This week was a pretty quiet week because the children are on their semesteral holiday and with the end of this semester, they finish their first year of their polytechnic education. Though BB went to school more, GG spent almost all of the her first year having online lessons. As I have been saying previously, hopefully, she will go back to school on a more fulltime basis in year 2.

The good news this week was that my parents finally got the first dose of the covid vaccine. In Mumbai, both private and government hospitals were allowed to administer the vaccine and I spent a good bit of time trying to find a hospital near our home for them, but they managed to walk into a nearby government hospital and because of my father’s Parkinson’s disease, they were also jumped ahead in the queue. Now after their second dose, they will be in a much better place and my sister and I heaved a huge sigh of relief when they got the vaccine.

Tomorrow is the International Women’s day and while there is a post waiting for you tomorrow about the day, I just want to point out that during this last year, women have had to shoulder a larger part of the disturbances which we all have been sujected to. And this is not just anecdotal. I have been speaking with family and friends and especially those who have young children who are home schooling, have had it hard when they also have a fulltime job to do. BB & GG are older now, but I have been told that those with younger children, that is those not yet in school, also have to contend children becoming very sticky and clingy which again will impact them during their work day and when they will go back to work.

And so we come to today’s positive quote is about happiness. If we think about it, it is a state of mind and we expend the same energy to be happy as to be miserable, so why not just be happy instead of being negative and miserable?

On that note, stay safe people and wishing all my women readers a happy women’s day!

And just like that, with the click of a finger, today is the last day of February.

I am still going strong with my resolutions and I am positively cautious that this will be sustained on an on-going basis for the rest of my life. My average steps per day were slightly less this month as compared to January, but I still managed to hit my target number each day. I have walked up to the norder between the states of Selangor and Perak. This means, from my house in the western part of Singapore, I have crossed the three states of Johor, Malacca and Negri Sembilan plus the Federal Territory of Kuala Lumpur and almost traversed the state of Selangor with the state of Perak just a few kilometers away.

I am reading enough, but not enough for my standards yet. I do try to read for 15-20 minutes daily, but sometimes social media and other distractions get in the way. In the past two months, I have read 14 books and am ahead on my yearly target for books to read.

And on that note, today’s positivity quote is something I am going to abide by. Nobody is ever too old to set another goal or dream a new dream.

We are still seeing COVID-19 cases across the world, but there seems to be trend of the number of cases dropping in many countries. Singapore routinely sees single to low double digit cases almost everyday with most of them being cases coming into the country or imported cases as it’s called. Local cases are zero to low single digits on a daily basis but we will not be moving out of our current phase of mask wearing and having people in homes anytime soon. I assume and pray that sometime in end 2021 or maybe early 2022, there may be enough herd immunity or enough people vaccinated across most of the world to allow some sort of pre-COVID travel.

We also had some family over yesterday for a dinner after so long, that it was refreshing to sit down and have a good chat. We did abide by our social distancing rules and there were not more than eight people in the house.

Have a wonderful week and stay safe, stay masked and be careful, especially with the vulnerable in your family, community and the wider areas.

Today’s positivity quote is something we all need these days. Optimism has become a rare quality and we need to find something to be optimistic about. Because according to the author of this quote, Mary Lou Retton, optimism is a happiness magnet. If we think positive thoughts, then good things will happen to us.

This week was super hectic for me and I barely had time to catch my breath before the week ended. The children are a week before their exams and things are pretty quiet on that front too. They have gone through two semesters or one year of their first year and most of this year was online. BB has been going quite often to school this semester, but GG only had one face to face class per week. Hopefully, she will go back to school more often in year two.

Though the world has recorded more than 109 million active cases till date and more than 86 million of them having recovered from the disease which is about 99.6% of all infected. I also read that the daily reported cases of infections have been falling across the world for a month now and and on Tuesday, 16 February, hit their lowest since mid-October. This is good news for all of us, especially with vaccines being rolled out progressively across the world.

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

This is the Chinese New Year weekend and to those celebrating the lunar new year, Gong Xi Fa Cai, Xin Nian Kuai Le!

Because of the long weekend, it’s been a very quiet week, both at home and at work. Actually things have changed a lot in the last decade or so in Singapore, especially during Chinese New Year or CNY. I remember when GG & BB were younger, the country used to pretty much be shut down during this period, especially the first two days. I remember only the ethnic enclaves of Little India and Kampong Glam used to be open at full strength and we used to stock up on groceries and other essentials so that we don’t need to make a trip down to the stores. On the third day, some supermarkets used to open with limited opening hours and limited, non-Chinese staff. But today, even on the first day, most supermarkets and stores are open, even if it is on a limited basis.

Here’s this week’s positive thought. It’s from Paulo Cohelo and is something we should all do. Positivity breeds positivity and so let’s be enthusiastic about what we do so we all can have a positive energy surrounding us at all times.

As of yesterday, world over, there were about 110 million cases in total with about twenty-five million active cases, of which slightly over 99 thousand or 0.4% of active cases are critical and of the more than 83 million closed cases, 97% or more than 80 million cases have recovered and two million cases or 3% of all cases died.

Many countries have ramped up vaccinations and are steadily vaccinating their population starting with essential and healthcare workers and then the elderly and the vulnerable. The most popular vaccine seems to be the Pfizer/ BioNTech with 57 countries currently administering the vaccine followed by Oxford/AstraZeneca in 34 countries and Moderna in 27 countries.

Most of the world looks to be fully vaccinated by late 2022 and hopefully everyone in the planet who needs a vaccine will be protected by early 2023 when life will finally go back to a semblance of normalcy. Till then, we owe it to ourselves, our families and loved ones and the elderly and vulnerable in our homes and communities to protect ourselves by masking up, practicing hygiene and safe distancing.

Stay safe people!