Before I kicked off; you can download NextBlock via both Google Play & App Store! Use my referral here!
NextBlock Photoshoot at Hougang (at where I grew upppppp)
So in short, what exactly is NextBlock? A few things to clarify;
Are we a Blockchain co?Not yet
Are we doing something like Grassroots or PA? In a way, yes but we are of a neutral stands, apolitical and we are not Goverment-funded or linked.
Do we have a solid team? Yes, of course. The people in the team are seasoned entrepreneurs and not fresh graduates. We have went through all the 风风雨雨, nothing to be fearful of. Our tech team is in-house (mai siao siao)…
Do we have a business plan/ monetization model in place? Yes! PING ME FOR MORE INFO!
In summary, we aim to build a vibrant neighbourhood network and ecosystem, connecting the neighbours (real and verified), the small businesses and the public agencies together.
In the good O’days, kampung spirit was strongly embraced thus everyone knew each other and their stories thus putting into the digital context, here we are building the digital kampung, helping one another to build cohesiveness and all.
What you can do with NextBlock?
Setup your own account however you need to get yourself verified (Either key in the verification code exclusive to your estate through the postal mailers OR submit proof of residency) to post things and connect.
Create interest groups and build your own kakis within or across the different estates.
Share deals, get updates of the latest event happenings and what’s trending in the neighbourhood.
Declutter your house through our Buy and Sell group!
And ohyes, do you know you have this NB User Perks that you can utilize?
Yeap, alot of things happened for a reason and yes, I have close kins who didn’t get COVID once but twice.
Last week was an intense week, while doing market closure and officiate my offboarding process, the kids are all falling sick with a viral influenza spreading like no one business (it wasn’t C+, it wasn’t dengue, it’s just…. no one has any idea of exactly it is). Went in and out of A&E, 24-hrs clinics and also, prior to this my partner got C+ for the 2nd time. Adding onto the fuel, I need to bring my mum along for some of her appointments -_- until I was really shagged out.
But the level of focus was only 2 things, (1) health of the kids and (2) ensure my offboarding and market closure was a smooth sailing process for everyone in the team. It wasn’t easy to deal across the globe for all these but thank god, it went on well.
I often asked myself. What exactly am I chasing for again and again in life and realized sometimes, even when opportunity comes, family stands as the key priority and I had to let go of it when I have no confidence doing the best for it. D and R always mentioned that I have this habit of overthinking too much but I guessed, if I cannot attained a certain confidence level, it’s just not fair not to give the best self to others.
For me, this is the basic expectation that I required for myself. 🙂 Yes, a slave driver on own but it works for me in terms of growth. Not right and wrong answer but only, whether it suits one or not.
This is not the first time it happened and I guessed it’s the really a test by God. Right now, I looked back, with that 3 hours of sleep each day, it’s all worthwhile and despite the kids are still sick, at least they are better now.
Honestly, right now, I just hope that we don’t need to go through another round of non, I heard it’s another variation and whatever moneypox is. *Bleh*
Well, I have my fair share of quarantine orders for the whole month of September due to the fact that I have higher hit rate (4 children attending school at the same time). When I thought I was out from the first quarantine order, I was then slapped with another one and thereafter. All of my friends were telling me that — I was that friends who always tio things relating to COVID-19 and blaa blaa blaa.
And this is not enough. The real stress came when Govt just announced some changes to the COVID-19 routine and also how they are going to deal with the existing, suspecting and at risk cases with the Multi-taskforce Press Conference held on 9 October and the encouragement of home recovery instead.
However, on 10 October, my mum called after I reached home from the dinner from her place, she mentioned – Dad’s ART came out to be positive. She decided to do an ART on my dad after he was coughing and wheezing very badly. He has an underlying conditions with severe childhood asthma since young. So I told my mum to do a test on the rest of the household members (my 90+ grandma, my 70+ uncle and etc) – all cleared and negative and I told her that it could be, the virus is not “awake” yet. Did an ART for the kids, all negative despite No 4 having a bad sore throat.
