Australian Open Week 1 Highlights

This week marks the start of the Quarterfinals (Top 8) in the Australian Open. And by the end of the week, we will know who the Australian Open champs would be!

I usually watch WTA more compared to the ATP. I find the women’s is more interesting and has a much more open field, not one dominant player. A lot of the players can take away the trophy. Unlike in the men’s field, it’s always the four of them – Nadal, Djokovic, Murray and Federer.

First few rounds was usually lopsided, except for a few nice matches and even upsets.

Round 1 proved to be a tough round for one of my favorites – Agnieszka Radwanska. She battled it off with Mattek-Sands from the USA winning on a very tight 3 set match.

Speaking of upsets on Round 1, reigning US Open champion Sam Stosur lost to Sorana Cristea on straight sets. Big upset here. I was hoping Stosur could move on a few more rounds, at least to the quarters. But things happen in these tournaments! There’ll always be upsets here and there.

Another great match during day one was Fernando Verdasco versus Tomic of Australia. 5 set match – and I felt bad for Verdasco because he was up 2 sets before Tomic made his comeback. I guess the heat was taking its toll on him because he’d wear ice packs around his neck and throw water at his face. Come to think of it, how can you survive playing top notch tennis under the blistering heat of the sun and temperatures in the near 30s? Tough conditions for sure.

Best Match So Far

Round 4 was a blockbuster round with reigning champ Kim Clijsters battling it out with our favorite Chinese tennis star, Li Na. It’s a repeat of the finals last year, and this time with Li Na, looking like she’s in way better shape, and much stronger than Clijsters.

Set 1, with 3 games a piece for each player, Clijsters rolls her left ankle during a rally point. Everyone’s heart probably stopped at that point (Clijsters is a very popular player in Australia, having even been dubbed as “Aussie Kim”, although she is Belgian). This is supposed to be her last Australian Open so she mustered enough strength to continue on with the match! She still lost the first set to Li Na who was playing superb!

Set 2 went into tie breaker with Li Na gaining ground having a 6-2 lead! That’s four match points!! And miracle of all miracles, Clijsters somehow manages to save those four match points, and score 6 straight points to win the second set!

I guess the disappointment of the second set proved to be too much for our favorite Li Na, as she eventually lost the set, and the match to the great and loved champ Kim Clijsters. Now Kim Clijsters is off a quarterfinal square off with the number one seed Caroline Wozniacki.

Highlights of Round 4

A Japanese by the name of Kei Nishikori has made history books by being the first Japanese man in the open era to move on to the quarter finals of a grand slam by beating fan favorite Tsonga of France! His powerful ground strokes proved to be too much for the big man Tsonga. That was a very entertaining match. Folks who bought tickets surely got their money’s worth.

Serena Williams goes down against Russia’s Makarova. This is the same woman who took out Kanepi and Zvonoreva! She’s definitely on a roll. Watching the game, Williams just wasn’t in it, she made a ton of unforced errors but to Makarova’s defense, she was hitting baseline forehands crazy accurate! Congratulations to Makarova. She’ll now be facing off with Maria Sharapova in the quaterfinals.

Quaterfinals

Quaterfinals is about to start and I’m waiting for two blockbuster games coming up – Azarenka (who could potentially win the grand slam) versus Radwanska (who I love watching because of her very calm demeanor) and then a little later, another blockbuster game worth watching: Clijsters versus Wozniacki! It will be a very busy day for me!

Angie and Vince’s Wedding

It’s really exciting to see one of your closest friends finally getting married! It was the first wedding of a close friend that I’ve attended. I find that it’s different if you’re just attending a wedding because it’s a family friend or relative who you’re not really close with, as compared to attending a wedding where the bride and groom are really dear to your heart.

My friend Sheila and I were a teeny bit late for the church wedding, half of the entourage already walked down the aisle before we got there. At least though, I still saw the beautiful bride make her wasy down the aisle, looking beautiful as always. And since we were in such a rush, we forgot to bring the camera to the church. Wala tuloy ako pictures sa Church!

The church wedding was held at Santuario de San Jose at East Greenhills (airconditioned!) and reception followed at New World Hotel in Makati. I didn’t realize the food in New World would be really good! I loved their hot shrimp salad (It was a laureate serving, by the way).

Here are a few snaps I got during the reception. The girls are looking very pretty!

And here’s how the ballroom was setup. Beautiful too.

It was kind of annoying that I ended up sitting right in front of the sound system. I cannot talk to my seatmate without having to either shout or speak close to their ears!

And you know during weddings, there’s always this part of the reception where they call in the single gals and guys? I ended up getting called up there, at bigla akong giniginaw sa stage ah! It was a nice game though. An envelope was passed around the the folks and when the music stops while you’re holding the envelope, you have to perform the consequence written on the note inside. And as the game progresses, the consequence gets tougher and tougher.

