In my college days, I can remember all the names of  dorm residents, not only of the dorm where I stay but including the nearby dormitories. In my dorm, I can tell what floor, what room, this or that person stays. Once when I attended a symposium at  Ateneo University 15 years after leaving the SU campus, I met someone who I remember as the young elementary girl who was regularly  passing by the dormitory. At the time of our meeting, she was already a university chemistry instructor, already a full grown lady.

Today, two years  after being diagnosed as hypertensive, I would tend to forget the names of some people that I am supposed to remember. My kids would make fun of these lapses. They would tell me that I am already suffering from alzeimers, or that memory gap is soo huge that it is normal for old people.

I am not bothered by those jokes, I know 45 is still young, but I am wondering what’s really happening within my brain. Am I losing the power of longterm memory? Have the neurons been disconnected, or have naturally died down because of disuse?

In my highschool and college days, I love to play chess because I am always on top. I met quite a few who are really good, those are the national masters and the international masters, but I always find a way to beat most of them. Today, after more than 25 years of not playing regularly, I am playing again, and I found out how people around me have improve. Everybody seem to be stronger than me?

Can I regain the snap of my brain? In few months of training I will tell.