The very next day, my mum told me she’s down with fever and was vomiting very badly. And the rest was history. All I can remember was — I sent her to hospital, send the elderly to the hospital and then liaising with MOH. Initially there are alot of confusion with the MOH and etc because of the new policies and arrangement. After much frustration, I shifted temporarily back to my mum’s place to take care and isolate myself from the rest.
In the end, due to the fact that we have a 90+ yrs old, 70+ and parents with underlying conditions, we managed to split the arrangement to — bringing back the 90+ to recuperate at home, send the parents and uncle to CCF. Thank god for the PSLE marking days, I got the girls to join me in taking care of my grandma while Sharanne prepare for her exams remotely.
This is the moment that I realised it wasn’t easy to work with intense work, rebuild (family) business, take care of kids, preparing the elder one for exams and take care of a grandma who has dementia. During this period, I gave up a few opportunities (including my sleep) and decide to keep family sanity as priority and everything else. Shall leave the opportunities to fate again.
Thank god for the encouragements and support along the way. What doesn’t kill me made me stronger! And right now all of them are COVID-19 free till 20xx!
As there are rising cases, just pray hard things will go back to the same soon! 🙂
Well, not everyone knows about the stress of the caregiver until becoming one. True indeed. And stress doubled if you have a variety of household members who required different needs and care.
First of all, going through this is a super stressful one. One needs to deal wit the bad news of the household member being confirmed of whatever the illness is and on another hand, one needs to run parallels on the future care taking arrangements.
I’m sharing this very personal story of my own. My uncle has mental illness since half a century ago and my grandma was diagnosed with dementia few years back. Both of them have been living together with my parents as there is no other caretaker other than my parents who are willing and can cope with the tempers of theirs. Since then my siblings and I grew up to having to cope to react to my uncle’s outbreaks over times and my grandma’s temper and her transition to being more aware and sound to the diagnosis of dementia. All of them have other underlying conditions.
We grew up poor financially but rich in our bonds and I am amazed for my parents’ determination despite the fact that my father is the sole breadwinner and my mum is a full time caretaker of the family.
Due to the medical conditions, my uncle is not able to find jobs thus he is an urban recycler aka karung guni for the longest and his frugality and helping my father with the household spending is something that I will be grateful for.
Did I mention that my siblings and I grew up in a hoarding environment due to the nature of their tempers and jobs and there were times that I do not understand when I’m younger — why do I need to go through this? However such environment built up a strong character in me and the determination to break through the current and also helped us to conquer fears for all insects and creepy crawlies.
Okay, I deviated too much. What I want to say in this post is — I was amazed with my mum’s grit in this circumstances. As cliche as it sounds, we did ask her if she tried to walk out or break through this situation, she says she did not thought of it as a traditional woman, you can only give your best to your husband and his family once you are married into the family.
Although there is so much that I disagree with her but looking through how she took care of the family including the grandchildren, there is only max appreciation and gratitude for her.
During the recent weeks, I have also evolved to a full time caretaker for my grandma/ parents due to the COVID-19 situation back home. Everyone is going in and out of the hospital and in and out of the community care facilities and luck was never on my side as I have not really cleared a week free from quarantine and the necessary stress from all the policy changes and new rules. And because of this experience, I have realised the stress that my mum has been going through.
That level of ensuring that everyone takes the medicine, trying to keep them within the safe space and environment and the debate of getting them to fulfil menial tasks seems to be a challenged. Not forgetting the fact that she needs to constant remind and conduct the decluttering progress and accidents do happen.
E.g. My grandma accidentally threw away some of my uncle’s items and fused a heated argument as they are both mentally incapable to exercise a sound judgement. The incontinence that my grandma experiences on a daily basis and her refusal to wear diapers and etc. Despite all these, one still need to stay calm and resolve/ deconflict the tension on an immediate basis.
I felt that sense of 24/7 standby and tension almost every single seconds and everyone will have a bad day yet the caregiver cannot show too much of such negative emotions as it will affect the household members. Imagine that.
