Environment

Growing up, every afternoon, I was able to go across the street from my house to a local park and play badminton with my cousin. The streets were quiet and the trees were lush. Fast forward 30 years later, the city has been absolutely transformed. There are no more playing fields within walking distance of my home. Every day, I see children playing on their phones rather than outside. Walking more than 20 minutes outside makes me cough due to heavy pollution. The skies are constantly grey and at night the stars are no longer visible. I thought to myself…

Food

It’s the 21st century, we are in the middle of a Pandemic, my kid is now my full-time student and my dining room is now my office. Most of us want to cook healthy meals that won't break the bank and will not require four hours on the stove (Sorry Megan, your Zucchini pasta just won’t do). My mother was a firm believer that “We eat to live, not live to eat”. I know right now there’s the whole “Foodie” trend, everyone is now a connoisseur and loves to take pics of their foods and endlessly discuss every morsel on…

Music

Throughout the years, country music has been perceived to be mostly songs that are gut wreanching, soul crushing and just plain sad. Somewhere along the lines of my dog died, I lost my job and my truck broke down. As a longtime country music fan, I assure you, country music is so much more than that. Shania Twain may have taken the genre to a new stratosphere but those who came before and after her have cemented that country music is here to stay and is better than ever before. If you’ve never heard a single country song in your…

Self

I was on LinkedIn recently to update my profile, and see what my professional colleagues are up to. Imagine my surprise when I accidentally came across an Associate level job that had 947 applicants! Yes, you heard that right, 947 people applied for one job! I was shocked! I mean sure COVID hit everyone around the world pretty bad but I had no idea it was the Hunger Games on an Olympic scale. The more I did a deep dive on LinkedIn to find out what the trend is, the more surprised I was. Apparently, that job with 947 applicants…

Technology

WhatsApp is without a doubt THE biggest messaging platform on the planet with over two billion users. From Gibraltar to Indonesia, WhatsApp is the main messaging app that everybody uses. However, as you may have read, a few weeks ago WhatsApp forced its users to agree to its updated terms to sharing all of their data with Facebook, WhatsApp’s parent company. When I saw this requirement, I immediately thought that it was time for WhatsApp and myself to part ways. We had outgrown this relationship. And as the saying goes, “It’s not you, it’s me….” I do not want my…

Literature

It all started with Bridgerton. The famous Netflix series caught the world by storm for its wonderful costumes, magical settings, but above all, the colorful characters and tales of love and intrigues that transported all of us to another world and time.

After watching the series, I discovered that apparently the Netflix show was based on a series of books that was loved by Shonda Rhimes, who then decided to produce the series. This piqued my interest. If a master storyteller like Rhimes loved a series of books then it was something worth looking into. So I started reading the…

Self

The Startup life, synonymous with an endless array of flat-screen TVs, game consoles, come to work in jeans, and above all, artisan coffee and infused water in a co-working space. As a woman who was raised in the 90s, we didn’t have startups back in my time. If you wanted a job, it would be with established multinational companies such as GE, PMI, a national conglomerate in your country, or your family business such as your uncle’s jewelry store. Computers were used for the bare minimum, mostly word documents and email. Faxes were still a thing and most correspondences were…

Self

Have you ever felt that the man or woman of your dreams is out there somewhere? You have an idea of what he looks, sounds, and laughs like. For most women, their fathers are the main male characters to which all other men in their lives are measured against. And you know the saying men tend to marry women who are like their mothers. Growing up, I started designing and conceiving the ideal man in my mind, based on many hours of American television and movies. He would be tall but not too tall, just enough height to make me…