1 Month of WFH
Have been working from home since early Feb. In one month’s time, I managed to get back into doing some web programming work and was able to complete 4 website update projects. After launching the final website late last night, I felt extra relaxed.
With a lightened mood, I took my time to slowly stroll back to my parents’ home for dinner tonight. The street was unusually quiet due to the severe pandemic. My mind wandered off and many questions popped up. Why had the city fallen like this? When and how will this crazy wave of pandemic end? What will become of the city after the pandemic? And I started thinking about future plans. When should I go back to Canada? What should I do as a career?
I didn’t have answers to the questions. However, my mood seemed particularly light-hearted tonight. I felt extra thankful seeing my parents as healthy as they were amid this crazy pandemic wave which claimed the lives of many elderlies. May God continue to pour His grace and mercy on me and my family. 🙏🏻
Helping Others While WFH
Some of my CNY postcard fai-chuns started arriving their North American destinations this past week. My friends started messaging me one by one the photos of the Blessed Sleeping Tigers, I was happy receiving their messages as much as they receiving my little pieces of art.
The past week had been rather gloomy. Local pandemic numbers continued to rise with COVID cases hitting 5 digits. A few of my friends got infected and are staying home to quarantine. War broke out in Ukraine and all of a sudden the World seemed to have hasten its spiral down to doom. When the world is coming to an end, what am I supposed to do other than staying home to eat, sleep, and be merry?
It turned out that I was not entirely useless while working from home. An uncle asked a mathematical problem and I conjured up the high school trigonometry equations I still remembered to help him. Another friend bought a 3D object file but couldn’t open it and I helped him slice it into a 2D file that he can import into his CNC machine. It was good to be able to help others while working from home.
On Sat., my studio’s next door neighbor called my mobile phone for the first time and I went back to the studio to help him download and print a small 3D boat model. My colleague was at work for the first time on Sat., it was the first time I saw her in person since CNY holidays. She was finishing some work before her re-scheduled surgery on Mon. I helped her sign some cheques and told her that I’ll ask my fellowship group to pray for her.
When the world seemed to be coming to an end, my unusual helpful week seemed like God’s roundabout way of telling me that I was still useful and could still brighten someone’s day by lending a little helpful hand.
“Each of you should use whatever gift you have received to serve others, as faithful stewards of God’s grace in its various forms.” (Ephesians 2:10)
Work From Home (cont’d)
Continued my second week of working from home. Never stepped outside the apartment from Monday to Friday (likely my personal record). The only person I saw was my sister next door delivering me a couple cans of egg rolls.
After updating this personal website the week before, I kept on doing more web work and managed to finally update my studio’s legacy website (www.723studio.com). Wrote up some posts of the R&D projects I worked on since returning to work from my half-sabbatical in July 2021. Had a few opportunities to collaborate with a few different parties, work was full of blessings from retrospective.
I’m actually quite adapted to working from home. Will likely WFH for at least a couple more weeks given this still worsening wave of pandemic. Should be able to bring a couple more websites back to life!
Work From Home
Started working from home last week as the 5th pandemic wave was rather severe with daily COVID cases in the low 4 digits. Got back into doing some website work. Finished backing up and updating the design of this personal website and was more than halfway done for one of my studio websites. Working in my pajamas turned out to be surprisingly productive!
Went out to the neighbourhood supermarkets on Tue and Thur evening to take a breather and to stock up on some non-perishable food items before a citywide gov tracking app takes regulatory effect on 24th. Went back to the studio on Sat to do some cleanup and to bring home more items in preparation for an extended WFH period. After a week of working from home, it felt like an exploration to travel back to my studio, which was only a short bus-ride away.
I’m thankful that I can actually work from home for there are many people who can’t afford to do so. There are also the frontline medical professionals, workers, city cleaners, etc. who are risking their lives each day to help us through this crazy pandemic while we stay in the comfort of our own home. May God protect them, keep them safe and healthy while serving the people in need. 🙏🏻
Website Update
Started working from home this week due to the worsening 5th pandemic wave. I’m not too worried about infection because I just had my booster jab a few weeks ago, shouldn’t be life-threatening even if I unfortunately become infected. Nonetheless, it’s probably still better to stay home to lower my chance of needing to line up for hours to be tested under the stupid government’s “zero infection” policy.
Decided to get back to doing some long overdue website work while working from home. First project was updating this personal website which I had kept alive since 1999. Took a little time to revive the localhost on my 2012 MBP, my trustworthy IT partner is still more than proficient in handling simple website work. Tweaked the layout a little bit and fixed some long outstanding bugs, now this little personal website of mine is ready to live on for hopefully many more years to come!
