Happy Birthday To Me

Nope it's not my birthday yet.

That didn't stop my family from celebrating for me early.

It was nice to be able to celebrate with my parents, my kids, my siblings and my wife.

Another year older but none the wiser.

Haha.

Mum prepared a nice sponge cake that was quite special.

And our dinner was the sumptuous spread from Old Airport Road Hawker Centre.

Hokkien mee, BBQ chicken wings and pig organ soup! SLURP!!!

Let the week-long birthday celebrations begin!!!

Back To Work

So we've begun going back to work.

Work From Office (WFO) has been nice.

It is always more fun to socially interact with colleagues in the office.

Work is far more effective also.

The only problem is the requirement to wear mask at all times except when eating/drinking.

Something I really do not like.

That said the company has helped us stock up really nicely.

Look at this!

More Home-cooked Food Porn

Still can't get enough of all the fantastic home-cooked food I'm getting.

From the wifey.

From the MIL.

Phase Two

So we've been in Phase Two since late June.

More than four weeks on and life is good.

Work has gone back to 50/50 splits on alternate weeks. Because WFH has been so effective and there are still restrictions on mask wearing as long as you are out of your house, WFO is restricted to only T/W/T even on the weeks we are meant to WFO. All in we are productive and effective and business is doing better this year than ever before.

Personal life has been so much better. The wifey cooks with a vengeance but the kids and I love her tasty but simple meals. I've become the default dishwasher, laundry guy (wash, hang, fold). This has really helped bring us closer and things have been better for us now in the last three months that it's been for the last two or three years, which really says a lot and I need to continue doing what I am doing right for this relationship to get even stronger.

Health is a little bit of an unknown although I have slimmed down from the home-cooked food by the wifey. Might go for a checkup next week. Hopefully all is well.

Kids have been great. Staying at home with them has really brought all of us a lot closer to each other. And right now at this stage of their lives, there is no place I would rather be to be honest.

Investment front has been abysmal. Every time I try to get back into the markets, I lose money. It has come to a point where I really need to stop trading/gambling and actually invest better now.

All said and done, life is good and long may this continue.

Meet The Parents

Because of COVID-19, I haven't see my parents for almost three months.

So it was a very happy affair to see them again and also for them to see their grandkids with the opening of Phase Two.

Things are slowly opening but all the second waves around the world are still putting a dampener to things.

Nonetheless we need to try to appreciate what we have.

Our first meal together was Old Airport Road Food Centre's Hokkien Prawn Mee, grilled chicken wings and pig innards soup.

SUPER DELICIOUS!!!

GE 2020

It was polling day last night.

I felt like I couldn't be lazy until I neglected to post a single mention of the Singapore General Elections.

We had nine days of hustings and yesterday was polling day.

This is a historic elections considering it was done in the midst of a pandemic so there were a lot of format changes, although I guess generally many things were similar to elections gone by.

Anyway the PAP won with about 61% of the popular vote, winning 83 seats. The big winners were the WP who won 2 GRCs and 1 SMC (Aljunied, Sengkang and Hougang) and will be represented with 10 seats. This is historically the highest number of opposition seats won since Singapore's independence.

Marine Parade, which I'm in, ended up being retained 57/43%.

I felt it was a fair elections result which left most people hopeful/satisfied/happy.

The PAP still got the overwhelming majority they wanted, albeit with the lower share of the popular vote, they will have some soul-searching and restrategizing to do.

The WP has won the most seats it ever has so its voters are happy, though they will need to begin proving that they are deserving of this telling victory. Mind you, even in Heng Swee Kiat's presence, they merely lost East Coast GRC 47/53%. Boy what an upset that would be.

Also no looney or rubbish opposition got in, so that was great.

The Singaporean voter of GE2020 is far more discerning and savvy. They want greater transparency, humility and ground work.

All parties will need to understand this better if they want to make gains in GE2025.