How Would You Spend Your Last Week on Earth?

 

I can’t remember where I saw this writing prompt, but this sounded interesting, so I saved it and today was inspired to write a post based on this prompt.

 

I do think this prompt makes for a good interview or ice breaker question. Also, the answer you get from this question should reveal the priorities in the person’s life. Should be interesting and I should try it on S someday!

I am assuming that this end is for everyone because of some catastrophe (like a giant meteor or some climate change terror etc) and not someone personal, though, even something personal (like if I had an incurable disease which gave me a week to live), would probably follow the same lines. If it was only me dying, then I’d probably not spend all my money and keep as much as I could for my family, so that would probably be the only thing I’d do differently. Oh, one more thing – in addition to spending time with my family, I’d also write notes for them for the different times in their lives that I would not be there with them and also record videos for them.

 

Of course, nobody would answer things like “I want to spend more time at work to advance myself” or “I want to buy <that thing you can’t do without today>” or even “I want to get toned up” etc. because these are all things that are a means to an end – the end being wanting to provide for your family or even material things that provide you with satisfaction or even happiness for a short period of time. When the push comes to the shove, everyone is going to go back to the basics as it may be, with different people having different priorities in their lives. But I’d like to think, most people would love to have more time with their loved ones, be it family or friends or even someone they are not related to, but love being together with.

 

On to my answer, it will obviously be my family – they come first for me in everything I do and if I had just one week before a doomsday, I would gather them all together with me, my children, S, my parents, my sister, S’ mum etc, money not being an object since the world will end in a week’s time and there’s no need to save anymore, right? I would want to spend as much time as I can with them and soak up all the memories I can with my loved ones.

 

I would also like to take this time to ask for forgiveness to those whom I had wronged, intentionally or unintentionally and also forgive those who had wronged me and mine. I am someone who carries a grudge for a long time, so this would be the best time to forget all grudges I’ve been carrying in my heart for don’t know how long and let sleeping tigers lie.

 

Religion plays a large part in my life and I turn to my favourite God almost everytime I am troubled or even when I am happy. I’d like to think, I have a ‘friend-like’ relationship with Him, so this will definitely be a time when I turn to the higher power to find solace in such trying times. I do not really believe in going to temples or in organised religious functions, but have a more personal relationship. I believe that 10 minutes spent talking to him in a quiet place or even at at the altar at home is better than going to a temple. So this is what I will do – spend time talking to him at a personal level and try to calm my mind so that I can face the end.

So there you have it, how I would spend my last week in Earth. What about you? How would you like to spend the last days on this planet?

(Still) Blogging Anonymously

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I decided to go way back to my first posts and see how long I have been blogging. I realised I would have been blogging on WordPress for 7 years this year (my blog anniversary is sometime in August) and a couple of years before that on Blogspot. Wow! That’s a long time to be blogging, that too anonymously.

I revisited this topic again when sometime last week, I came across an opinion piece in an Indian newspaper by a famous author who was arguing about the privacy issues that a famous Bollywood couple are facing over their new baby’s photo. The baby’s photo was published across media when the doting father put it up as his Whatsapp profile picture (as most parents are wont to do so) and she argued that in this day and age of digital invasion, especially for a high-profile couple like these two, it was par on course, and not something they should take seriously. I am not going to link to the article, nor mention any names, though any Indian who reads this, may know who I am talking about. This article again raised the issue of being anonymous on social media.

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Today, with oversharing being the norm, being someone who hides behind an identity on social media, I am probably an anomaly rather than the norm. With the exception of Facebook and LinkedIn where I am present as myself, I blog under a pseudonym on all other media. I guess I am not 100% anonymous here – you guys do know that I live in Singapore and have two children who are twins and are around 13/14 years old and in secondary school. But I have still not shared more details about myself or a photograph of me and my family, which seems to be what most family and lifestyle bloggers (as I see myself) have on their About me page. Maybe someone who is diligent can find out who I am, but I’d like to think that I am not someone who is famous or infamous that people are really curious to know whom I am in real life.

