Goodbye Mr. Lee and Thank You

Posted on March 25, 2015 by memoriesandsuch

Singapore woke up on Monday morning to a news they all feared and dreaded. Mr. Lee Kwan Yew, the man who is credited for making Singapore the world-class city state it is today, was no more.

Mr. Lee or LKY as he is known, had been in hospital for over a month, battling pneumonia and had been deteriorating in the past week.

Widely regarded as the man most intrumental in shaping the path to Singapore’s prosperity, he was a man who was loved and feared in equal intensity while alive. However, it is in death that an entire nation – from young to the old, from citizens to residents – mourn together for the man who is synonymous with the nation..

He fought for our independence, built a nation where there was none and made us proud to be Singaporeans. We won’t see another man like him.

These words from PM Lee Hsien Loong’s televised message to the nation reflect perhaps what a lot of people were feeling.

He gave us a country we can be proud of, a home to bring up our family and a better life we can aspire to…Much of today’s ‘Singapore DNA’ can be traced to his personal character, philosophy and values – Emeritus Senior Minister Goh Chok Tong in a letter to the late Mr. Lee’s son Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong.

National Day this year is going to be bittersweet. Singapore is celebrating 50 years of independence and the architect and man responsible for this celebration will not be around to celebrate with the nation he helped found. SG50 will not be the same without LKY.

This post isn’t going to be about LKY’s vast achievements which can be found online and in the various media, but a small tribute to a great man who shaped this country I now call home.

Later today, I am going to take BB & GG with me to our nearest CC to write in the condolence book and in our own small way, honour the man, they have the privilege to share a birthday with. I always tell them even if they are able to do a fraction of Mr. Lee’s achievements in their life, they would achieve a lot in this life.

Goodbye Mr Lee Kwan Yew and a heartfelt THANK YOU for making Singapore what it is today – a place we are proud to call home and be a part of. Each time I come home from a trip, when I land in Changi airport, I am so happy to be home. The Singapore efficiency, especially when you compare to the country you’ve just come from, makes you happy to call this place yours and it is all due to your foresight and planning.

To his family, be strong – the whole of Singapore is with you in your time of grief.

#ThankyouLKY #RIPLKY #LeeKwanYew

2015 Week 11 Updates

Posted on March 23, 2015 by memoriesandsuch

A very uneventful week for us. The children has their school holidays about which I mentioned yesterday.

Work has been pretty much in a suspended state for me now. My new boss comes in in the end of April and that’s when I plan to speak to him about my future here. But, I did start one thing though – I contacted a resume writing company and have started working with them to get my resume properly done. Even if I stay on here, I am sure they will want to see a copy of my resume. So it better to have a nice, polished copy 😊

Woke up today to learn that another of Singapore’s founding fathers (random thought – why are there hardly any founding mothers?) and Singapore’s first Prime Minister, Mr. Lee Kwan Yew passed away early this morning. He had been in hospital for more than a month now and in the last week had been deteriorating almost daily.

RIP Mr. Lee.

You were perhaps the single person who was the architect of Singapore’s sucess and in my opinion the person responsible for making Singapore what it is today – a first world country! You will be sorely missed, especially since Singapore celebrates its 50th year of Independence this year.#RIPLKY

We actually share something with LKY – BB & GG were born on his 80th birthday and I remember the nurses in the hospital asking me if I had planned this! I always tell BB & GG that even if they achieve in their lives, a tenth of what Mr. Lee did, they would still have done so much and be so much successful…

Friends: Someone with whom you can dare to be Yourself!

Posted on March 20, 2015 by memoriesandsuch

Everyone has friends, these are the people you choose to have in your lives – for better or worse. You meet people, strike conversations and suddenly there’s that zing which comes because you click so well with each other and a friendship is born! You can go days and even years where you don’t speak to each other, but can pick up almost instantly when you meet next.

Social media has a allowed a lot of people to reconnect with old friends. When I moved to Singapore, I completely disconnected with most of my friends. This was pre-social media days and so we used to exchange emails thats all. But with Facebook and now Whatsapp, friendships which were last seen a very very long time ago has been revived! I now regularly communicate with school friends, most whom I have not seen since the day we collected our school leaving exam results. Yesterday, I reconnected with my MBA friends, again whom I have not seen of or heard in ages!

We also make friends where we work in, but are these friendships true? Yes, sometimes, there are people with whom you have that connection and you go on to remain friends for the rest of your life and I have such friends too. But most of ‘work friendships’ are friendships which are ‘convenient friendships’. You are friends with someone at work because it is helpful to you. Do these friendships sustain themselves outside of work?

I have such friends too A friends I could talk about pretty anything in the sun and she would be my sounding board – it was like being with a therapist and counsellor together. Her answers would be unbiased and with an outsiders view and I suddenly got insights that I never had thought of. Or if I wanted to vent about work, she was there with her two cents worth, which would make me see the issue from another angle. But, and a big but, we didn’t socialise outside of work. After we both left the organisation (she first and then me after about a year), we have met for the grand total of…..Once!! We still text each other once a while – think birthdays and festivals and keep talking of meeting up, but that never happens.

