Well 3Q-4Q last year was fun and the most fulfilling however, coming to the end of year, I decide to place some level of focus into the things I believed in doing and exited a Web3 SocialFi co that I co-founded to realign my focus. Although I support the idea and believe in it. Everyone has only 24 hours to do things so yeap.
I learnt that saying NO is hard but in order to be successfully in whatever I set to achieve, I need to deal with a lot of heartaches and made a decision to stay laser focus.
Not an easy task but gonna bite it through and make it work.
On another note, I’ve been living on the savings since Oct 2022 to build on what I believe.
Tag: Life
Wazzaup @ NextBlock
Before I kicked off; you can download NextBlock via both Google Play & App Store! Use my referral here!
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!
So, what exactly we/ NextBlock want to do har?
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?
Mai tu liao, go download NextBlock nao!
Living with COVID (Edt 2022)
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*
My Personal Story – Living with COVID-19. :)
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! 🙂
The Caregiver Stress
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.
3 Months Break
Decided to make it or break it and thus left NTUitive/ NAMIC in Apr 2021 to help to pave ways for the family business despite perhaps I know this ain’t an easy journey and at the same time, took a break to work on myself, mental health and reassessing my path forward.
And then I realised – things will never work out the way it is despite how much you have planned including your back up plans.
1 week before I left NTUitive, my crypto trading went beyond the negative for the first time as I didn’t pay attention to my stop losses plan. For short trade, it’s heart breaking but I decided to HODL. And the best, R crashed my car and I just need to bring forward to scrap it. (Edited to include that he went on well and survived the crash. Er hmm.)
1 week after I left NTUitive, the spike in the community cases and clusters made me foresee a dejavu which honestly is driving me nuts due to the incident that happened last year that left me with trust issues with relationships ever since. I told myself that I will fight and win this war but internally, it gave me insomnia and etc. Thank god for my closest kins standing by me and distracting me wherever possible.
My said concerns were formalized with the Phase 2 Heightened Alert aka semi lockdowns. I’m forever amazed with the names that the Government has come up with, the circuit breaker, etc.
Took the whole month trying to find the right business model, right fit and also, spending time with the kiddos and the trying to upskill my knowledge. Decided that I need to really focus on agile methodologies to focus on matters thus I signed up for the course – Certified Scrum Master by NTUC Learning Hub (RTP: S$214) as I have utilized my Skillsfuture credits, I’m glad that I’m still eligible to get an one-off subsidy from NTUC UTAP programme and only paid S$107 to attend this.
This decision was made when I am thinking hard to push forward with my Masters or just, going through the skillsets based programme. Went for the latter as I’m afraid that I couldn’t commit with my careers and kids and I believed that academic credentials is important but being “human” and humane definitely bring it to another level. 🙂
Took these months to catch up on things that I couldn’t afford to do when I was in a full-time job and managing kids and finally made the efforts to declutter the house.
Check out my decluttering list via https://t.me/decluttersbylynn
Went to catch up with a few friends when Government announced Phase 3 Heightened Alert where dining for 2 has been made possible. Also went for a dinner with R at newly opened Saute Sushi at Paya Lebar Square. Love their menu and the train conveyor belt that enhanced the whole dining experience. Hopefully as people are more conscious about the health and climate change, people will swing over to a healthier and vegetarian/ vegan diet. 🙂
Check out their spread and their prices are priced at an affordable pricing. 🙂 Currently, no reservations can be made and we queued for 30 mins (BFF queued for 50 mins) prior to get the seats.
Honestly, hope things get better for Singapore and looking forward to better years ahead. 🙂
During these 3 months, I learnt to be a better person and definitely shall not lower my standards from this moment on. 🙂 Empowering mind, empowering lives.
Coinhako – My Favourite Crypto Trading Exchange Platform in Singapore.
Opinions are my own.
🙂 Just wanna share some insights.
Many had asked me to trade on all sorts of exchanges/ platforms from Binance > Coinbase > Biki and all but ever since Xfers did not continue their partnership with Coinbase. I went ahead and scouted and found a SGD pairing exchange – Coinhako. But why Coinhako?
The answer is simple >
Easier to liquidate to/ via SGD and fuss-free to trade.
When I was with the Blockchain company, I used to trade via IDEX and I had to do coin swapping from IDEX then swap out to ETH/ BTC then from there cash out. During the process, I could have innocently spend unnecessary trading fees on gas/ admin and etc.
But on Coinhako, I would just need to Signup > Verify and Link up 2FA > Trade in SGD pairing > Cash out.
Supporting local companies is important and also the comfort trading in SGD.
Xfers supported up to S$5000 in the digital wallet (due to the Payment Services Act 2020) that you can link to Coinhako and trade. However if you are trading from Xfers wallet, the minimum spend is S$550 and transfer can be reflected within 5 minutes of a successful transfer.
