Let go...

I read an article on an interview with successful women. One question was how the successful women manage their family, especially when they have young children. One of the replies was to let go and reprioritize.
I do not aspire to be a successful or brilliant working mum. All I hope for is to be a working mum. But this will also mean that I have to sacrifice a lot of precious time with my child. How to let go of the kind of discipline and values that I want to instill in my child? How to let go when I myself have certain likes and dislikes of how I want my child to grow up?
To let go will make a lot of people happier. But what are the things that I can compromise? How to strike a healthy balance? I suspect I do lean towards the tiger mum's ideology. Strict family upbringing. I myself come from a strict asian family. But is it still going to work in this age? Will it cause more harm to the child? Will I end up being unhappy too?

Invest and not gamble

The election is over. The results were both exciting, disappointing and exhilarating!
First, a GRC is won by an opposition team after the system was put in place for many years. GRC is meant to promote multi-racial leadership but somehow it is also used to limit alternative parties' participation. I prefer to use alternative parties rather than opposition parties. Opposition just sounds so negative. Yet, on 8 May 2011, WP has made history by winning the first GRC from incumbent party. A big salute to them. At the same time, I sincerely hope that this is not a gamble for WP. It involves the lives of the entire constitutency and the faith of WP's supporters in WP being a responsible party to improve lives for fellow Singaporeans. Their report card will be out after 5 years and we shall know if their supporters will live and repent. Let's all hope that our faith and support in WP will be a good investment!
"Investing and gambling are both games of chance. " This is quoted from an advertisement on investing workshop. How often are we able to invest wisely, rather to gamble with a stroke of luck? With our raising cost of living, it is good to have a second source of passive income. The stock market seems an attractive place to earn that second source of income. However, it is also a dangerous place if the investor does not have the right understanding of the stocks that they are investing in. I learnt my lesson in 2007 when I followed in stock investment blindly. Till now, I'm still stuck with the two stocks and they have devalued greatly that I have hardly any hope that I can recoup my losses.
Yet I am still tempted to this very day to try investing again. Where else am I able to grow my retirement nest? I wanted to earn a honest living by getting home based job online. The harsh reality is that most of them are scams that hoaxed my hard-earned money. These people are downright despicable. Thus with only myself to trust, I should get the proper education and knowledge of investment in stocks. Only then, with additional luck and hearsay, I hope I can get a decent second souce of income.

Singapore GE2011!!!

This year election has created a lot buzz. Mainly due to lots of oppositions contesting in more constituencies. Finally no more walkover for the constituency that I lived in. For so many years, the mighty Marine Parade GRC has taken care of the estate that I lived in. This year, it is craved out to form a Mountbatten constituency. Finally, I get to vote! And I will consider seriously who to vote for.
PAP, represented by Mr Lim Biow Chuan, has not visited my household. He has not made any speech in the rallies so far. In contrast, Ms Jeannette Chong, representing NSP, has visited my household and made numerous speechs. I agree PAP is a strong backing for Mr Lim. But if I do not see any effort from him, he can hardly earn my vote.

Parenting support

In this fast paced society, having a dependent is not easy. How to raise a kid? I wonder.
Looking at other kids, I always thought to myself that they could be disciplined more, they should be given more attention by their parents. Yet, these are easier said than done.
In the past, parents have kids and try to provide as much as they could. The best thing that one parents can provide is to give the kid a tertiary education. Education is seemed as the key to success. But nowadays with the fine-tuned education system to produce more elites, it has create high level of competition among kids. Parents also have their share of stress. Some resort to giving the kids a lot of tuition and supplementary classes. Drawing, dancing, music, swimming... etc. You name, they have it. All these need a lot of financing and parents need to shower with attention too to ensure kids are coping well. But with the increasing living standard, both parents usually need to work to sustain such a lifestyle. Thus government need to come in to provide some financial support. Yes, Singapore has baby bonus and mothers do enjoy 4 months of maternity leaves to care for the new born. But are these enough?
If we look at country like Germany or even Austria, I would say no.
Parenting in Germany: An Introduction 
This article shows us the extent of government support given to ensure the well-being of kids. I wish one day Singapore will advance to this level of support.

