemic got you feeling powerless? Listen to the crazy stories in Other People's Lives podcast to restore a sense of normality.
Hosts Joe Santagato and Greg Dybec, based in the United States, chat with anonymous people from around the world about their unconventional life experiences.
In one episode, they speak to a homeless woman who lives in her car, by choice, to avoid paying rent. She talks about the highs and lows of her decision, including the financial freedom it accords and the discomfort of never having a permanent home.
Other guests include a survivor of the Bosnian war; a woman who has a condition called pica, which causes her to eat rocks, chalk and other items that are not food; and a man who was wrongfully convicted of rape and burglary and spent 44 years in jail before the truth came to light.
Each episode is about 45 minutes long and is available on YouTube and Spotify.
Info: Other People's Lives podcast
3. Watch: A documentary short about dogs
More people have adopted and fostered pets over the past year, with work-from-home arrangements giving them more time and flexibility to integrate a new furry friend into the household.
If you are on the fence, perhaps this locally produced documentary short might sway you.
Man's Best Friend: A Dogumentary features four heartwarming tales of people and their fur kids.
Ms Cherry Palpallatoc named her Japanese Spitz Nikkou because caring for the dog gave her life renewed meaning while she was mourning the loss of her long-term partner. "Nikkou is the Japanese word for sunshine because she was the light during the darkest time of my life," she says.
Other paw-rents include creative director and fashion show producer Daniel Boey, who took over 20 years to adopt another dog after losing his childhood companion in 1991.
In 2017, he adopted Leia, a former breeding dog rescued from an unethical breeder, and has since turned her into a dog-fluencer with about 9,300 followers on her Instagram page (@look_its_leia_n_luna).
Catch the documentary on Viddsee, a platform for short films.
Info: Viddsee's website
4. Shelf Care: In Piranesi, a man wanders a house he doesn't - or can't - leave
Piranesi
By Susanna Clarke
Bloomsbury, 2020, 245 pages, $25.95, available here
There is a man called Piranesi. He lives alone in a house he does not - or cannot - leave.
Yet his life is full of wonder. "The Beauty of the House is immeasurable; its Kindness infinite," he declares.
After publishing her 2004 fantasy novel Jonathan Strange & Mr Norrell, British author Susanna Clarke suffered a debilitating illness that kept her housebound for years.
She returned to fiction last year with this strange, beautiful novel about isolation that makes for an uncannily perfect pandemic read.
5. Tar Pau Nation: A Noodle Story is as good at home as at the stall
If I have to look for a silver lining to the current no dining-in situation, it is that you can get food delivered from some popular hawker stalls you previously had to join a long queue for, one that stretches typically over an hour during peak hours.
But few of these hawkers offer islandwide delivery as most work with third-party platforms that service only nearby addresses. A Noodle Story in Amoy Street is one of the few.
The hawker, which sells a hybrid of Japanese ramen and Singapore dry noodles and is in the Michelin Guide's Bib Gourmand list, handles orders through the ezQR food delivery website and follows up via WhatsApp. It also uses platforms like GrabFood.
