Surviving Empty Nest

In my far and wide travels, I have stayed at many types of hotels – luxury to just converted old bungalows. Each stay was an experience. The hotels were usually rooms with the stated amenities. No big deal and usually were not meant for longer stay in the room. If you are on business trip, a hotel room is only for your to sleep the night and if you are on leisure trip, it is merely for showering and sleeping before more activities the next day. I have also stayed in converted bungalows where the ambience was more family-like. Be it in Kuching, Malaysia or Ayodhia, Thailand or Rangoon City, Myanmar – the feeling was the same. It did not make one feel alienated, or totally cut off from the rest of the world as one would feel in a hotel room. Then came along the new wave of accommodations – the AirBnB. People around the world were willing to let strangers into their homes – be it into designated rooms or apartments/houses that they owned. So far I have stayed in more than half...

Well, folks, 2020 is arriving soon. It is time we all live our lives. Living means enjoying life as it comes and one necessity is money. With the Internet of Things taking over our lives, let us start looking at ways to make money, even while having a full-time job. I have compiled a list here (not exhaustive), see what works and if you have more ideas, do share for the benefit of others: 1.     Set up online courses – people these days prefer constructivism. That means, they like to learn on their own at their pace. Most of us learn from YouTube – yes, I get my recipes from them. Sometimes, we need quick fixes like how to set up a formula in Excel, so YouTube is the best place to look at. Of course, some of us still use search engines like Google, then again there are people who would like to learn a full course. Sites like Udemy, TakeLessons can be a good start but my suggestion is to browse these sites first before setting up anything online. Alternatively,...

Now that the thanking part is over for 2019, let me start planning for 2020. So, here’s my new year resolution: 1.     Money, money, money – yes, my first resolution is to make money work for me. Well, either I land a job with a larger package or I find another source of income or I manage my money better so that I could pay all my bills and have enough at hand to make through the month; with some indulgences of course. It is not that I am earning lesser now, however, over the years debt had mounted as I put my second one through her school education – international school – and that made a huge dent on my finances. How and why she ended up at such a school is another long story, however, it is all worth it seeing her mature into a responsible individual. I am coming out of the woods, slowly but it may take longer without more money at hand. Plus, some heavy weight expenses are expected in the coming months, so, it is time to start thinking, job hunti...

A week to go before the year ends – and yes, I have been silent for some time now. The Qatar project has taken off, progress is good though could be challenging at times given that internal and external experts are working on it. A trip to Doha made me busier than usual and that didn’t help to find the time to continue blogging though I was sure that I could blog from there but alas! So, here we are; almost at the end of 2019. I would like to reflect on the past months and thank a host of people and persons who made huge difference in my life. I would like to begin with my past employers – Manipal Global Education Services, with whom I worked for 4.5 years. Those were wonderful years; it was my Bosses at Manipal who saved my life when I was diagnosed with cancer and for that I would always be grateful, however, I wish I was treated better while I was there. It seems like there was a bias against me as I was a woman/single mother. Maybe they don’t feel that way, as that could be v...