Tag Archives: Life

Meditation….Bringing the mind home

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One of my New Year resolutions was to learn to mediate and I tried doing that on Tuesday night just before I went to bed. I quickly Googled ‘how to meditate‘ and looked up this site. It looked quite easy to me – sit quietly in a place for 2 minutes and concentrate on your breathing.

Meditation has lots of benefits I learnt – physical mental and spiritual. You can go to the Art of Living site here, here and here for more information on meditation and its benefits, but my favorites are:

  • Meditation removes accumulated stress from your body and prevents new stress
  • Lowers blood pressure, anxiety attacks, decreases tension-related problems, improves mood, behavior, energy levels and the immune system
  • Increases creativity, happiness and intuition. You gain clarity and shapens your mind which also grants peace to your mind.
  • Lastly meditation makes you aware that your inner attitude determines your happiness!

Well, I set my phone alarm for 5 minutes and tried to concentrate on my breathing. Along with that, I tried to focus on an image – usually for meditation, you focus on OM, but I decided to focus on the image of my favourite God – the idol of Lord Ganesh as Siddhi Vinayak at the Siddhi Vinayak temple in Mumbai. It worked for about 3 minutes, when my concentration broke and I peeked at the timer to see the amount of time left.

Going to try it again tonight, maybe start at 3 minutes and work my way up. Maybe see if there any meditation apps I could use? I am also using the Clear app on my phone to remind me to do it – I’ve set a three times a week target, but my real target will be eventually to do it daily.

I’ll come back and report maybe halfway down the year if this has made any difference to my life, but I slept well last night – so much that when S was dropping me to work, I was closing my eyes and dozing off….

Good Bye 2013…..Hello 2014

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I type this as I wait for the year to end, 2013 to give way to 2014 and think back on the year that was and the promise of a new year.

2013 has been a year of ups and downs and my prayer for 2014 is to have a more stable year, with more ups than downs and a gentler trajectory to the year than 203 was.

2013 for me started badly. I was depressed and despondent, having been out of a job for about a year then. I had rashly left my previous position, thinking it would not be so difficult to get a new one. I was so wrong, so by the time 2013 rolled, I was reaching the depths of my despondency, thinking I won’t get another position. Then came the interview call for my current position. I didn’t have anything better to do that day and went for the interview anyway. I was not too hung up on the position as it
was a contract one, and I was looking for a full time one. But they liked me so much that for the first time in my life, I was in a superior position during an interview. So I accepted and this started my year at this MNC. It’s been a good year so far, colleagues and my boss have been good. After a long time, I have been appreciated for what I’ve been doing. Sometimes wonder how certain people reach positions of being other people’s bosses when they clearly have no idea on how to motivate and retain talent! Guess all those out there may you glad for people like my current reporting manager. My yearly appraisal is coming up soon, so we’ll know exactly how we’ll I’ve done, but if I my half year appraisal is the benchmark, then I should not do too badly 🙂

The children also have had a mixed year. The girl did fairly well, even getting a decent score in her most dreaded subject, Hindi, while the boy continued his failing streak! They were streamed at the end of this year, with the boy going to the third best class (he would have made it to the second best if he had just passed Hindi) and the girl to the fourth best. Hope they both do better in 2014 than in 2013. I’ve started them on private tuitions for Maths and maybe Science, let’s see if this makes any difference to their scores in P5

My personal goals for this year are all health-based ones. I hope this is the year that I finally turn around my life. I’ve been overweight all my life, except for a short time when I was at my optimal weight. So this year I plan on walking 30 minutes daily, and starting from week 1, will run for a minute and increase that by 1 minute every week. That week around week 30 (just around august I think) I should be running all 30 mins. Once I can do that for a month consistently, I’ll increase that by 3-5 mins every week. Hopefully in the next few years I can run my first marathon 🙂

Other health related goals will include taking care of my diet and more care about my skin….

