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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Berlin

View from my hotel room. Trees line road, their colors changing as winter approaches.

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Realizations while teaching Research

I'm pleased with the mid-year student evaluation for Research 2, the clinical and community research class I teach weekly in medical school. It's the most important feedback a teacher can possibly get: what, in the end, do the learners think of the course? 

My students rated the course as excellent, including the non-traditional teaching-learning activities. One particular activity, the peer-review, gives me satisfaction more than the others. I pair one group of students with another and instruct them to carefully study and critique the work assigned to them. In class, I listen to my students offering generous, well thought out, and considerate critiques. I learn a great deal from this exercise, too, and it frees me up from the task of doing the reviews all by myself. 

As the third quarter is unfolding, I have some realizations, especially as regards to my Research 2 class: 

Expect great things from, and think highly of, students. They live up to expectations, or will attempt to achieve lofty things. 

Allow creativity to flourish. This means creating certain allowances for unusual ideas and allowing them to explore unconventional research questions. 

Give them time to think. Setting aside dedicated study time, where they can work and meet with their groups, helps. Academic load in second year medical school is heavy and burdensome; their minds need space to think. 

Start with the capsule proposal before the full-length version. Capsule proposals are brief, concise, easy to read and critique, and force the students to distill the intricacies of methods and statistical analysis without being overwhelmed by length. Only when the capsule proposal is finalized can they expand it to create the final version. 

Use Google Documents! I can keep track of the evolving versions of the proposal, and my inbox is less cluttered.

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