Silicon Valley Bank and Credit Suisse are the hot topics for the past week. Personally, I have nothing useful to contribute to the discussion and will not be taking any action no matter what the final outcome is. Hence, I won’t be writing about it.

Instead I am doing a personal post and share what have changed since I left my job more than a month ago.

The obvious difference is I no longer go to work and on the 12th, I no longer see the abbreviation SAL in my bank account. That also means I lose out the salary bonus bank interest! Other than that, I would say changes have been pretty gradual. I continue to send my kids to school and fetch them back when their days end late. I am also doing the same household chore throughout the week, except at a different timing and with less haste.

What exactly are the things that I am able to do more now?

A little more…

Without the need to report to work early in the morning, I now have time to have breakfast with my spouse. I am grateful for Singapore hawker food. Even though price has increased over the past year due to inflation, they have remained largely affordable. The two plates of wanton noodles with the soya beancurd and drink shown in the picture costs less than $10. Not every meal is out; sometimes we just have bread at home but either way we definitely have more time to chat in the morning.

With a more flexible schedule, I am able to meet up with friends. So far I met up with a few friends from my primary school and also my primary school teacher! I owe it to her for laying the foundation on my command of English language. Though language is still not my forte, I have sufficient proficiency to survive in my work. Oh, she has an awesome view from her place and like she said, it’s holiday every day!

I also had a nice catch-up with an ex-colleague. While we stay near each other, we had not met up until recently. And it occured probably because we bumped into each other at the mall. Being an introvert, I seldom initiate a meet up, especially amid a busy schedule when I was working. Going forward, I probably can be slightly more active about it. In any case, do drop me a text if you would like to meet up.

Morning walk is back! Still prefer to have a short workout in the morning rather than the evening. The air is crisp and it just set the tone for the rest of the day. Age is definitely catching up and after being inactive for so long, muscles is taking a longer time to get used to the regime. Could feel the sore in the muscle even after a short jog, so I better warm up properly and take it slow. Have been doing it only about once a week and I can definitely up the frequency after the term break.

Started to do some home repair and fixing too. Finally replaced the shaky window handle and successfully assembled an IKEA bookcase. Probably simple tasks for many but I am not a handy man, so this is a good start.

What surprises me the most is that I only manage to read a little more than before. And I blame it on my indulgence of watching Netflix! While I am still going to enjoy my Netflix, I need to adjust my night time schedule so that I can do more reading and also sleep earlier.

A lot more…

What I did a lot more over the past one and half month is writing on this blog! Twelve posts in a month is more than double my average monthly throughput. It does happen that February is the reporting season month, so I did have more material that I can write about. The number is likely to drop in the coming months but I do think that on average I am still going to post more.

I am also exploring new tools to improve on my post and to reach out to a larger audience. I came to know about Canva from work last year but did not explore it. Now that I have tried it, I can understand why many are using it and that includes my daughter who is definitely more artistic than me.

The other tool that I am exploring is Anchor which helps to turn WordPress blog into podcast. The latest is that it is now part of Spotify for Podcasters. I am still very new to it but I can see myself using it more often in the coming months.

Towards a new experience

Making little changes towards a new experience. Nothing significant yet but a little is better than nothing.

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