Lo and behold, for the first round, I ended up getting the envelope! I was so nervous, opening the envelope, so good thing, the consequence was easy – “give a message to the bride and groom”. Whew, that was easy, I have no problem making speeches! haha at napahaba pa, the host even told me that we should have had a toast to go with it! Ang daldal kasi!

As the game progressed, there were to more consequences, kiss someone on the nose, carry a girl for 10 seconds. And the last consequence ended up with this girl, who was asked to pick a guy. Sa sobra niyang kaba, hindi siya makapili. Finally, napilitan pumili ng isang guy. And well, it was a nice surprise because her consequence was actually “a congratulations as you and your partner just won an ampao worth 5000 pesos each!” A total of 10k! Why didn’t the first consequence contain that instead?? Haha great game though!

Overall, the day’s event was really great. Bride wore two gowns – her wedding gown during the church wedding, and her red gown during the reception (I guess to coincide with the chinese new year!). I had fun, and the reception did not drag on until midnight (which is good!). Good food, good friends, good laughs!

Oh, and I got to have Pat Dy take a photo of us, using my camera! That’s almost worth a hundred thousand pesos! haha

World Vision Philippines

World Vision Philippines is an organization that assists in child and family development across the Philippines. As individuals, we can help this advocacy by being sponsors to young kids who need our help.

Instead of buying a Mocha Frappuccino, how about setting aside that money to sponsor a kid? It’s only 7,200 per year, and you get to help a young one have a better future.

The nice thing about World Vision is that they provide you with regular updates about your child. In fact, Aira, who I’ve been sponsoring for a few years now, even writes letters to me, sends picture to me and I’m updated with her grades in school!

I am writing this because I want to encourage everyone to join this advocacy program. Let’s share our blessing to those who need it the most.

As each has received a gift, use it to serve one another, as good stewards of God's varied grace

^{1 Peter 4:10}

First 12 days of 2012

12 days into 2012, what have I done differently so far?

1. Bridal Shower

- The first of many friends getting married this year had her bridal shower last Jan 07. It’s the first official friends’ bridal shower that I was able to attend and a pretty good one too. They organized it quite well. It was fun! To be honest, I almost didn’t go because of my laziness syndrome. Thankfully I was able to pull myself out of bed and drive all the way to Linden Suites to join my friend on her memorable day. Korny yung gift na binigay ko, but now I know what to get my other friends next time!

2. Work

- I’ve been somewhat unsuccessful with my work life balance goal so far. I want to blame it on my work because they just keep on giving it to me, but in the end, it’s still me who will have to learn and know how to manage work properly. I need to learn to say no, I need to delegate, and I need lessen the stress. It’s not good for the health, and it’s not going to help me improve the quality of my work anyway. So, I need to work on this more.

3. Read

- I‘ve finally picked up a book to read! I have around 6 books in pending to read and finally got to finish one. I will try to finish one book per week moving forward.

4. Exercise

- Stopped doing circuit training with a trainer. I want to focus more on cardio exercises instead of strength and toning. According to my ipod nano tracker, I’ve done almost 20k steps in two weeks already – a 4km run in the treadmill will probably give me 6-7k steps. Not too bad. I’m hoping to log a lot more in the upcoming weeks. Unfortunately, my plan earlier to run was postponed, because I just had to take a nap this afternoon. Too sleepy!

- Aside from treadmill running, I’ve been trying to incorporate biking in my cardio. I’ve tried riding the new bike around the village. Unfortunately, every time I ride my bike, after only one round of biking around the village, my legs are already shaking. Only means one thing – the legs are not as strong as I hoped they would be. All the more reason to ride the bike!

Hopefully I will get to do more exciting activities in the next few weeks. After writing this entry, I just realized how boring my life is! haha

Piggybank and Bike

As the new year begins, I’ve decided to empty out my golden piggy bank! It was just half full though… but nonetheless, this is like free money!

Took me a while to count all the money because someone (hopefully not me), put in three pieces of chocolate coins! Alam niyo yung chocolate na yun? Anyway, it was annoying because although two of them was still intact, the third one was opened up and the chocolate was every where! Thankfully the chocolate wasn’t melted, but it was still disturbing to see lots of chocolate crumbs amongst the coins! And the smell! Coins smelling like chocolates? Not too appealing.

It took me some time to clean up most of the infected coins. But nonetheless, after finishing it all up, I think I got a pretty good amount!

And since I consider this “free money” (though not technically), I’ve decided to use this small savings amount to fund my new toy!

I bought it earlier, and I’m planning to ride this as often as I can, and even use this to go to the gym (instead of taking the car). It’s additional exercise, plus, environment friendly. I still have to get a head gear though. Don’t want to be riding out in the streets without one!

I’ve heard a lot of good things about biking. So, hopefully, I can try to incorporate this to my daily lifestyle (plus my gym time too!). Perhaps, a good start to 2012.