Life Update - Corona Virus and what not

Assalamualaikum and Olla everyone! 

Writing this while the majority of the world is currently on lockdown or or mco or whateva name they call it. Basically, we could not go out unless for necessities like buying food. Just want to document this in my blog because we are living in such an extreme time. In fact there are more people dying everyday that expert are expecting the number of death may exceed number of death in world war 2. Didnt mean to put such scary intro but it just need to be mentioned to put things into perspective. 

My husband and I start to pick up the news about what happen in Wuhan around January 2020, where Wuhan was about to go into lockdown. It was around chinese new year. I was panic at first. My husband is calmer and more practical. He go on and bought a deep freezer. Then we start buying more weekly groceries than usual. Didnt mean to panic buy, as parents, we are worried of the uncertainty to feed our child. Remember this was when the case is still in china and only 2 confirmed cases in malaysia. Warned few close friends and family member of whats to come, may have sounded like alien to anyone at that time. 

Then i start spraying lift then spraying people's car handle and preparing some hand sanitizer to give out to 200 friends on instagram, I received 500 applications but only have 200 bottles to give out. sorry!! I tried. 

As many of you might known I also work for digital agency, so ever since January most of our f&B client start experiencing more than 50% decline in revenue. Right from the start of the year. 

During that time many marketing efforts was being doubled or sometimes tripled to bring in conversion for our clients. Then the MCO really happen. I mean you can name it anything you want to ease then tension but to me, it still means drastic life changes. It happened fast and this crisis maybe one of the biggest crisis world has ever experienced. 

None of us have experienced this before, it is unchartered water. None of us is fully prepared.

I mean some of our clients who are already having online channels, and being in the high demand category are doing good. Even so, it could not cover the amount that has been steadily coming in via offline sales channels.Some have strong cash flows and would be able to go through this economic crisis no issue and definitely be able to come back stronger after this. To this client is it more of a hibernate moment since they could afford it. 

However, majority of our client do not have a strong cash flow. I can somehow foresee more than half of the business will not be able to cope sooner or later. Even after mco is lifted (which we dont know when hopefully soon) people may still hesitate to linger. Everyone is already very careful with their spending in fear of losing their job.  Then it will snowball to lower spending power and then lower sales. The majority of business owners that I know want to keep all their staff. They might not be able to do so if the situation does not get back to normal within 3 months or lesser. Yes, there are many loans for sme out there. However, from a business owner point of view, taking up loan when there is limited or NO income at all, it is just a slow death with even more financial risk. 

Those who know me might know that I am the type of person who try to look at the positive side as much as I could. It is not as easy this time.  

Anyway, life must goes on. My husband and I have always been very careful with our spending. We aim to share (okay fine he not keen on sharing i am LOL) what we have with people around us as much as we could. The past 1 month have been interesting. I get to spend more time with my kids and my family. As you can see there is a broom in the middle of my living hall. normal coz i got kids hahaha... There were days where I felt down because of too many not happy news received at my end. So I decided to put on make up and wear some nice clothes to pick up my spirit. There were also days where I was wearing sleeping clothes. I remember not taking bath for 2 days as I was too busy finalizing reports and proposals for clients. 

My husband is happy upon receiving his tamiya car all the way from Japan. I remember how happy our kids are as they played the car together.

Most of our meal are home cooked. On the days that I rajin then I will cook. On the days that I have too much on my plate, will just use pre-cooked paste. I bought some fresh veggie via online delivery. n wrongly ordered 2kg of lady fingers LOL .. owh ya i also run into cook book app name supecook that help to churn out recipe for you depending on what item you have in your pantry. Soooo useful :) 

My husband have been nothing but loving and supportive towards our family. Ofcoz we do have fight sometime LOL but whats marriage without a fight? hahaahaha

I was thinking of so many ways on what else I can do to contribute and I decided to also applied to volunteer as microbiologist to work in gov hospital lab. I am checking my email every now n then to wait for gov to call me Hope I will be given a chance to contribute. My husband is ofcoz not happy with my decision to volunteer as we all know what is the worst-case scenario. 

I have no idea where this covid thing will lead us to. But i do know that it will go off as fast as it arrived. I know that we will all get out of this stronger than ever. I also know that no matter what Allah will always have our back and it is always for the best. Despite all the economic impact to the world, people are dying and that saving lives should be our MAIN focus. 

We should all stay home, cut off the spread of this nasty virus together. During the toughest time, you get to really see what is really important. Dont forget to contact anh check up on your friends and family too. We have no idea how many are suffering mentally during time. A genuine text to check up on our friends could mean the world to them. or at least to me.

I am just free writing because blogging have always been an outlet to me. I am thankful of having this channel to share my 2 cents point of view with you. 

Take care, and I look foward to share more positive update soon.