Whereas if you trade from Coinhako wallet, minimum buy would be S$10 however depends on the $Crypto you are looking at. Deposits clearance is daily placed in at 10am/ 4pm respectively.
So in summary, good things about Coinhako:
- Pairing in SGD
- Fuss-free on the Banking & Liquidation Part (Link to SG Bank accounts/ Connect with Xfers)
- Local Enterprise #supportlocal with at least 5 years in this business
- Great Community via their Official Telegram Groupchat (It’s important to gain some quick insights if you don’t monitor the market and we HODL together.)
- Daily “Clock-in” Rewards when you logged into the App and Earn Points.
- Points can be offset for % in trading fee (normally 2-times usage of 25% off on trading fee @ 500 Coinhako Points)
- Refer-A-Friend and Earn-As-They-Trade
- Great UXUI – Price Charts and all.
- Once a while, they will organize some form of gatherings. Yay to free drinks~
Since the crypto market is now facing a little dip, I would take this chance to accumulate coins before BTC halving in May 2020.
Welcome to use my referral code: WILLYNN_576906
Check out my $Crypto Portfolio via the Folio tab above. 🙂
Trade well, HODL till it moons!
Update as of 03 Jan 2021; Bitcoin hits all-time-high. LOL Anyone wants tip me, please send via the following $BTC Wallet address at the sidebar. HAHAHA.
Entrepreneurship Journey Thus Far
Sometimes I don’t understand my mum because the double standard-ness is at sky high level that sometimes I can’t comprehend with her thoughts.
She always said that; “Wah, you can be a boss leh because you got the brains and the guts” but on another hand “Why you wanna be a boss ah? Find a proper job lah. You need to feed your kids. Be a boss hor, very stress one leh.”
Like hello mum, a boss is a proper job. Ok perhaps my entrepreneurship was never a smooth sailing one. My first venture was into blogshops in Year 2011 if I remember correctly?
The idea came about during some free times during the maternity leave and it triggered me to explore a second income but it becomes a good learning ground despite the fact that it’s the blogshop bloom era where majority are hosted via either blogspot or livejournal.
But apparently I didn’t become the next Love, Bonito. 🙂 I feel that the reason was that the instability and the full-time job are already too overwhelmed to handle so it didn’t give me the diehard PUSH factor.
So I closed down the now-defunct blogshop and donated all my new clothing to SCWO for the name of charity and hopefully finder keepers theory.
This is not the end. I didn’t give up and work on the — many ideas which came upon me during the pregnancy, maternity period and post-period. Helping to solve my “own” personal issue as a mother of one, two, three and now, four kids (plus 2 furkids) and this is how it evolved to Scentimental and Piggyback.
Failure is not everything. It’s a good lesson learnt and it made me a stronger person. Sometimes you win some, you lose some.
It was never easy to hold a full-time job and work on the other portfolios during the wee hours. Sometimes I only get to have 2-hours of sleep each day and at times when I got burnt out but at the end of the day, it’s to solve a particular problem, a common problem.
Perhaps will share more about each company in coming future. 🙂
OPINION: A Woman’s Standpoint
Actually, sometimes I think back, I realised I had been shortchanged all the while. Thus with a whole new level, I want to set a good example that women should never lower their expectations for someone who’s not their par.
Emphasizing this as a marriage partner because both will need to propel together as one. I always asked myself — if the girl is my daughter, what would I say?
Yes, we should not be materialistic but somehow basic needs will need to be fulfilled. Otherwise, it’s hard to move on. Similar if my daughter divorced in the near future. Even with kids, the more one should not even lower the expectations. Otherwise it’s sending the wrong signals to defuse confidence in the kids.
As women are more fortunate now to be able to get a better education, having financial stability and all, having a partner or not, made no difference however being in a relationship, the other party would need more from us as we would be the only one who is capable to give birth to their offsprings or mental/ physical support.
Wow, I just suddenly feel that I had a strong feminist POV towards things in life but well nothing will change the fact as no one knew how tough I had walked on this path to reach this far. And also this post is dedicated to all women whos roughing out their paths now. XOXO
Similarly, I kept reminding myself.
11.11 is Single’s Day.
No 1-carat ring, say “No” to marriage. Stay single then. LOL
Workplace 101: Leaders versus Managers
“Manager says: GO! but a Leader will always says: Let’s GO!”
Recently, there is so much negativity that overwhelmed me that I relooked back on what I’ve done, learned and where can I improve. Then it reminded and re-emphasized on the theory of leadership.
There is so much to learn and I sincerely hope that all these can be taught to the younger one since young.
One needs to create an impact and not just direct blindly.
Comfort zone should not be embraced that much if one wants to grow significantly. Saw this picture on Facebook and finally understand how much one can achieve if there is less resistance, So ta-da. 🙂
Just got to keep reminding myself to look forward, keep going and stay sane.
WILLYNN (@hueyytingg) 