Dream

After a harrowing but pleasantly surprising workout session—leg day in the middle of week—I got my passport size photos printed. (It's the PhilHealth accreditation renewal season, that time of year when I have to contend with government bureaucracy.) The man asked if I needed a soft copy; he'd charge me 50 pesos more. 

"No, thanks. Just the pictures, please," I said. 

Outside it was raining—gentle and calming, the kind of weather that makes you think of hot Milo and pajamas. But adding rain to the rush hour to students and employees on their way home often exacerbates the traffic condition in the city, particularly along the highway where government construction is on-going, has been going on for years on end. 

I headed to the bookstore. I picked books in the discount bin. Agustín Fernández Mallo caught my attention right away: The Nocilla Trilogy. I hadn't heard of the author before, but the cover was interesting. People ask me how I plan my reading: there is no plan. 

The trilogy begins with "Dream." Each short chapters reads like prose poetry. The author is both physicist and poet. It's not the most linear book. I return to previous chapters to make sense of the current narrative. For instance,  a reference to Kelly and her friends going surfing prompted me to remember that it was Kelly who was diagnosed with sarcoma in her left femur. To read this book I must encircle the names of characters. They reappear. The narratives are interconnected. Holding a Blackwing pencil as I read makes the reading even more pleasurable. I encircle the names of characters. This was the technique I used to make senses of the many Aureliano Buendias in Garbiel Garcia Marquez's One Hundred Years of Solitude. 

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Busy week

This space has gone quiet for many days. Today, while it's still dark, I'm compelled to key in word after word to make coherent sentences. Blogging gets easier the more one does it. I find it a useful, enjoyable exercise for my writing muscles. 

The reason for the silence is generic: I simply had more important matters to attend to. Work, both clinical and academic; some family errands; and my hobbies. 

Last week, I was the overall chair of Kaalam 2025, a research forum in med school. As the college's research coordinator, the event made me proud. My students surprised me. They worked hard on their proposals. Their posters of completed studies were interesting. What gave me the most pleasure was seeing them get excited with research -- which can feel like a burden, a bureaucratic hurdle to overcome. Many of them approached me and asked where they could get their manuscripts published. It was a good day to be a teacher. 

Auntie Eva and Uncle Lars joined us for dinner at home. Manong and I spent Christmas with them in Hässleholm, a place I have to Google just to make sure I get the dieresis correctly. With them were Auntie Ailene and Uncle Rod, relatives I was meeting for the first time. Auntie Elsie, Tatay's second cousin, also joined us. She only lives next block, but the last time she had visited our house was a decade ago. The dinner was wonderful. We asked Auntie Nanic to prepare tinola with native chicken ("free range chicken," I told Uncle Lars, in case we sounded racist). I promised Auntie Eva we'd prepare it for her. It was Nanay's first time meeting my father's distant relatives. Just a month ago, we hosted Ate Nina and Jacob, visitors from Copenhagen. In both instances, Paul loved the international crowd. He literally got a Swedish massage: he kept asking Uncle Lars for a belly rub. 

Today is a Sunday, our church's anniversary. There's a special worship service in the morning, followed by lunch. I'm playing keyboards. Last night, Saturday, I was with Jason, Noynoy, Lance, and the music ministry, figuring out the proper chord progression on an otherwise familiar song: "Only By Grace." I'm excited for Auntie Morena's response song, "I See Grace," which we'll be playing. I went home a little past 8 in the evening, but I enjoyed the extended time of bonding with the church family. Many were busy arranging the stage and setting the place up.  

What else is there to write about? 

I'm still on Thoreau's journals, a quintessential read for bloggers. I've been reading Mavis Gallant and Alice Munro, my favorite Canadians. I enjoyed Anuk Arudpragasam's The Visit, a short story in my copy of The Paris Review. I look forward to my physical copies of magazines -- which also include The New Yorker and the London Review of Books -- which PhilPost delivers in bulk, every three or four months or so. In an ideal world, I should be receiving my New Yorker magazine weekly. But I have access to the online version; it doesn't feel unfair. Reading an old edition, say, from December last year, is like getting a missive from the recent past. Many articles in the magazine are timeless. 

