Three weekends

I've practically lost my weekends this month to illness or to being under the weather:

• 09 and 10 August, I came down with a fever and a cold;
• 16 and 17 August, I got prescribed antihistamines for my lingering cold that knocked me out nearly for two days; and
• 23 August, I got sidelined once again, and this time it was my abdominal cramps. (And then my cousin and her daughter came visiting the next day with my aunts from Manila.)

You might say that at least I got some rest, but then it also caused me to fall behind at work--which is the reason why things are so hectic nowadays that I haven't much time to write.

A visit from a twister

Late yesterday afternoon, the sunny hot weather we had since the morning suddenly turned for the worse. Winds picked up alarmingly, the sky darkened and lightning flashed nearly every minute. While I stood in my office wondering what to do (the power had just gone out as usual), I noticed a commotion going out just in front of our office building. Several people were gathering and screaming while pointing excitedly at what was apparently a terrifying sight above the building. Having not much to do anyway I ran out to see what it was all about. A student quickly told me, "Ma'am, may ipo-ipo!" And sure enough in the sky above I caught sight of a funnel cloud that quickly dissipated a few seconds later. Then we all ran back inside the building as it started to rain.

Missing the auditions

Thanks to my illness, I had no choice but to miss out on auditioning for the resident choir being formed at our parish. There was one audition last Thursday and another scheduled this evening after the 5:30pm mass. Our cantor who is in-charge of the resident choir was apparently expecting me to show up because he sent me a text message just earlier asking if I would be auditioning this afternoon. He was also hoping to hear the accompaniment I had made for two new songs we were going to learn. I had to tell him that I planned to audition but got sick and so couldn't come.

More than ample "coverage"

One thing I don't like about local channels showing live events is how they cover the event: they literally cover or hide footage with so much commercials. The live coverage by Solar Entertainment of the opening ceremonies of the Olympics at Beijing is a prime example. During the early part of the ceremonies which featured performances, the commercials were tolerable. But the network simply went too far during the parade of athletes into the stadium: three minutes of live footage would be followed by nearly eight minutes of commercials! I got so fed up I surfed around for another channel and settled on an Indonesian channel showing the same thing. Not only were there just short one minute commercials every thirty minutes or so, they made sure that they got back to where they left off before the commercial break so that one didn't miss a thing! It makes me wonder why we are encouraged to "Buy Filipino" if it often means patronizing poor quality and service.

Olympic fever

My throat started feeling sore yesterday morning and when I developed a fever (37.8C) by the early evening, I felt at once that this was something bad. It reminded me of the flu I came down with just a little over eleven years ago that kept me out of work for nearly two weeks. I took paracetamol and an antitussive right away which thankfully allowed me to get some rest. But while I stopped coughing and my temperature went back down to almost normal, my nose decided to get into the Olympic spirit this afternoon: it started running. Sigh.

A full schedule

This semester has been incredibly a hectic one that I have hardly found time to stop, reflect and write. Today was a perfect example of a busy day. My seminar classes--which included additional two-hour sessions to make up for the time lost due to that mini disaster we had two weeks ago--took up the entire morning literally. Then I managed to grab a quick lunch afterwards--McDonald's cheeseburger meal was the quickest I could get and the quickest I could chow down--before facing another full afternoon schedule administering exams to the students of one of my classes. This lasted til well after 6pm, thanks to a five-minute interruption courtesy of a power outage. And now I am desperate to get enough rest in preparation for tomorrow's classes.