All I want to say, all caregivers deserves appreciation and also if one can render help, please do.
Many asked why won’t we hire a helper. Firstly the older generation does not prefer having a stranger around in the house and they are quite stubborn with their diehard habits. And all the siblings, the 4 of us chipped in to assist. So yeap, please care for the mental health and well being of all caregivers every moment possible instead of just because October is the month that supports mental wellness. 🙂
And these period with all the work stress, I decide to forgo to climb the corporate ladder but do more of the pay-it-forward stuff and build a better mental well being for the family.
Special shoutouts to the organizations, people who went in the extra mile to help us during our younger days and I will definitely pay it forward through piggyback and every methods possible.
Disclaimer: I’m posting as a mother of 4 and these are my own opinions thus it does not represent any organizations or individuals except myself.
Recently, I saw many news that spoke about the mental wellness and mental health of the younger generations. True that, there are many attributes that contribute to the negative well being — environmental, culture, the rise of the social media generations and the support made available.
Especially these 2 years due to the pandemic, many are facing not just the pandemic fatigue but the students felt a significant number of stress as the curriculum seems to be disrupted and it was done “nor here nor there”. And our society, sadly still focus largely on the academic.
My daughters shared that it’s hard to concentrate during the e-classes and the peer support to study together is not there. They do not know where they fall short of, teachers have been trying hard to finish the curriculum and ensure the students understand as much in this current situation (please note that they are unable to WFH like some of us and they too, are parents to their own kids.) to the best they could however kids being kids, they have this uncertainty and are unsure where their level of understanding are placed within the curriculum spectrum, within themselves.
And worst case scenario, in our context and (asian) culture, many of us do not adopt an open communication channel to share out the issues within. To make things worst, there’s a social stigma around mental wellness.
All I want to bring across is – us as parents, despite majority are brought up by the (traditional) generations, we should try our best to encourage kids to speak up in person or through private text if they felt awkward to share f2f and to assure them that it’s ok to feel stressed, to say no and to seek some professional help when required.
As parents, I just want them to know that I will be there for them and a healthy child is important than academics.
Just taking this chance to promote my second daughter’s instagram account – @andrealynndraws. Honestly I feel bad to take such a long time to create this account but I guessed the last straw was when she kept on misplacing her artpieces and also, people around will throw away her stuff on random materials (e.g. rough papers, tissue papers, etc — yes, she can draw almost anywhere) by accident.
Thus I decide to document her progression digitally and also perhaps this can help her to curate a proper portfolio when she’s older.
Honestly, No 2 has this flair and talent for drawings and arts that I do not have and being the quietest one amongst the 4, I guessed this is where her focus and attention are on.
The past week had been challenging, so is the trade markets. Oil prices, commodities, even the protest in Hongkong had created an impactful shift across all markets and including myself.
HA. Because currently, I’m in a role where I faced more rejections than anything else so I decide to YOLO once and went for a social experiment on how people reacted to me and whether anyone will cast judgment without knowing me as a person but just by my outlooks especially with my…
First Tattoo. Yes, I know. “Imprints” get judge more often.
Followed by, the change of my hair color, not to a monotone but a unicorn tone. As this totally fits into my bill of fickle-mindedness because right after I dyed it at my trusted salon, J2 Hair Salon, I just realised that whichever color I feel like showcasing more, all I need was to change my hair parting in accordance.
Left (2016)/ Right (NOW)
Attitude. Adopted a heck care attitude because I just want to find out if gracious people tend to be bullied. And I wondered if I ever get beaten up if I keep on tsk-ing people (Check out how to tsk people correctly with strong support from CPF. Just joking.)
To be honest, I’m quite fearful that my parents/ colleagues/ bosses cannot accept the change as I did not inform them in advance/ prior to this.
Random note; the girls love it. They love anything unicorn. HAHA.
So during the weekends, when I bought the girls out, everyone seems to give a disapproving look on the streets and I even overheard a comment,
“See, girl. You must study hard if not next time, you will need to be food delivery rider and bring kids along for work.”
