Summers are not good for daytime sleeping

I have been awake for more than 24 hours. Ok, there may have been an hour’s sleep somewhere there, and a few minutes here and there since I came home, but I am just not rested and my body just refuses to stay put and go to sleep. Must be because it is so darn hot!

One thing I’ve been thankful for the past month is having been in the day shift at work – I don’t have to endure this afternoon heat and toss and turn and sweat instead of getting my much needed sleep. But thanks to events outside of our control, I will have to go back to the night shift next week.

I don’t know how long that’s going to be, but I sure hope it’s only for the week.

Is there anything good about moving to the new schedule (or rather back to my old one)? Well, I’d have a four-day weekend starting today until tuesday morning 🙂 That’s the silver lining – the only one I see. For now.

So anyway, I clocked in about 14 hours at work last night. Had to get things done. I only felt giddy on the last hour (bordering on exhaustion) and surprisingly, that was the only time I was also really sleepy.

Music & Lyrics

Ok, I’ve lost count of how many times I’ve seen this movie, but every time I do, I enjoy it. I sing the song over and over sometimes 🙂

Thanks to Tracy who posted this video over at her blog, I now know the lyrics to Alex Fletcher’s very own composition, the one he wrote and performed at the concert. Yes, the one that got the girl 🙂 It’s not my favorite song, it isn’t as catchy nor poetic (sorry, I am not a literary genius ok) as Way back into love but it’s got magic. With songs, sometimes, it’s the thought that counts. Or rather, it’s how it makes you feel that matters. And who wouldn’t have a soft spot for someone who sings that?

14 Vera Bits

I am such a procrastinator aren’t I? I missed the deadline to yet another challenge, one I really really wanted to participate in. I couldn’t get off work on time so I wasn’t able to finish the layout right away. Was supposed to finish it last night but I got too sleepy and then did not wake up early enough to complete it. I still want to share it with the Sunshine Designers and I do hope they check it out. I don’t mind not getting the goodies (ok, I do, a little. hehe)

I posted a better sized image over at http://verabear.com/14bits.aspx so the journalling can be read better. Check it out from there if you want, but here it is:


I love how it turned out. The 14 bits are totally random. It’s anything about myself that I could think of tonight 🙂

Earth Hour Philippines and Pinoy Big Brother

Sadly, we didn’t get to participate in Earth Hour 100%. We reduced our lighting in the house by maybe 75%. We couldn’t turn out the lights outside because my nephew had his joint graduation and birthday celebration at dinner Saturday night and so guests were still outside. That means the lights were on in their house, for sure.

I am not sure how big an impact the event has really made in this country. Honestly, I didn’t hear much about Earth Hour until maybe a day or two before its schedule. I received an email about it from someone at work but the date didn’t stick. I didn’t hear much about it on TV, or maybe I just wasn’t watching or not paying attention, I know I probably didn’t check out the papers.

Perhaps if ABS-CBN covered it more, and if they had Pinoy Big Brother promote Earth Hour, there would have been more participation. I’m serious. We were tuned in to Pinoy Big Brother Teen Edition Plus some time past 8 and I was thinking, aren’t they participating in Earth Hour? Even if people would have still been consuming energy by watching the show, they (or we) could have done it in darkness, with the only light coming from our TV monitors. They could have done it inside Big Brother’s house, and had the teeners share their stories over candle light. There could have been less lighting for the show’s hosts outside the house, and maybe they could have just walked the ‘guardians’ in instead of having them brought in through a limo service.

Next time, team up with Pinoy Big Brother and Earth Hour will be more successful in the Philippines than this year’s.

Trojan Odyssey

This is the first Dirk Pitt novel I’ve read in years. I may have mentioned that I grew up with books – my own, my dad’s, mom’s and even my brother’s. Even when I was in gradeschool and highschool, I remember reading books that my dad bought for himself. You see, with the exception of my chick lit purchases, most books here are common property – everyone reads them (I think my mom reads chick lit now too). My dad was a Clive Cussler/Dirk Pitt fan and to no surprise, the whole family got hooked.

The first time I paid attention to Dirk Pitt, if I remember correctly, was when we vacationed at Hidden Valley Springs (oh my God, it must have been when I was around 9 or 10 – we went there several times) and my brother rented a video – Raise the Titanic! It was the movie adaptation of the Dirk Pitt adventure. When we went home, I gave reading the thick novels a try and I found that I actually liked them.

So two weeks ago, I picked up Trojan Odyssey along with several other books at the small bookshop in our building. I was surprised to learn about Dirk’s grown kids! So apparently there’s at least one other Pitt novel out there that we haven’t read before (Valhalla Rising) because the appearance of Summer and Dirk Jr was a big surprise.

The book gave me my dose of adventure, world history and mythology. Sometimes I really think that I didn’t major in the right subject in college. Why didn’t I study literature or archeology or even art history? Okay, they wouldn’t have suited me either. Hehe.

It was very interesting to read about the battle of Troy and Odysseus’ trip home to Ithaca and learn of other theories behind what or where it really happened. It was amazing how Cussler was able to tie in that story with what Specter was really all about. Truly genius.

I recommend this novel to anyone looking for an adventure though if you don’t know Dirk Pitt yet, I would suggest starting with the other novels because you got to have read other Pitt novels for you to really appreciate the talk of retiring and even of settling down with Loren.

These novels really do a good job raising environmental awareness, specifically consciousness of marine life which I don’t think gets the attention it deserves in this country. I had a Lit class held at the Marine Science Institute building in campus (because there were no other rooms available elsewhere) and that was the closest I ever was to Marine Science. Maybe in another life I’d take up Marine Science or something.

%d bloggers like this: