I got my first dose of the COVID-19 vaccine this week and it went better than I thought. We got the Pfizer vaccine and after the registration, I was sent to the nurse for the vaccine. The nurse asked me about my dominant hand and then started the process of inserting it in my left hand, which is my non dominant hand. By the time I realised the needle was going in, it was out and the process barely took a few seconds. Then after waiting in the observation area for 30 minutes, I was let go with a paper about the next dose.

Now, everyone reacts differently and my experience will be completely different to others. S who took the vaccine one day before me fared worse than me. For me, when I was sitting in the observation area, I had some pain time and again, almost like in waves, but by the time I reached home, the pain was barely there. I normally sleep on my left side, and tried to avoid it that day. But I know I did move at night, but there was barely, if any pain. The next day there was some slight pain, but nothing else and I was back to my usual self by the middle of the day. I didn’t get any fever or headaches and feel I was let off very easily. I am now hopeful for the second dose now and hopefully will not feel so bad as I have heard from others.

BB & GG starts their second year of school tomorrow and for BB, this is basically a make or break semester. If he does not pull up his grades and by a lot this semester, he has to rethink his career choices and may not be able to get into the university course of his choice. Here’s hoping both do well this semester and live up to their potential.

And this segues well into today’s positivity quote which is about reaching your potential. And it’s very close to a quote I love attributed to Walt Disney which is if you can dream it, you can do it. It means that you are only limited by your thinking. If you have dreams, then the only place they are impossible is in your own thinking. Think about this, and it makes absolute sense, we are limited by our thinking and if we can dream about something, then nothing stops us from achieving them, except ourselves!

India’s COVID-19 cases have been soaring the past few weeks and I am amazed and shocked at how the governments, both at the centre and at the state levels, are allowing massive religious festivities to happen without any social distancing and not a mask in sight! I am also hearing news of a possible new variant which is affecting children in different states which is worrying.

So please, please take care, stay masked and if you are eligible, go and get vaccinated! See you next week.

I am pretty excited as this week, S and I will take the first dose of the COVID-19 vaccine. But in my home state of Maharashtra in India, the situation is quite grim as they have run out of vaccines and many vaccine centres have been closed for the past few days. My parents have gotten their first dose and were supposed to get their next dose some time later this week, but now as things stand, it is not certain when they will actually get the dose and the effectiveness of the dose.

Cases are really surging in many countries and the world has seen an excess of 135 million cases with the bulk of the cases in the USA and Brazil and India with India reporting more than 100,000 cases daily multiple times this week. I am very concerned for my parents and other elderly relatives in India. They have been planning to go visit my grandmother in Bengaluru for months now, but because of all the new cases coming up, their plans keep getting postponed time and again. We thought getting the vaccine will be the key, but now that also looks unlikely in the near future. We can only pray.

This week was quite bad for me in terms of productivity because for some reason, I kept getting distracted and could not do everything I wanted to do. I am hoping this coming week will be different and I am able to focus more and get all that I want to do done.

And this is the perfect entry to our thought of the week. That if you think positive, good things will happen to you and believing in negative thoughts and things is definitely the one major obstruction to success. So if you have negative thoughts coming your way, take a deep breath and push that thought away and think something positive instead.

That’s it from us this week. The children will start their second year next week, so things will get heated up for them now, with more face to face lessons. Stay safe everyone.

Tomorrow I complete one year of meditation and mindfulness. I am quite proud of myself and when I started, I didn’t really think I could really follow this through. I went through the apps I use for this and realised, over the past year, I have done slightly more than 183 hours in the last year. I have really benefitted by practising mindfulness and meditating daily and I have blogged about this previously. Find something that resonates with you, be it the app, the type of meditation and even the time and it will become a habit very soon. If I don’t meditate as soon as I wake up and have my coffee, I feel something is amiss and I think that’s my cue that this has become a part of me now, so much so, I prefer waking up an hour earlier than everyone else just so I have a quiet home in which I can meditate.

My walking took a bit of a hit this month because of the leg and ankle pain I had, but I am happy to report that GG while massaging my ankle one evening, popped something (we both have no idea of what she did, but we heard a distinct pop) and the pain has been minimal or non-existant till today (touch wood!). This month, I have walked across almost the whole of peninsular Malaysia, reaching the northern border of the state of Perak, just short of reaching the state of Penang and Kedah. I will most probably bypass the state of Perlis, because it does not fall in the North-South Expressway and by the end of April, I should enter Thailand.

My reading has really taken off this year and I am currently reading both e-books as well as physical books borrowed from the National Library of Singapore. I am currently 10 books ahead of my scheduled number of books to be read by the end of the year and will have to move my goal post if this goes on.

This week’s quote is about looking at an obstacle and not seeing it as a deterrent, but instead as an opportunity to show what you are made of and of converting that obstacle into an opportuntity and this boils down to your attitude. If you see a glass as half empty, you have a negative attitude and probably see it as something that will hinder progress, but if you see the glass as half empty, that you see things positively, then it’s a learning, even if it is an obstacle and you look at everything thing that happens in your life as a learning experience, be it positive or negative.

From tomorrow, Singapore opens up more and offices can start having 75% of their staff work inside the office as opposed to less than 50% previously. They will work three days a week in office and the remaining two days will be from home. This means that S will go back to work after a year of working from home. He is having mixed feelings about this and will have to start waking up earlier now as he used to sleep the time he had to commute to work.

My parents have taken the first dose of the vaccine, but are still waiting for another week or so before they take the second dose. I am worried about them as India, my home state of Maharashtra and specifically Mumbai has seen a huge spike of cases in the last week or so. I keep telling them not to delay their second dose, but apparently they need to wait six weeks for the second dose for the particular vaccine they have gotten. If you are eligible for vaccination, please go ahead and take them as soon as possible. S and I signed up for our turn last week when the government announced vaccines for our age group. This week we got our personalised link and have signed up for our first doses later this month and the second dose scheduled for early May.

That’s all people, stay safe, stay masked and get vaccinated if you are eligible.

Happiness is the only thing that multiplies when you share it. This is a quote that forces you to think on multiple levels. How is happiness defined and is the level of my happiness the same as someone else? It’s something that we seriously need to think about and once we unlock this lesson, it becomes that much easier to become happy and to spread happiness all around.

After about two weeks, my ankle and leg pain is much better. From a pain of 8 on a scale of 1 to 10 with 10 being very painful, it’s probably a three now. One of the days that GG was massaging my ankle, she pressed hard enough that we heard a pop from a bone that was painful to touch. But that pop helped in the healing so much that after that day.

We are about a year into lockdowns in most countries and with newer waves coming in, I am not sure when life will go back to being normal. Singapore will start easing some restrictions from next week, especially those about more people being allowed into offices. Residents between the ages of 45 and 59 are also encouraged to sign up for the vaccine and as soon as this was announced, S and I signed up for the vaccines, as did many others I know in this age group. We will get a notification once vaccines are ready and then we will have to book an appointment slot. I am quite eager to get vaccinated because of my parents. If there is an emergency, then between my sister and I, I am the one who will be able to get there faster and for this, I will need to be vaccinated so I am not forced to quarantine myself both sides.

BB got his results early last week and though he did better than the previous semester, he didn’t do as well as we expected. After a long talk, he has promised to pull up his socks and work hard in the next semester. This is probably his last chance to pull up his grades if he wants a chance to go to university after his national service.

This was all from my side this week, stay masked, stay safe and stay indoors if possible!

This week and the following week is results week for BB & GG. GG’s results came first and while it was more or less expected, she didn’t do as much as she expected to do which meant her cumulative GPA fell down a bit, for which she was upset for about half a day and then bounced back promising to bring it up in the next semester. BB’s results come out tomorrow and I for one, am in equal parts anxious and worried.

My leg and ankle pain is still there and some days are quite bad. I am lucky that GG is a talented maseusse, though she does not know any technique, but helps me once or twice a day to massage the aching parts. This means my walking this month is getting hit and I don’t think I would walk as much as I have done in previous months. This is a busy week for me, but I think if the pain persists, I will have no choice, but go to the doctor next week and have it checked out. I know I am probably being negligent, but I hope this goes away before I need to see a specialist.

Today’s quote is a classic positivity quote which asks one to bring positivity with them wherever they go. It’s a great lesson, especially for me, since I am trying quite hard to be more positive in 2021. It means bringing something positive with you at all times, and making the best of any situation.

That’s all for this week, stay safe people!