I rediscovered Bones in Netflix. I watched the series in Star Movies, over cable TV, in high school. Now I treat myself to an episode once in a while; I can pause and repeat as I wish, without the ads; and I'm sure that each episode ends on a happy, if not hopeful, note. I miss the ads, though. In general, I miss cable TV. (We still have Cignal cable, bundled with our internet subscription -- but it's never the same.) Dr. Temperance Bones and Special Agent Seeley Booth are an interesting pair. I'm on Season 1, Episode 16: their friendship is blossoming.  The series makes me wonder: shouldn't the forensic analysis be done by pathologists? 

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Cat in winter

I saw this cat looking at me as I walked around Uncle Lars's quiet neighborhood in Hässleholm. This was near Uncle's secondary school.

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John Owen's The Glory of Christ

I read John Owen's The Glory of Christ during Christmas break to set the tone for 2026. I finished reading the book this morning, so I had to write this entry down. 

Owen wrote The Glory of Christ in his twilight years. The book was published in 1684, one year after his death. 

So much wisdom and joy are contained in its pages. The epub file in my Kindle contains many highlights of passages and ideas that spoke to me. I turn to them regularly. Consider the following: 

For being once touched by the love of Christ, receiving therein an impression of secret ineffable virtue, they will ever be in motion, and restless, until they come unto him, and behold his glory. That soul which can satisfied without it—that cannot be eternally satisfied with it—is not a partaker of the inefficacy of his intercession. 

The passage echoes Augustine's "Our hearts our restless until they find rest in Thee," and speaks to our modern era, where many people strive to achieve something in this life, without care for eternal matters. 

Owen's meditation on the Christian's need to meditate on the glory of Christ unpacks the depths of God's wisdom and love as contained in His Word.

I'm expecting a busy week. I'll be posting some more about this book. If you're interested, you can get hold of a free copy in Monergism. 

 

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The upright piano is installed

I brought Nanay to a Japan surplus shop in Gensan last Friday, after work. She'd be picking oil paintings she had identified earlier. At home, she likes to put artworks on rotation. The paintings are nothing fancy or of real resale value; she likes color and landscapes and flowers without any idea of the hands that created them. The paintings were the reason for that visit. 

But I had an accidental, but providential, discovery. 

While waiting for her, I saw a couple of upright pianos on display. I asked the lady about them. "They've just been tuned, Sir," the lady said. "Feel free to play something."

So I did. My fingers were dusty, literally, from the playing. The Kawai looked abandoned and ignored, hidden by racks of Japanese cups and silverware. But I loved how the music sounded. 

I remember Auntie Netnet tell me about used pianos in the surplus shops three years ago. I ignored the advice and looked elsewhere. When wisdom prevailed, I realized I couldn't justify the cost of buying, say, a brand new Yamaha. I'm no concert pianist. I play in church. I play at home, mostly for fun and for meditation. Reading notes from the hymnal is an exercise in attention, like learning how to read the Distar textbooks in preschool. It keeps me away from my phone, and my mind and soul find clarity and silence in the music. 

"I think I'd like to buy it," I told the lady. 

The lady said, "Ask the owner for a discount."

I did. He gave me a huge one. He'd have the piano delivered on Saturday for a small fee. He said, "The piano is heavy, as you know. We'll have three people bring them to Marbel. But can you look for three or four strong men to help with the lifting. Maybe neighbors you can call to help? I'm sorry we're short in manpower."

Nanay had an idea: she summoned Uncles Malot and Boboy from Banga. Auntie Bebet was excited, too. Installing the old piano had become a family affair. 

I should have read and asked if the piano was any good. But I bought it on impulse. Nanay also approved: I could not bring any furniture at home without her approval. A query in ChatGPT revealed the following details: 

Kawai K-20 Upright — What You Have

• Model: Kawai K-20
• Type: Professional upright piano
• Height: ~122 cm (48 inches)
• Era: Typically late 1980s to 1990s
• Build: Japan-made (earlier K-series were Japanese production)
• Serial: A 781657 (fits with that general period)

What the K-20 is known for

• Warm, clear Japanese tone (less bright than Yamaha, more rounded)
• Responsive action, very suitable for classical practice
• Solid build quality — these age well if maintained

A step above console/studio uprights; closer to an “institutional” upright
In Kawai’s old lineup, the K-20 sat above entry-level models and was often used in:

• music schools
• conservatory practice rooms
• serious home pianists’ homes (emphasis mine!)