O-M-G. I carried a Grabfood paperbag with my kiddos waterbottles in it doesn’t meant I worked for them leh. I just cannot find a bag to contain their items when I’m rushing out. AND SOMEMORE, I graduated with a degree and alot of self-improvement certificates that helped me excel in my career. -_-
Best part, my mum did not even notice it when I was working around with my stuff when I’m back at my maiden home, for hours. Perhaps, tying up my hair helps.
Actually, the real challenge in me is actually how my bosses, colleagues, business partners whom I will meet, will react to my new looks.
So I reported for work on Monday. Here’re the results:
My boss did not comment but I feel he’s ok with this. [Boss ah, let me know if you are not ok hor?] Updated as of 16 Sept, my direct supervisor told me the CE disapprove of the colors. LOL so I dyed back on 17 Sept.
Colleagues were shocked and my Teamies gave me a look of affirmation then disapproval.
The guys who’ve worked at a different level and whom I’ve always spoken to in the lift saw me during lunch and thought I was “another” person. They couldn’t even recognize me.
My friends saw my social media postings, gave me thumbs up instead of thumbs down.
Ok lah, to be honest, I’m not sure if they would have discussed this behind my back though but I couldn’t care less. :]
And the real deal came when I am running late for a meeting at Ayer Rajah. I was changing my route to cross over from East-West line to the Circle line at Buona Vista MRT and I heard a man standing in the middle of the pavements asking into the thin air if anyone can direct him to the East-West line (towards Jurong direction). I then realized he seems to have a partial visual impairment. Many of the people of different diversity and dress codes, walked past him without helping him.
Despite telling myself — to adopt a heck care attitude mentioned earlier, it just couldn’t get through me. Yes, I might be late if I lend a helping hand but well, that few minutes might matter more to him than to me. Imagine, he lost his footings and…
So I walked up and approached him and directed him to the right direction. Realising that the lift is a long walk from where he is, I asked him if it’s ok for me to lead him up to the platforms via escalator. He was apologizing that he might delayed my time and etc. I told him I’m free and asked him to hold onto my elbow.
Thank god for my stint in PA that exposed me to various techniques to deal from the physically challenged peeps.
In any case; to guide a blind/ partially sighted person; one would need to follow these steps (Courtesy from RNIB and Webeye):
Walk up, introduce yourself and speak to the person whom you are going to guide him.
Offer the person your services and ask him/ her on how would they prefer to be guided.
The person being guided should lightly grasp the guide’s arm, thumb out, just above their elbow. Right elbow of the guide will be grasped by the left hand of the person being guided, and vice versa. The left elbow of the guide will be grasped by the right hand of the person being guided. For children, have them grasp your wrist or hold your hand. When an individual acts as a human guide, they should walk a half step ahead of the person they are guiding.
Tell them about every steps/ curbs/ stairs as you approach them. Tell them to step “up” or “down”.
Mention any potential hazards/ narrow corridors that lie ahead and say where they are.
If you are guiding someone into a seat, place their hand on the back of the seat before they sit down, so they can orientate themselves.
Don’t walk away without saying you are leaving.
So that minute of help resulted in me knowing that he had his vision partially lost due to genetics. Despite the fact, he’s still making efforts to look for jobs and being mobile to stay positive.
When we parted at the platform, I was asking the few of the people standing on the platforms to look out for him and directed him to the right station (and yes, I got a few disapproving looks from some onlookers due to my tattoo and hair while I help the guy). Thank god for a couple of kind souls and he wished me well in my life.
Conversations like this pulled me up from all the rejections I had to face during my course of work (as they are downright demotivating) and I felt even more determined to help the community via Piggyback.
And thus I instill a habit for myself and the girls while decluttering those that I do not need. I will either post via Blessing for Low Incomes-Sg, Yishun Blessing group and my own BTO closed Facebook group to ask if anyone closeby would need the things that I no longer need.
To my surprise, a lot of my so-called stuff became prized processions of their new owners.
