Author Archives: donavan

(Hint: They are not equal.) How Did I Even End Up in Sofitel?I never planned for a staycation, or a “work from hotel” day. But this happened: In true Singapore kiasu spirit, I accepted the offer. After all I could always work from the hotel (always remember to use a VPN!) Work From Hotel @ […]

Budget season is upon us in Singapore, with 8 days of Budget debate that started yesterday. Not everyone may be aware on what “the Budget” is, so here are 10 questions and 10 answers to basic Budget questions. What is the Budget? Every year, the Ministry of Finance prepares a budget for each of the […]

The most popular topic on my Facebook feed now is on GameStop. But for the completely uninitiated, let us try to make sense out of what happened. Simplified post as per 30 January 2021, since the situation could evolve. What is GameStop? GameStop is an American videogame, consumer electronics and gaming merchandise retailer. It had […]

A chain of thoughts starting from a seemingly tautological statement. There is much of the world that I definitely do not know about. Hence, I have to rely on many friends to navigate the world around us. Reliance on friends means that I need to take effort to upkeep relationships with friends. Upkeep can be […]

2020 taught many of us how to live differently. For me, it seemed to have accelerated what could otherwise have occured a decade or two down the road. Mass swathes of the population were forced to digitalise or risk losing their business or livelihoods. All of a sudden, we were made to think of what […]

I thought the recent NYTimes and BBC reporting on Singapore’s COVID-19 situation was rather selective not to label their news article as an opinion piece, instead seemingly reporting it as “fact”, missing most of the broader points. I would like to write a few points to paint my thoughts on the COVID-19 response in Singapore, […]

Writing, to me, is therapeutic. I have not been writing lately, but I felt updating the status of the scratchpad is a good excuse to share my musings. I have been mulling over the future of the scratchpad for a while. This began through a friend’s suggestion of writing bits and pieces of my thoughts, […]

Today’s social media feeds were flooded by this screenshot and reactions to it. Instead of jumping straight to the memes about the importance of artists (this I don’t dispute), I found three additional aspects of the spectrum of responses fascinating. People reacted most strongly to “artists”, not so much “business consultants” nor “human resource managers”. […]

(Another 10 minutes read, apologies. Maybe my strong response goes beyond being edgy.) Out of goodwill, I touched base with a few non-local friends who had opinions, or are affected by the sparks of protests ignited by George Floyd’s death. Deliberately leaving the questions open, I left it to my friends to develop their points […]

Instead of exercising freedoms of speech and expression (as what the United States claims to be a paragon of) to have open conversations about race, as well as about law and order, we see police brutality, race issues and protests unfurl across the country. Years back, I was in the US myself. Showing public displays […]