Namaskara from India’s Silicon Valley, Bengaluru! We arrived here at the retirement community my parents live in now earlier this week and this was BB & GG’s first flight and overseas trip in more than three years. It’s also been that long since they have physically seen and spoken to their grandparents. My parents are also super excited to see their grandchildren and both grandparents and grandchildren are having a good time with each other.

Today’s quote is from the Indian Nobel Laureate, Rabindranath Tagore. It’s a beautiful quote where he asks people to let life lightly dance on the edges of time like dew on the tip of a leaf. I believe what Tagore was trying to convey was just like a dewdrop sits on the tip of a leaf in the morning, light and delicately, one should also let their lives live on the edges, lightly and able to change at a moment’s notice.

Since we just ended February, let me share my monthly stats with you. This month, I read less than I did last month – I read 10 books this month, mostly fiction, with a couple of non-fiction thrown in. I don’t think I will be able to reach much this month, because of my India trip, but I will do my best.

As for my steps and walking, this month I walked more than 200 km and am now somewhere between Wardha and Jalna in my home state of Maharashtra. I am about less than 600 km from my home in Mumbai and from there, to get to Bengaluru where my parents are currently living is another 1600 km.

That’s all this week. Next week, maybe there will some mention of the time we had in Bengaluru. Watch this space!

February is almost over and this week’s quote is a reminder that if you are currently facing a tough time, remember it won’t last, but those who are tough internally will outwit and outlast everyone and everything. What this means is that our lives are full of challenges with ups and downs happening in life. But every time there is a down, there will always be an upside, every dark night is always followed by the glowing dawn. No matter how dark a situation is, there is always a light at the end of the tunnel. We can’t stop tough times from happening to us, but accepting the reality of the situation and hoping and working for a better tomorrow is the best thing we can do. The resilience we have and the impact tough times have on us when we work to overcome them is a stepping stone to overcoming life’s challenges.

I read something very interesting this week and thought to share it with you all. A few days back, ChatGPT was asked questions from Singapore’s PSLE or Primary School Leaving Exam which 12-year-olds sit for to go to the next level of their education journey, Secondary school. But the AI bot failed the exam miserably scoring 16% for Maths, 21% for Science and barely scrapped through the English paper. This is when ChatGPT managed to pass a final exam at the Wharton Business School, passed tests in four law school courses, and comfortably cleared a US medical licensing exam. According to an educator, the PSLE’s approach of getting pupils to make informed guesses using varied strategies is not common in other syllabuses worldwide, and this may have been too much to ask of ChatGPT, hence the dismal grades.

GG & BB have finally finished with their polytechnic education, having done their last exams this week. It seems just yesterday, they got their O-level results and now they finish another academic milestone. GG will go on to university while BB will enlist for his national service soon.

That’s all from us this week. Stay safe!

Singapore’s budget came out earlier this week, on Valentine’s Day, and the theme for this year’s budget is aptly titled “Moving Forward in a New Era”. With Singapore entering a post-pandemic era amidst high inflation and increased nationalism, Singapore needs to continue exercising financial prudence while supporting Singaporeans. Among the various benefits to Singaporeans, this year includes the $3 billion top-up to the Assurance Package meant to help defray the rising costs of living and the upcoming GST hike in 2024. Benefits have also been given to families, especially young families and senior citizens.

This was BB’s last week of school! He had his project viva this week and was quite happy about how the project ended and how his viva was conducted. GG, on the other hand, still has a week to go with two more exams before she can put a full stop to her polytechnic journey.

Today’s quote is from the British mathematician, philosopher, logician, and public intellectual, Bertrand Russell. Russell tells us that the world is full of magical things patiently waiting for our wits to grow sharper. What this means is that as we grow older and more mature, we learn to recognise the magic around us. Once we see the possibility of the wonderful things around us, we can’t unsee them and this is the magic of our world.

That’s all from me this week. Take care folks!

In the middle of the week, Singaporeans were treated to the good news that from tomorrow, all COVID restrictions will be stood down and the disease alert or DORSCON level will move down to the lowest level of green. This also means that Singapore establishes a new endemic norm as we learn to live with the disease and adapt to it. This puts COVID-19 in the same category as the Middle East Respiratory Syndrome (MERS) and the H7N9 bird flu strain.

According to the Ministry of Health, this is due to the mild nature of the disease, especially among those who have been vaccinated, and the minimal disruption posed to healthcare capacity and daily lives. The DORSCON level has been maintained at Yellow – the second-lowest tier – since April last year, after more than two years at Orange.

From Monday, masks will no longer be mandatory on public transport as well as in some healthcare and residential care settings. However, visitors, staff, and patients will still be required to wear masks in settings where there is interaction with patients as well as indoor patient-facing areas. These include hospital wards, emergency departments, consultation rooms and waiting areas, pharmacies, clinics, and nursing homes.

Today’s quote is attributed to the singer Brian Nhira who exhorts us that even though we may not have reached our peak, we are still on our journey and on the way to the top. This is a quote that is full of hope that tells us not to give up, even at our lowest. And I think this quote is perfect for today because in the last three years, when we thought the restrictions and limitations would never end, today, many countries have opened up completely and we are on the way to a world where we have learned to live with the virus.

BB & GG are very busy with school with BB finalising his project report and preparing for his project presentations while GG is super busy with exams that start next week. She has been doing late at night and early in the morning studying, and I hope she does well and gets the reward for her hard work.

That’s all from me this week. Stay safe people!

And just like that, we are in the month of love, February. I always associate February being a month filled with love and laughter and so hope that this month is like that for all of us.

I finally reached my home state of Maharashtra this month, after walking nearly 6,000 km since the beginning of 2021. I am currently on the outskirts of Maharastra’s third-largest city and its winter capital, Nagpur. To reach my home in Mumbai, I still need to walk another 700 km.

I exceeded my expectations this month and read 12 books, a mixture of both fiction and non-fiction. I don’t think I have read this much in a month in recent years, so this was a very good start for the year for me, in reading terms. Now comes the part, which is to sustain this reading pace.

This week’s quote comes from Ralph Waldo Emerson, an American essayist, lecturer, philosopher, abolitionist, and poet who led the transcendentalist movement of the mid-19th century. He was seen as a champion of individualism and a prescient critic of the countervailing pressures of society, and his ideology was disseminated through dozens of published essays and more than 1,500 public lectures across the United States. Waldo as he was known as tells us that our past and future circumstances are not important as our character; no matter what setbacks we’ve faced or challenges that lie ahead, we can succeed if we have inner strength. Food for thought, right?

The children are busy with school and winding down to the end of the last semester of their polytechnic education. And GG is also busy with university applications and I hope she gets admitted into the course of her choice at the university she wants to attend. BB will now be liable for National Service and we are still waiting for his enlistment letter which should come anytime soon. So after the end of his diploma, he will start focusing on his fitness, so that he does not have too much of a problem during his Basic Military Training.

That’s all for this week. I hope February is just as lovely as the promise it shows.