Hey! How are you friends doing? Things have been pretty weird and surreal due to the COVID-19 outbreak and all of us (I would say “most” since clearly some people don’t care about social distancing which could cause potential escalated cases, but heh, I’m too tired of getting angry) have been doing our best to take care of ourselves and others. More power to you and to us! We can do this!

There is this meme that I really like about how we do our social distancing:

And there’s even a passing analysis about that meme on NY Times related to how folks react to “fight the virus”-attitude.

Anyway! So yeah, back on March 16, Malaysian government announced order for restricted movement. Not an actual lockdown lockdown, but we do have restricted access to public places and it’s expected for us to stay at home from March 18 to March 30/31. So… Lockdown-ish…?

Schools and offices are closed during that time (except for some vital institutions or offices that need to open through this kind of times such as hospitals, security services, cleaning services, and some government offices) — for school closure, thankfully, this is during school break. However, some schools do open during the break for some extracurricular activities. Some schools also provide daycare functions for children with working parents/double incomes. Due to the Restricted Movements, those schools need to close.

On March 18, things feel quite surreal. The picture above is Jalan Tun Razak (Tun Razak street), one of the main roads in Kuala Lumpur and I took the pic on 7 AM; when it’s expected to have traffic jam on daily basis — yet it’s really empty at that time. Not many people around either (usually the pedestrian walkways are pretty crowded with office workers and people living in the apartment building nearby.) Food trucks that usually operate during breakfast and lunch times are nowhere to be seen. I really hope the pakciks and makciks who operate the food trucks are okay, heathy, and in a good condition. Selling food is one of their main source of income, and they couldn’t do it due to the outbreak.

Both my husband and I are working from home (a default condition on my side ?) along with the mini Godzillas whom we affectionately called as our children.

That picture is not taken yesterday, but yeah, that’s the… Tidiest situation of our home when the kids are around and stuck at home for more than 2 hours.

My super-not-parent-friendly suggestion when folks asked me how I cope with everything while kids at home are:

“I told my kids: Please don’t call me when I’m working except for these three conditions:

• Somebody is dying
• Somebody is bleeding
• Something, or somebody, caught on fire

Other than that, Netflix, Youtube Kids, and potato chips at your disposal.”

Anyway, if this is your first experience in working from home/remote working, hello and welcome! Me myself is not an expert on this (I just started remote working a shy 1 year ago) so, yeah, we are in this together. Feel free to share or chat about your experiences! Did you find it enjoyable? Lonely? Stressful? Calming?

If you want to read some tips or cool articles about remote working, you can check these links:

• https://alistapart.com/article/habit-fields/
• https://mkaz.blog/misc/async-is-the-key-to-distributed-work/
• (And if you suddenly found yourself eating more when you are working from home (I noticed this happens with my friends who have to work from home)) https://thespoon.tech/new-to-working-from-home-here-are-some-food-tech-tips-to-avoid-big-weight-gain/