I know it’s quite hard for me not to build traffic to this site because I can’t just link posts from here onto any of my other social media accounts, so conversely I am actually proud of each and every new subscriber as I know you’ve come here organically and because you like what I write. This is pure validation to someone who considers herself as a closet writer.

I also want to protect BB & GG from any adverse effects of my blogging. Technology is jumping by leaps and bounds and what is probably in the realm of science fiction today may be a something very normal 10 years down the line. I want them to start and live their lives on a clean slate and don’t want any embarrassing photos or blog posts to pop up when a future employer searches their name a few years down the line when they start work or even when they apply for admissions at their dream schools. After all, even today a sweep of your social media profile is done when you are looking at hiring new employees or even students and you don’t want something awkward coming up when your name is searched.

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So there you have why I chose to blog anonymously. I am still not sure if this was the right decision or not, but it’s something I chose to do and will continue to do so moving forward.

2017 Secondary 2 Week 7 Update

A very blah week for the children. GG’s common tests were on almost the whole week and she has been studying quite hard for it. She even woke up at 4:30 am one day to study since she can’t stay up at night. 

BB’s common test starts from tomorrow and unlike GG, he only has 5 exams while GG had almost 8. He will sit out the Mother Tongue paper since his school does not offer Hindi. Compared to GG, he has a more lackadaisical attitude towards his studies. He’s more of a “I’ll study at the last minute”type and this really pisses me off. I foresee more showdowns with him as the year continues and especially when he sits for his O levels!

Have a wonderful Sunday!

2017 Week 4 Update

Nothing exciting happened this week! There, I live a very boring and mundane life and this weekly post does showcase this!

This has been a long weekend, because of the Chinese Lunar New Year celebrations. Living in a multiracial and multicultural society like Singapore, you do get tend to be caught in the celebrations of the festivities of the other races.

Speaking of multiracial and multicultural societies, I am appalled by what is happening in the United States these days! The latest edict by their President which has banned not only immigrants from six largely Muslim countries including legal green card holders is plain ridiculous. Most of the immigrants from these countries are fleeing persecution and hope to arrive in the ‘land of the free’ but that’s not going to happen now. Instead, countries which have exported terror (I won’t name them here, but any simple google search will tell you which ones these are) are not included in this edict, including the countries whose citizens were responsible for some of the most heinous attacks in and on American soil and people. Guess his business trumps human decency!

GG & BB’s dream universities are in America, but if things do not improve, I don’t think I will be comfortable sending them to that country to study as minorities keep getting targeted. University is still almost a decade away for BB, so we still have hope!

I also have loads of family there, some who have been there for decades and are naturalised now and some who’ve been there for a few years now. All of them are highly educated professionals and earn quite well. Browns and minorities even walking the street now begets paranoia and I am quite honestly, worried for them.

Hopefully, the people realise that we’re all human beings and citizens of the world. In this day and time, when distances are not really that important, it’s not wise keeping your borders closed, that too because you are paranoid….

Needed to get this out of my chest, so thanks for reading if you’ve managed to get so far! Hopefully things will get better soon.

January is almost over,  so let’s hope February brings with it better tidings. Have a wonderful week folks!

2017 Secondary 2 Week 3

It was a fairly boring school week for GG & BB this week.

GG’s school honoured all students who won the Edusave awards over the past few weeks. GG was one of them and they school also posted photos of the children on their school Facebook page. GG felt quite embarrassed by all the attention she was getting in school!

BB came home from school to announce he has been selected for his school’s math olympiad team again. They will be tutored for around 5 sessions with a test at the end of this which will be some time just before they close for the half-yearly holidays. I was actually surprised that he got selected as his math marks were nothing to shout at. Apparently, the top 17 math students for the level were selected. It was not enough to be just the top 17, you also had to get a recommendation from your class math teacher.

For the past few weeks, when GG has CCA, she has not been eating the lunch we send with her in the morning. Her excuse every time has been that there was no time to eat, sometimes the difference between the class ending and CCA starting only 5 minutes. I got quite angry about this and texted a school leader, the parent-school liaison person who promised to speak to the teachers. I am also going to raise this question at the tea session with her school principal next month if things do not get better by then.

Have a good Sunday!