I'm on Clubhouse (Android) and It's Interesting. I'll Stick With It.

Clubhouse was recently made available to Android users.

I wasn’t sure if it was a little too late and if they had missed hitting their critical mass, but I decided to give it a shot anyway.

A number of featuers were missing, including the ability to show links to your other social media IDs, which I thought was a pretty glaring omission.

As a highly auditory individual, I’ve always enjoyed listening to the radio and, later, podcasts. No surprises that I enjoy Clubhouse as well.

I certainly prefer it far more than Zoom meetings, for the one major benefit that I don’t have to be visible and nobody else is either.

For all I know, the person speaking at any one time may be in the toilet, walking around in his underwear, or tucked cosily in bed.

And it doesn’t matter!

I’ve listened in on discussions about the pandemic, politics, travel, people offering useful tips for various things, and even improv jazz performances.

I’ve also shared my thoughts to complete strangers.

All without having to dress up, prepare my background, and make sure I look presentable.

Clubhouse is interesting. And I’m going to stick with it for a while.

My 8 Predictions for 2020 - As COVID-19 Progresses

There’s been A LOT of news flying around, not all of which are very encouraging. I’d really rather not add to the gloom, but certain things seem inevitable.

So here are my predictions for the rest of the year, 2020:

1) Singapore will have its elections, and the current party will win by a significant margin.

2) Singapore’s total COVID-19 cases will go up to 50,000 - 100,000 before Dec 31, 2020. This will occur due to a second / third surge of cases. I really hope I’m wrong about this one.

3) Air travel in and out of Singapore will be partially re-instated by July, and there will be an initial surge in demand.

4) New initiatives will be put in place, either by MOM or some other body, that elevate the status of freelancers / contract workers and make things easier for them in situations when they need what is typically quite easy for employed workers - e.g. bank loans, credit card signups, etc.

5) Video conferencing will see a sharp drop in demand once workplaces start having their employees back, and people start moving around again. It will, however, still go back up to a level of use that is higher than it ever was before.

6) China will experience a drop in prestige, but will continue to expand and exert its power over and through ASEAN, Near East, and African nations that are currently still friendly with it.

7) Trump will remain President of the USA after 2020.

8) World markets will have a downturn through the 2nd half of the year, though I’m not yet sure if it will ‘properly’ crash. I’ll probably have to update this when I see more signs.

Guess Who's Back!

Many apologies for the long absence. Major events have been occurring and I just got back from Taiwan after my honeymoon.

Yes, in the month or so since my last post, I'm blissfully married, had a number of photoshoots and been to Taiwan - Taipei and Hualien - on honeymoon.

So many thoughts to organise, so many things to express. It'll likely take a few posts but I'm confident that I'll be able to put it all together.

In the meantime, I hope you and yours are well. 

Stay tuned for more updates in the coming days ahead!

Yes, that's a motorcycle coming towards me!

A Motto I Live By

Bangkok is always an enjoyable city. The people, the culture and, of course, the food are all wonderful.

While there, I became acutely aware of being part of an ever-connected world. There were a number of work-related communication attempts that I had to turn away. There was also a lot of information being exchanged that I would have liked to digest but simply didn't. I was, after all, on holiday and I wanted to be fully present with my travelling companions.

Now that I have returned to Singapore, I have done the necessary replies and correspondence.

What struck me was how little it mattered that it took a few days longer to get these seemingly-urgent-at-the-time things done. Nobody lost their minds or their jobs, neither did anything become irreparably damaged.

This made me realise how odd it is that many today refuse to leave their work behind for a while or perhaps it is a reluctance to delegate the decisions to someone else or to be seen as 'relaxing' while others are working.

Maybe it is a combination of all the above factors or some others that I have not yet considered.

Of course, If I had known beforehand that an important business deal that had been years in the making would occur during my holiday period, that would have been a different story. I would have set time aside during my trip specifically to get what I had to do done and I would have informed my travelling companions that I would be unavailable for that hour or so. I feel that it is the only right (and polite) thing to do.

Granted, we all live in a world that is constantly connected and last-minute things occur all the time. Despite this, I do think that it is just as important to take time off work to unwind and enjoy being in the place and moment, if only for a few days.

One of my mottos when I first started working was this:

Work never ends. Lives do.

I work by this motto. I believe that I always will.