Slowly I realised that office friendships don’t really work. People in most workplaces want to be friends with you for a reason – once that reason is over, they tend to ignore you and you keep wondering what went wrong, or they continue to talk to you, just to get information from you which will benefit them.

Now I may sound cynical, but this has been a long drawn-out lesson in the world! I am pretty naive like that – I like to see the goodness of people and prefer not to think that people have ulterior motives, but then that is the truth in today’s world.

It’s taken me this long to realise this – have a small number of true friends – friends you can share anything with – and not be judged rather than having a large number of acquaintances.

But if you have a true friend, cherish them and keep them close to your heart, as in the words of Mastercard – true friends are PRICELESS!

Much Ado About Sleeping

Posted on March 18, 2015 by memoriesandsuch

I’ve been experiencing something quite strange over the past few months. When I am tired, but can’t sleep, even with the air conditioning switched on, I feel hot. This does not happen when I am tired and sleepy though! Then I feel nice and cold and when I pull up a blanket, it’s nice, warm and toasty – just the right temperature to sleep in!

I tried googling this, but can’t get any site which addresses this problem. Any thoughts?

I’ve always been a bad sleeper – I can take upto 30 minutes from the time I switch off the lights to actually getting some zzz. It doesn’t help that I can’t sleep without some reading done – physical or ebook. So all this can easily add a couple of hours from the time I get into bed to the time I actually sleep. I’ve pretty much tried everything, meditation, counting sheep, trying to get into the zone etc., but the only thing for me to really fall asleep is to get super tired! Some days even that doesn’t work and inspite of being tired, I am wide awake…

Scientists say that an adult requires between 7.5 to 9 hours a day. I fall somewhere in the middle – my ideal is 8 hours, but I can function well on 7.5 hours. However, I rarely sleep that much every night, except maybe over the weekend! I use a sleep tracking app (actually two, since I am OCD like that 😝) on my phone and have realised that I actually need slightly more 50% of my total sleep in deep plus REM sleep.

Sleep deprivation occurs when there is not enough of deep sleep. This is the time the body repairs itself and builds up energy for the day ahead. It plays a major role in maintaining your health, stimulating growth and development, repairing muscles and tissues, and boosting your immune system. In order to wake up energized and refreshed, getting quality deep sleep is essential.

For those who don’t know, REM or Rapid Eye Movement Sleep is one of the five stages of sleep that most people experience nightly. It is characterized by quick, random movements of the eyes and paralysis of the muscles. This stage of sleep is also sometimes known as paradoxical sleep and this is when most people are able to have especially vivid dreams. Every night we sleep, we move between wakefulness, REM and non REM sleep. Each cycle typically lasts about 90 minutes each and repeats as much as four to six times each night.

During REM sleep, your brain consolidates and processes the information you’ve learned during the day, forms neural connections that strengthen memory, and replenishes its supply of neurotransmitters, including feel-good chemicals like serotonin and dopamine that boost your mood during the day. Sleeping an extra 30 minutes to an hour in the morning, when REM sleep stages are longer will get you more mind and mood-boosting REM sleep, try sleeping an. Improving your overall sleep will also increase your REM sleep. If you aren’t getting enough deep sleep, your body will try to make that up first, at the expense of REM sleep.

Most adults, atleast those that I know of often have huge sleep debts and we think by sleeping in over the weekends (waking up late, taking naps during the day) will allow us to pay a part of that debt. However, it’s not that easy. This will help only temporarily and you may feel great on Monday after a weekend spent sleeping away, but as the day goes on, you’ll only feel more tired. Ways to get off a sleep debt include trying to sleep atleast 7.5 hours each night, sleeping an extra hour each morning and paying off the debt over a period of time, keeping a sleep diary to record sleep and drastically taking a sleep vacation to pay off a long-term debt. Lastly, schedule sleep in your calendar and banish anything from your bedroom which hinders sleep (Easier said than done, I know! Been there, done that 😳)

There are tons of resources available online for sleep. Googling “sleep” gave me 798,000,000 results and googling “how to sleep better” gave me 632,000,000 results!

If you also are sleep deprived like me, go ahead and look these up, but remember, don’t do this before you are about to sleep. You’ll be up all night otherwise!

Happy zzzz

2015 Week 10 Updates

Posted on March 16, 2015 by memoriesandsuch

It was an eventful week for us, the biggest thing that happened was the fact that the my laptop at home crashed for no discernible reason. This happened while BB was having an online lesson. The worst part was the photos in the laptop, which I had not gotten around to transferring to an external drive.

I googled and found data recovery centres and now my laptop is with them. I am really hoping that the photos get recovered. Lesson learnt is that now I am exploring cloud storage. My research shows Dropbox and Google Drive to be the best.

I will come back with my final choice. But if anyone has any suggestions or choices, please do drop a note.

Memories and Such

Memories of a very ordinary life

Category Archives: Life