With health and government officials urging people to work from home as much as possible in the midst of the COVID-19 pandemic, many people were looking for productive and comforting ways to pass the time indoors.

When I was working from home (WFH), I felt cooking or baking was a way to nurture myself, learn things and stay active.  

When I was WFH from March to May, my daughter (14 years old, a year 9 student) was studying online from home too. As she likes cakes and cream puffs, sometimes she would buy a piece of cake or cream puff near her school as her after-school snack. During the days when she studied at home, I would bake cakes or cream puffs for her. 

While WFH, I had more free time on my hands than I normally did. I searched for baking information via the internet, watched videos via YouTube and tried to bake different cakes or cream puffs by myself. I also taught my daughter some cooking and baking basics after I learned it, which gave her a greater appreciation of culinary art. The more I have her involved in the cooking process, the more likely she would try new food.

Tackle those projects that you have been afraid to try because you have not had the time, like baking cake or making bread. Usually my daughter and I would buy cakes or cream puffs at the cake shop, but actually, you could easily bake them at home. “When there is a will, there is a way.”

COVID-19 has provided us a very precious opportunity to practise WFH and what I have learnt from this experience is that “Nothing is impossible to a willing heart.” We can utilise this to our work as well.

Contributed by:

Ms Quincy Chen 

IT department, SAPL