It is pronounced as ‘kwad-nef’. In English, this French sentence simply asks, “What’s up?” And when I changed my phone’s language to French (as part of my learning practice), I saw this everywhere. Since 2020 when the pandemic began, everyone has asked others how they are and what they have been doing. Pre-pandemic, this seemed pretty intrusive to some or a part of a greeting that when some people ask, it’s just a customary follow-up to hello, but a person who asked probably didn’t care. But during (and can I say after?) this period, we’re still asking one another how they are. Now, it has become a habit for some to check on their family members or friends. We have realized that when we were stripped down from our freedom of movement to be protected from this virus, we enhanced our basic human instinct of caring for each other. It made us feel alive, feel belonged, despite being miles from each other.

I have been away for a long time. After my colleague contracted COVID last August 2021 (when I last posted), I never had the time to blog. Work made me busy as only a few of us were left on the team. Spring came, and I also began business travel to parts of Europe and the South American region, and then finally had the chance to visit my family in the Philippines in time for my birthday.

After many months, I finally found a grip back on the things that I like doing. I was able to finish reading some of my books, and then this blog now has a new site domain, as I was not able to keep my old one 😦

In my next posts, I will be sharing about my travels, some tips as a foreigner who lives in France, and new recipes that I was able to try. I like blogging as it allows me to practice writing.

Now, how about you? How are you doing lately? 🙂