And this boils down to…
“When you judge others. You do not define them. You define yourself. No one had ever walk the same path as you. Experiences made current choices. Future choices are based on your aptitude towards life and attitude on how you approach it.”
Like what my mum always say, “When you are pointing 1 finger at others, you are pointing 4 at yourself.”
Brace on people and do lending a helping hand when possible because you’ll never know when you will need others to lend you theirs.
I always thought such post should always wait till the last week of Year 2018. To be written as a form of reflections or reminders.
3 more days to my wonderful 30th perhaps this post will be a prelude to my reborn – Life after 30s.
I guess Year 2018 is indeed a fulfilling year for me. I had went through a roller coaster of emotions, the ups and the downs, the lost and the found. Perhaps I should just highlight some important keynotes.
The pregnancy – Earlier this year, I begin to sink into the fact that I am pregnant and had to cope with the thought of the terrible four. The painful part is the progress where I reached a point from denial to acceptance on what the future awaits. The pregnancy was indeed a tough one due to complications but I survived through the network of support.
The baby – 6 years after the birth of Rayshirl, I need to restart the whole engine and this time round, on my own and by myself. Thank you to the friends who stood by me and the encouragements that tied me through the difficult moments. Say Yay to curb Pre/ Post Natal Depressions.
O-Bye – Tell me about it. The dramas of the bike-sharing companies from the regulators barking on my back (with a pregnant belly) and my personal details released online by raged citizens to the formalization of liquidators. The whole episode set my mind on business management and also, wowed by the fact that I have the experience to validate a company’s lifecycle within a good 15 months.
Career Options. Offers came by and I was at lost to pick partly due to priorities listed out as I finally antagonized by the fact time with kids are something I do not wish to compromise. This is the part where I am at lost and doing some soul searching. Eventually, I picked something but was it the one?
Entrepreneurship – I begin to let go on something I had embraced strongly for the past 2 years and went on an unknown pathway.
Lifestyle – from cars to none and I finally understand that simplicity is the best key to everything. The way of life is be simple and stay humble.
Friends – I made friends who turned out to teach me various lessons in life. I met alot of Entrepreneurs that set the tone of my mindset on managing people. I had spoke and learned to let go of toxic people within my circle.
Sharanne – After 2 years of waiting, the transfer to NPS is finally validate and tears wiping on the last day at HIPS taught me that kids are the best investment that I had put in thus far.
Family. My sister is finally off the shelves and this year I choose to embrace time spent with family over anything else.
The Choice. I begin to understand that a lifetime is a long time and decide that the choice need to be made instead of just sitting on it and contemplate whether is this the right thing to do. However…
I learned and prayed that Life after 30s for me meant Peace and No Dramas and slowly, finetuned my career and life choices.
I read about how Dragons fared in Year 2019. Sounds like a good year to me. Shall keep my fingers crossed. 🙂
1 more week to 38 weeks and it’s the legit full term of the pregnancy. Looking back, it seems that this pregnancy had made me realised alot in life, appreciating things that I once didn’t bother:
Health – Healthy body bags a healthy pregnancy. I got no guts to announce this pregnancy because every single day, I am threading the fine lines between life and death. I had been experiencing STB (short-term bleeding) from Week 7 to Week 35 and need to get certain jabs done every single 2 weeks. Expensive pregnancy I would say but all is well for the priority of #BabySayge.
Pace of Life (Time) – Yay. I used to be a fast-paced person and a renowned workaholic but this time round, I take things slow. Thanks to o_Bye shitty management, I manage to take a break on the compromise of money.
Wealth – Because I had spent too much on this pregnancy prior to the arrival of the Queen aka #BabySayge, I realised I had learnt alot in this. Rich not in terms of cash but experience and I hope this will make me a stronger person.
The pain had kind of made me too depressed that everything seems to take a negative toll on me but thank god for BFFs, mummies, friends and closed family support that made me walked out from all these.
In the meantime, I will just pray that Sayge will just hang on, as much as I do/ would.