I also want to start making time for my interests and hobbies, one of which is writing (both this blog plus other writing). I guess I won’t be able to do much until the children complete their PSLE, but baby steps…

Wishing everyone a Happy New Year and hoping 2014 will be brilliant for you!!

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Happy New Year…

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The world has no ended, so here we are in 2013! Happy New Year everyone…

2012 was a roller coaster ride for me personally where I went from being gainfully employed full-time to becoming a SAHM. I connected immensely with my children during this period, but the downside was the loss of my career and income.

What will 2013 bring for me – well I do not have a crystal ball to look into, but I do know that it will definitely be better for me than the year that went by.

I did do some new year resolutions and exercising regularly, eating healthily and writing more regularly were the usual suspects. Another one I want to do this year is spend some time everyday reflecting on things to be thankful for. Hopefully I can follow this…

I finally did i…

Aside

I finally did it! After months of agonising over it, I took a huge – and I mean a really HUGE leap of faith and did it on Monday. What did I just do? Well, I resigned from my current employer without having a new one all lined up. This is the first time in my career that I’ve done this. And it seems not a moment too soon. My domestic helper who returned back from her holiday after unexpectedly getting married has been giving me so many problems. Today she crossed all limits. She likes to dish out insults to me all the time, but will not take anything. So I’ve decided to terminate her services and send her back to let her transfer to another employer.

So now I’ve to review what I want to do in life plus search a new helper. Wish me luck…

Renewal of Foreign Domestic Worker (FDW) Work Permit

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Warning, long and possibly irrelevant post ahead!!

This post is going to be of no relevance to anyone except for someone from Singapore and who employs a foreign domestic worker. I am writing this one so that it serves as a guide for me for the future and if, in the process, it helps anyone else, it’s even better!

Backstory

In November, I got a letter from the Ministry of Manpower letting me know that her two year contract with me was coming to an end around the end of the year. I had to renew her contract or send her back home. Both my V and me were keen to renew the contract, but I did not want to involve the agent who had initially placed her with me as I was not happy with the after sales service that was given to me when V and me had differences over the last two years. Ironically at this same time the agent did get in touch with me to check if I was going to renew the contract. Then she went behind my back and spoke to V directly asking her to renew the contract using her services. When V checked with me, I was ambivalent about it but let V know that if she did use the agent, she will have to bear any extra costs herself as I was not interested in paying her any commission. Later V also realized that using the agent would probably mean that she may have to hand over one or more months salary as commission. So we decided to do it on our own.

I checked an online forum I visit and found out the process. It’s fairly simple actually.

Insurance

You need to get the insurance and bond first before you do anything else. I used NTUC Income, package MI3E which cost me S$ 256.80 for a 26 months insurance. The insurance cannot be done online, so give them a call with the MOM letter in hand. They take your credit card number and process the payment immediately. You can then do the renewal the next day at the MOM website.

Actual Renewal Process

At the MOM website, the renewal process is very simple. Using your SingPass, you log in and do the renewal. A form letter is generated which you have to print to bring with you to the Work Pass Services Office to process the new work permit. This letter will give you the date when you need to be there. Along with the form letter, you also need to print out and fill up a kind of guarantee letter, which basically tells MOM that you, as the employer are guaranteeing the cost of the stay of the FDW.

Work Pass Services Centre

On the date mentioned in your form letter, make your way to the Work Pass Service Centre at Tajong Pagar. This was very close to my office and so took me less than 10 minutes to reach by taxi. The WPSC is located very close to the Keppel Shipyard. There, make your way to the room indicated in the letter and take a queue number. When I went there, it was very quiet, maybe because it was around 3 on a Friday afternoon, but the queue number that I got was called within five minutes. They check the FDW’s passport, old work permit, documents and your identity card. Then you can asked to take the form and go to another room where you can pick up the new work permit. There, the wait was around 10 minutes and I got the new work permit for my helper and that was it! I was in and out of the place in less than 20 minutes.

Wonder why I was so scared of the process. But this bodes well for any future renewals.