All roads lead to Rome

I have been so influenced by friends and the trend that I kept thinking that it is natural to own a car before having a kid. Is that a definite step to take?
NO!
This morning, I saw a couple bringing their little boy taking the MRT. I guessed they are bringing him to the childcare. He does not play with iphone, rather his parents gave him two children books to occupy himself. They also guided him to read and teach him new words. With these, I held the parents in high regards. Frankly, I really cannot relate to parents who allow their kids to indulge in electronic gadgets. First, it could deterioriate the kid's eyesight. Second, the kid is just lost in the world of solitude. I still prefer the tradition of books and lots of interaction with kids.
The modern life has given us lots of convenience. A car to drive the kids to parents home for babysitting. A iphone to keep the kids occupied and leave us alone to indulge in our own interests and lives. A maid to wait on the kids. I really hope that I have the strength to say NO to all these. All these can relieve me of lots of hard work and make my life a lot easier. But do I want to take the easy way out?
I really want to have an independent, active kid, who will have great bonding with me. I do not want him/her to depend on maid, have bad manners and always take the easy way out.
Next time when I have kid, I must always remind myself of the thought that I have today.

Make-up recycling tips!

I have come across a useful article and it is really intriguing. In our daily life, there are a lot of things we can save and recycle. I am not a make up expert and so I admit I do waste quite a few cosmetic too. I try to salvage some expired eye shadow to be used as 'crayon'! But frankly speaking, how often do I use crayons nowadays? Rarely. So the eye shadow is still lying in my drawer, unused.
Now this website do gives some useful tips: How to avoid beauty wastage

Happy Earth Day!

This year, Earth Day is on a public holiday. This also helps a lot of advocates to organize activities for Earth Day. Giant Hypermarket has impressed me again. Its intention to cultivate green initiatives in little kids is definitely a good start.
Up to 120,000 kids to reduce use of plastic bags 
Let's hope these kids will grow up with the correct mentality and also influences some parents to be more aware of such initiatives.

How do we balance our activity?

Earth day is going to be on 22 April and the official website encourages organisations or individuals to promote the event.
However by promoting the event, we could be generating more carbon emissions. Isn't this contradicting?
Take for example, the massive, much advertised Live Earth event in 2007. The concert dragged for hours to promote green. Yet, the rubbish generated by the audience and carbon emission generated by the event itself are humongous.
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/femail/article-466775/Live-Earth-promoting-green-save-planet--planet-on.html
Thus, what is the correct way of promoting such event? If we do nothing, we cannot create awareness. But when such big scale events are organized, we are creating more carbon emission. This is backfiring on our kind objective. How do we have an event that is carbon neutral? I do hope the organizers of such green events have fully considered all these.
So one should be rational when supporting such event. Do I want to attend the event and create more rubbish or dutifully stay at home and do my part for mother earth?

Earth Day!

Earth day is coming! And there is going to be celebration at Bottle Tree Park on the actual day - 22 April. I think this was inspired by the Earth Day official website! http://www.earthday.org/earth-day-2011

Other than fun and laughter, I wonder how much is Singapore as a society progressing towards environmental service? At supermarket, we still use unlimited plastic bags. Even a small town like Kota Bahru in Malaysia has no plastic bag campaign in their supermarket. I wish Singapore could do it better.

Setting up ...

It has not been easy setting this account up. From account and profile design to my web browser upgrade, all has been done within a day. And matching the title of this website, "It could be better"! Definitely!

I came across this phrase during a company orientation program. The presenter showed us a cartoon on how man reinvents the wheel relentlessly. And how these efforts translate into higher efficiency and productivity. At that moment in time, I scribble this simple phrase into notebook. I aspire to put this spirit into practice, be it at work or at play. 

If I am able to uphold this attitude towards everything I do, there will be continuous improvement in my life! Wow... This sounds so business-like. To put it simply, I do not want to stay stagnant. Moving on will bring spark to my life and spice up things a bit. I presume...

A good start

Out of the blue, the idea to start a blog dawn on me. I could write anything under the sky. The idea of this excites me. In the past, I thought that maintaining a website will be troublesome and time consuming. Yet, as technology evolves and makes our life more convenient, especially with the common use of smartphone, now I no longer see this as a chore. Rather, it is rare if I do not touch the pc for more than 2 days.

Sometimes, I wonder what kind of person I am. Am I an introvert? Or do I have very weird and shallow thinking? Do I strive for perfection or can I live with the bare minimum? Maybe blogging will help me to discover myself. It seemed to me that a person's character is ever-changing with age and events. With the huge population online, comments, encouragements, criticism will open my eye to great extent.

I shall see how long I can maintain this enthusiasm in blogging. =)