ALICE NEOW – STAYING HOME TO FIGHT COVID-19

It’s now 30 days since we’ve all stayed home in the joint efforts to fight Covid-19. The Movement Control Order which was first implemented on March 18 2020 has restricted our movement in a bid to bring down the curve of infection from the “invisible” virus.

We spoke to USJ resident Datin Alice Neow on how she is spending her MCO time at home. The home scene may be different from her corporate world workplace so we dived in to find out how she is coping.

How are you coping with the MCO? What are you doing to keep your time occupied?

The MCO is a good time to force me to stay at home to focus on what is important, for instance, learning to cook; cooking healthy meals for my family. We used to eat out a lot. The extra time on my hands allows me to focus on my articles reading and to write my research proposal for PhD registration. I’m so fully occupied from the minute I wake up to retiring to bed. Not forgetting doing home pilate as exercise to stretch tight muscles from walking up and down, standing while cooking, and sitting, typing and writing while studying.

Are you happy to get more time to spend with the family? Tell us how you are doing this?

Yes, i am very happy with what I’ve achieved during this MCO. Never thought I could learn new things. Precious time spent from baking with my daughter, family chats, Facetime with my son in the US, having meals together which are hard to come by during normal days.

Have you found new hobbies while staying at home? Have you discovered you (or your spouse) can cook too?

New hobbies? Cooking and baking using my new Themomix6 which I call my German helper. It never crossed my mind that I can bake. I have also learned to make good pisang goreng and cekodok! I know many will think it is easy peasy but to me, one who is not so domestically-inclined, it is a great achievement. I have even discovered friends with mutual interests and we have been excitedly sharing recipes for more new discoveries with the kitchen gadget. My special thanks to a dear friend, Irena Oung for introducing this new hobby to me.

How are you keeping fit and alert at home? Have you gained weight?

As mentioned earlier, I have been doing home Pilate every other day with my trainers at HeartCore Physio & Pilates all via IG  and videos sent by them. It helps me to keep fit and maintain my body weight during #stayathome.  Moreover, during MCO I’ve also started a daily schedule which makes me eat 3 meals a day and sleep by 11pm with an hour of reading to wind down before sleeping.

How are you keeping abreast with the news on Covid-19 and MCO?

Yes, I have via the Facebook, TV and Telegram messages by MKN on daily basis.

What’s your advise to everyone?

Please stay at home and not find excuses to go out. If we are disciplined and obedient, the MCO will be not be prolonged further. But, if we are stubborn and act selfishly, thinking of our own discomfort, we may contribute to longer MCO. Remember that we are in this together. Together we can contain and fight this. Stay at home and make full use of this time to do the things which you didn’t have the time for before. Take care, folks.