Recover

Mention outdoor and all things positive comes to mind. I am to this day in gratitude to my wife who brings me to relax in countryside whenever I have a much-needed weekend break.

There's no better place to relax and recharge our mind than Mother Nature. Today, I came across a South China Morning Post article in which a certified forest therapy guide rhapsodized about being in nature as "incredibly healing," which indeed it is.

I have been stretching my capacity to work longer and be awake longer in the recent few months. At no time during my life had I wanted a weekend break so badly. I consoled myself with the idea that at least I didn't have to go back to hospital today.

"Why don't we enjoy the sun to the fullest while we can?" I asked my wife.

She stared at me, mouth agape. She paused for a few minutes and nodded. And that is the nature of my wife. Ask her for any favor, and she will make my dream come true. Even summer isn't the best time to go hiking, we brought sunscreen and big bottles of water to hike through a forested ravine with a series of wonderful waterfalls.

The healing power of the walk washed over me as soon as we hit the road. Recovery was instantaneous; the landscape just knocked me off my feet.

The effect was riveting.

Hare

Library is closed. Dining out isn't allowed after six. Swimming pools and sports facilities have been suspended. The coronavirus outbreak has more or less put everything on pause, except the work in a hospital. Taking a break has been the wish of many doctors, much as it did for me last month after I had broken my leg.

I was finding solace in the slower pace of myself, when things are supposed to move slowly. I didn't want to admit that working and walking with one leg had tired me, but it had. It was while waiting for my bones to heal, with the sound of thump for every step I made last month, that I found the lowest figure of local infection.

Now that I'd checked my injured foot's x-ray, it seems like high time to get my life back on track. And yet, our community spread of the coronavirus has hit the record high this week. The only positive note is that, from now on, I am able to work harder with two legs.

Outworn

Now that my daughter is halfway from child to teenager, Jasmine starts to post WhatsApp Status update. Unsurprisingly, I'm beyond grateful and privileged to be allowed access to her interesting ideas and thoughts. It turns out to be a window into the new generation of lexicon.

I'll give you an example, which happened this week.

Soon after my daughter posted a picture with the caption "This Lego store is sick", I texted her and asked why it's sick. Obviously I was nonplussed. I dare say you'd be sharing the same query as mine when you peer through the upscale display of brick-by-brick design.

I blushed when my daughter texted me the answer. As it turned out, I knew too little about the word sick.

"Sick means cool, dude."

"Mmm," Jasmine explained, bemused by her parents' outdated lexicon. "Or else, we can type That's sick. NGL."

If, like me, you graduated in the last century (read "dinosaur"), you might need a bit of explanation.

After we'd found out the meaning of NGL (read "not gonna lie"), my wife summed up what she understood. "I see, that's more or less like saying Honestly speaking, it looks great."

"Okay, that's it," my daughter rolled her eyes. "That's ancient English, though."