Australian Open 2021

Congratulations to Novak  Djokovic and Naomi Osaka for winning the Australian Open Men's and Women's singles titles respectively!

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Novak Djokovic proved yet again that the Australian Open is his house by winning the championship for a record-extending 9th time. This is now also his 18th Grand Slam singles title, only two short of the men's record held jointly by Nadal and Federer. He is also guaranteed to break Roger's Federer's men's record of most total weeks at number 1. Novak also showed everyone just how mentally strong he is this tournament (in my opinion, his mental strength is second to none). He survived a 5-set scare from Taylor Fritz in the 3rd round and he had to overcome three other players in four sets. In fact, against Zverev, he was down a break in both the third and fourth sets but he still managed to eke out a win in both of those sets. I actually thought his opponent in the finals, Daniil Medvedev, was going to break through to win his first major since he had beaten Novak three times in their last four meetings. However, Novak's Grand Slam championship mettle proved too much and he overwhelmed Daniiel in straight sets in the final. The way things are going, I wouldn't be surprised if Novak also ends his career with the record for most major wins among the men. (It will be really interesting to see what happens in the next few years.)

Naomi Osaka won her second Australian Open title and her fourth major and I wouldn't be surprised if she regains the number 1 ranking and wins many more Grand Slam titles in the future. She moves well, her ground strokes have got some serious sting, and she's developed her serve into a solid weapon (I believe she hit more aces than any other woman in the tournament). But more importantly, she seems to have strengthened her championship mettle. In the fourth round, she faced two match points against last year's finalist, Garbine Muguruza, but she saved both and then found another gear, turning the match around and winning in three very hard-fought sets. After she won the US Open in 2018 and followed it up by winning the Australian Open in 2019, I thought she was poised to be the next great women's champion. However, she was unable to maintain that level of play. Now, after winning both the US Open and the Australian Open trophies again, I think she may have just found the right formula to keep winning more Grand Slam events.

Congratulations, Novak and Naomi!

Quarantine Stories Part 8

Thank God for small mercies. We've been on quarantine for 11 months now but I'm tremendously grateful that I've had the opportunity to handle administrative things in a safer environment than the average person. What am I talking about? First is paying the annual Real Estate Property Tax. Normally, I have to go to City Hall to pay this. Lucky for me, the community where I live organized a satellite payment center so we could pay next door instead of having to go to City Hall. Even luckier was the fact that my friend, who's also my neighbor, told me via text that we had a satellite payment center in the area and that it was only for that day. And finally, I was working from home that day. I was able to go on the last hour and when I got there, there was only one person ahead of me in line. I was done in maybe 5 minutes and I managed to practice social distancing. Perfect!

Also, our amazing community organized another round of Autosweep RFID installations. I blogged about being able to get an Easytrip RFID intalled late last year and this time, I got to do the same for Autosweep. Once again, there was only one person ahead of me in line when I got there so I was in and out in a jiffy. Not that I will be going out of town any time soon. (I have been really wanting to hit the beach for a while now or go to Tagaytay but I guess I'm still not confident that it's safe enough, even if so many people I know have done it

In other news, I cooked tikoy for the first time last weekend. My boss very generously sent me and my teammates tikoy for the Lunar New Year. I decided to cook it and bring it to my family when I visited them. I asked a couple of my friends how to cook tikoy and I also did some research online. To summarize:
- put the tikoy in the refrigerator to make it easier to cut
- before cooking, cut it into small pieces
- dip each piece in a lightly beaten egg (this is supposedly so that the tikoy slices don't stick to each other)
- fry it (one of my friends recommended frying it in butter)

I have a small Masflex non-stick frying pan so I had to cook three batches (actually, I ended up just packing a fourth batch since I didn't have time to cook it anymore). I actually forgot to put butter for the first batch but the tikoy still didn't stick to my amazing non-stick pan! That said, because my friend said tikoy tastes better when fried in butter, I made sure to add some for the second and third batches. I have to say, the tikoy fried in butter really does taste better!

I brought the cooked tikoy along with some Chinese dishes to my family. I also brought some chocolates and Tiramisu since it was also Valentine's day. Not a bad way to enjoy the long weekend with my family.