Maintenance notes (important at this age)

If it hasn’t been done recently, it really benefits from:

• Regulation (action adjustment)
• Voicing (tone shaping)
• Annual or semi-annual tuning

When well-regulated, a K-20 can still feel beautifully alive even decades later.

I played This Is My Father's World. Paul, who prefers classical music, especially Beethoven, listened in rapture, contemplating the beauty of God's creation, perhaps—or was he tired from all the barking during the installation? Or was he criticizing my amateur playing?  

The warehouse is Gael Marketing, just along the highway. You'll be overwhelmed by the choices, but prepare to contend with the dust. Bring a face mask, if you have a lung condition.

(The piano reminds me of William Trevor's short story, The Piano Tuner's Wives, read by Yiyun Li in The New Yorker Fiction podcast). 

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The Power of the Dog by Thomas Savage

I read The Power of the Dog with rapture. Strangely, I feel as if I'd just read the best novel I will be reading for 2026. The story made me tense; Phil and George Burbank, brothers who lived in a cattle ranch in Montana, are characters who are deeply human and therefore extremely complex (my apologies for the diarrhea of hyperbolic adverbs: this novel is marvelously, amazingly wonderful). There's something about Thomas Savage's language that makes me want to write.  

A backstory: I picked this up at National Bookstore's bin of books that cost less than 200 pesos. That place at SM Gensan hosts many wonders. I got my copies of Jonathan Safran Foer's Here I Am and Hilary Mantel's Wolf Hall trilogy—great books I would reread—from those discounted bins. 

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Nagasaki

On a whim, my friend Mervyn booked us tickets to Japan. The weather was perfect. There were no earthquakes. We had nothing else planned, for as long as we wouldn't tire ourselves too much. The last thing we wanted was to take a vacation from our vacation by the time we got home.

Nagasaki wasn't in our original plans; to be honest, we didn't have any. We spent a few days in Fukuoka, recommended by our common friend, Roger, who considered it his city -- until he spent an extended time for training in New York. 

Such was the spontaneity of our trip. Tired from clinic work, Mervyn, whom I've known for years -- from medical school, to internal medicine residency, and then to medical oncology fellowship -- craved for new perspectives. I suppose I did, too. A change of scenery was not the answer to our burnout, but it helped. 

We booked Shinkansen tickets from Fukuoka to Nagasaki. I believe our trip was on a Saturday. Balikan lang. I slept while sitting on a bench, lulled by the swooshing of quiet buses and cars. Merv left me to my nap, while he watched the grand finals of Tawag ng Tanghalan on his phone. That morning, we visited the atomic bomb museum. The atmosphere was heavy, but we felt that to properly honor the city we should pay respects to its history. 

"Ang sarap ng tulog mo, brother," Merv said. 

"Oo nga eh. I feel so refreshed. Sino'ng nanalo sa Tawag ng Tanghalan?" I asked. 

Merv must given me an answer, but I no longer remember the details. What I do remember is: we had nothing else to do for the rest of the afternoon, so we walked on, until we found a steep hill we eventually climbed. At the summit was a parking lot that would lead us to a pop-up weekend bazaar in a Shinto shrine. We ate ice cream under the shade. We felt like intruders, but we were welcomed. 

Surpise, surprise: Nagasaki was included in New York Times's annual list of 52 places to visit in 2026.

Unlike Hiroshima, which was almost completely obliterated by an atomic bomb in August 1945, the urban core of Nagasaki, America’s second target, was spared when the bomb missed its mark. This gives the city center a kind of sliding-door surrealness: This was all supposed to be gone, but somehow it survived. 

 You don't really plan for great trips. In a sense, they simply happen.  

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