Australian Open 2024

     I have been an avid follower of tennis especially the Grand Slams Opens - Australia, French, Wimbledon and the US. Today the Australian Open starts, it's going to be a two-week gruelling battle for the award. I saw this predictions of the top eight by tennis buffs.

Men's predicted quarterfinalists

Women's quarterfinalists said to-be

     I seem to agree with the prediction and I have the feeling Djokovic will rule the men's category to put himself at the formidable top of the men with 25 Grand Slams, and I believe it's going to be a breakthrough for Rybakina for her second Grand Slam. It's going to be a Djokovic-Rune final for the men, and Rybakina-Sakari in the women.

Happy New Year 2024

     I know this is delayed. I had no internet for two weeks, because provider had issues, thus I spent Christmas and New Year disconnected from the world. Now I know how it's like to be off the grid in today's cyber-connected world. Thanks God everything is normalized it seems. 

     This is my third new year in the Philippines after my stroke in Singapore where I used to work. It's a simple celebration surrounded by loving family. I am very lucky to have these people around me now that the stroke rendered me physically disabled in a way. 

     I didn't make new year's resolution this time. Let my life take it's natural course although I will maintain a healthy lifestyle, keep my weight in check with controlled diet and get closer to local people which I feel I have been distanced because of my education and employment abroad.

08-23

     I won't forget this number. It's my last apartment unit in Singapore, the third apartment I rented, before I was sent home to the Philippines for good by my stroke. I stayed in this unit from November 2014 to May 2019 if my memory serves right. It was my first time to stay outside of the busy central business zone of Singapore. My first stay was at City Square Residences, a posh residential apartment, then I moved to Toa Payoh to a flat. 

     I miss this residence of mine, my home office starting November 2014. I did not hire housemates as I was worried they may be disturbed of me working from home as I had a lot of teleconferences.

The grilled doors to the flat 

     It was in this unit where I experienced to be brought to the hospital three times, two of which were emergency situations. I stayed alone as I used it for my day work, working for an American chemical company for a regional post for Asia. My first open heart occurred when I was already staying in this flat. It was February 2015 when I woke up  very early in the morning, I had difficulty breathing, seemed I couldn't move my feet. I called a friend, a bartender working late at night, who told me he will call his wife, a nurse at the National University Hospital(NUH) of Singapore.  In a few minutes the ambulance came and brought me to NUH.

     In February 2017, I had a scheduled surgery to correct my aorta as I had a triple A condition, acute aorta aneurysm. After those two surgeries, I thought everything was in order when in February 2019, I had a stroke. It took almost 24 hours before I could be rushed to the hospital Tan Tock Seng. By some miracle, I was brought to the ICU and survived the ordeal but unfit for work which sent me back home for good.

Gloomy Day

     I didn't walk this morning as it seemed it was about to rain. It's a gloomy day. Forecast said a tropical storm is on the way. It drizzled for a while explaining the wet ground but now it has stopped. Luckily it has stopped as we planned to go to town as it's the opening of Metro Mall Alangalang, the newest supermarket in town, branch of their stores in Tacloban City and Cebu City.

What a gloomy day!

     I have ran out of topics to blog that is why it has been a while that I didn't write in here. I started this blog without any focus on an area to write about, simply write on anything because I had only one thing in my mind, train my brain after I have stopped working. I see the similarity to many so-called vloggers, some friends, who posted videos of mundane stuff. Many of them are extinct now, ran out of ideas to vlog precisely because they had no focus on a particular topic. Many of them I believe started vlogging because of the promise of earning from Meta, erstwhile Facebook. What they failed to see is the reality that they have to have many followers in order to maintain their vlogs. For me, my reason is simply personal, to exercise my brain. I think I should continue writing anything under the sky even without followers.

  

Best Islands in Asia

     Looking at this list of top ten best Islands in Asia, I am overjoyed to see that I've been to the top five islands.

When I was an OFW I got the chance to visit 

      I don't know their criteria for judging but my list for the top would be different. If I am to rank my top five in terms of natural beauty, facilities and ease of touring around, my list would look like this.

1. Koh Samui

2. Boracay

3. Phuket

4. Bali

5. Langkawi

New Condo Tenant

     I've got a new renter in my condo unit, the income from this helps me tide through now that my stroke rendered me jobless. The renter I feel is very entrepreneurial, no surprise as he is a broker by profession. He rents my place for short term staycation. No doubt he will make more money than me with the right promotion but it's alright as i don't want to be bothered by the headaches surrounding short term rentals. He even offered me to sell my unit, he will help market it which I said I have to think about it. I hope this new renter brings me more luck in the days to come.

My studio unit 

Memories

     I saw a distant relative's FB post which reminded me of my own memories growing up in the farm. I can fully relate to what she said.

Her FB post

     We both experienced to live without electricity, since it only came to our village when I was in Grade Two I think, around 1977. Before that, there was no electricity and we survived using kerosene lamps. When night time came, it was awesome when the moon was out because the atmosphere was lovely. But when there was no moon, it was pitch black. There was no internet then. We used books to read our school assignments. We had no TV so we couldn't watch TV shows. My family would gather around a transistor radio listening to radio dramas. That was the simple life we had in the village. There were no complications.