What I woke up to

View of the OPD Building.

Silver

I WOKE up to news of Hidilyn Diaz winning the country’s first silver Olympic medal after a 20-year drought. The sport is weightlifting, where she competed in the 53-kg division. She thanked God after her win. I had goosebumps. Onward, Hidilyn!

This is yet another proof that we need to focus our efforts on less popular sports, as opposed to basketball, our nation’s favorite past time. We’ve never really excelled in the sports arena—a combination of our natural physique that renders us at a disadvantage compared to our taller, bigger Caucasian counterparts; or our lack of resources for training because sports never gets the government funding it deserves; or perhaps we compete in the wrong sports events—but we’ve always been good at the arts and beauty pageants and Math quiz bees. I don’t know what my point is.

Out of my way

I also woke up to news of President Duterte telling Supreme Court Chief Justice Meilou Sereno: Get out of my way, or it’s martial law. We need these tensions to make our democracy in check. I’m not the biggest fan of President Duterte but I wish he were more restrained and circumspect. CJ Sereno’s letter to the President is well-worded, perhaps my third favorite document after her dissenting opinion on Associate Justice Mariano Del Castillo’s plagiarism case—“What is black can be called white but it cannot turn white by the mere calling”—and her concurring opinion on the constitutionality of the RH Bill, which she penned in excellent Filipino. I'm a fan.

Love and French

I woke up to a New Yorker article by Lauren Collins entitled, “Love in Translation,” which begins this way:

I moved to Geneva to be with my husband, Olivier, who had moved there because his job required him to. My restaurant French was just passable. Drugstore French was a stretch. ikea French was pretty much out of the question, meaning that, since Olivier, a native speaker, worked twice as many hours a week as Swiss stores were open, we went for months without things like lamps.

She learned French because her husband was French. Love, perhaps, is a good motivation for learning a new language.

Steadfast love

Best of all, I woke up to Psalm 108:4: “For Your steadfast love is great above the heavens, Your faithfulness to the clouds.” This, while the rain was incessantly pouring outside my windows.