Soaking and Steaming

One word can describe how today was: rainy. It started pouring hard early in the morning, continued throughout my shift, and only seemed to have stopped just a few minutes ago.  Since I brought an umbrella with me to work, I wasn’t soaked on the way to and from the office, but the same couldn’t be said of my jogging trip this afternoon.  Though my DLSU windbreaker and baseball cap took the brunt of the downpour, I was still wet enough that my jogging spats felt uncomfortably cold whenever the wind picked up. 

I did slightly better on this jog than yesterday, and I was able to go from the back of RCBC plaza up to the Ayala Triangle park without experiencing a tightening of my chest nor an obnoxious cramp.  After a brief detour to the ladies’ room, I did a few circuits.  Hmm, if I were to compare my progress to Miku’s AX 2011 concert, I was able to jog nonstop from Project Diva Diva to Romeo and Cinderella, with a brief pause during Po Pi Po and Electric Angel to catch my breath and buy a bottle of Pocari Sweat.

That said, for that improvement, it’s pretty much a wash on the weight-loss side, as I ate two sticks of liver barbecue and five doughnut centers on my way back home, and finished my evening with the La La pack that my sister brought back from her trip with her boyfriend to SM Mall of Asia. Ugh. Oh well, I suppose I’ll just count today as my cheat day, though it means I’ll have to be extra vigilant again tomorrow with my intake.

On a matter related to my health… the snaps and creaks that I hear whenever I turn or flex my left shoulder is starting to bug me. It really is starting to look like an old weight-training injury that I’ve ignored for far too long.  I’m not really sure if anything can be directly done about it at this point, barring going to a Japanese masseuse and telling him or her not to be gentle with me, but an officemate mentioned that a hot compress could help.  Which is why I dropped by Mercury Drug to get myself some heating pads, and an honest-to-goodness hot water bottle.

I think normally you’d want to hold the bottle on the area with the most creaks, but since the bottle itself was scalding hot at times, I settled for just lying down on it, with my left arm stretched horizontally from my body. Even then I had to shift every so often to avoid getting burned. Ouch. Anyway I’m going to apply another compress before bed, and put on some hot patches on top of that.  While I’m not so optimistic that it’ll get rid of those awful creaks, I hope at least it’ll help with the circulation in my left arm.  I’ve experienced far too many mornings where I’ve woken up with it numb, and it’s not pleasant.

Hmm, I guess this means that I’ll have to skip on the usual bath tomorrow morning.  Oh well, I can live with a towel rub instead.

Finalities

After the consultation session I had earlier with my professor, I’ve decided that I’m going to try my hand at translating Neil Gaiman, specifically one of his short stories. I haven’t decided on the actual story, but at least now I have something to work on. Come to think of it, don’t recall anyone trying to localize a story by an international best-selling author, but I suppose it’s because of all the issues involved with working with established copyrights. I mean, a small and local publishing firm, never mind a local author, can’t possibly afford to translate something like, say, Anansi Boys right?

To help with the project, I dropped by National Bookstore at Glorietta 5 and bought the massive UP Diksyunaryong Pilipino, as well as one of Gaiman’s anthologies to refresh my memory on his writing style. I have no illusions that this will be easy, but I’ll try not to mess up too much on this one.

As for the consultation itself, well, after helping me decide on my topic, I helped my professor in return by answering some of his questions regarding text formatting, the playing of some of the video files he had (VLC player and MPC Home Cinema with the right codecs were the solution), torrenting (u Torrent was my pick), looking for book references as PDFs online (kind of hit and miss) and, in between consulting with my other classmates (who streamed in one by one) about their own projects, watching some of Jacque Derrida’s lectures (his French accent made it rather hard to understand what he was saying though) and Martin Heidegger’s interviews (imposing man, I was surprised to find out) on Youtube. The inability to find any proper English interview of Anna Arendt aside, I thought it was a very fruitful morning for all those involved.

That aside… I predict that I’m going to have less time for anything gaming-related for a while. Ah, what a waste of the Eye of the North Double Allegiance Weekend! 

Rained On, Rained In

I went on my customary walk around Makati again today and, wouldn’t you know it, it started raining hard before I could even reach the Ayala Triangle.  I’m not stupid enough to be caught in a full-on-downpour, so I had to seek shelter in one of the buildings on the way.  I didn’t stay too long however, and as soon as the rain let up a bit I started on my way again.  By the time I got the park itself, the rain had turned into a drizzle, which meant that I could run through the paths without fear of getting soaked. At least, not much anyway.

I didn’t experience the usual tightness of my chest this time around (though I did experience an ache much lower down), and I was able to jog through several songs (Hatsune) Miku sung doing her concert in AX 2011, but it still wasn’t near what I used to be able to do.  Still it’s a minor improvement, which only serves to show that I made the right decision.  That said, I estimate it’ll be a few more weeks before I can even try jogging nonstop for more than thirty minutes again, never mind more than that so… Baby steps.  Yeah.

As for other topics… As much as I hate to admit it, I’m still stuck on what to do for my Literary Translation project.  This, after spending most of my morning and early afternoon trying to mull over it.

Although there are the usual issues of theoretical grounding (an aspect I’m weak at, and the lack of accessible reference materials aren’t helping), I’m not sure what to translate either. I mean, sure, something that is ‘intellectually engaging’ gives a student a lot of leeway with regards to choice, but at the same time it means that I could literally translate anything as long as it is engaging to me.  And that doesn’t quite sit right with me, for some reason even I can’t explain.

If push comes to shove I suppose I can just do a translation of an academic essay, but after hearing the suggested projects of my classmates up to but not limited to ‘translating’ a poem into a short story, well, my submission would seem rather dry by comparison.

Ah whatever, I’ll just have to figure things out tomorrow after consulting with our professor.

Cold Comforts

Surprise surprise, despite my misgivings yesterday today’s shift wasn’t so frustrating.  In fact, it was almost like a Monday shift, where I had some control over the calls that came in, and how all customer service calls seem to completely vanish entirely after ten in the morning.  Okay, there were some instances of stupid where I had to raise my voice during a call, but who doesn’t experience those in this industry?  Heck, if there was a center in the greater Makati area where I won’t have to raise my voice ever (AHAHAHAHA) sign me up.

Although it looked really dark on the way back from work I only encountered a slight drizzle, so I was mostly dry when I got home (despite the fact that I didn’t bring an umbrella with me).  The real downpour came sometime mid-afternoon, but by that time I was already comfortably ensconced in my room, killing time before I went to bed for my siesta… Which got interrupted by my father bursting into my room complaining about the phone bill that I already paid.  It’s really wonderful how he can overreact to things sometimes…

Well, at least I’ve cleared things up with him, so it’s one thing he’s not going to worry about.  

Now if only our drainage issues were as easily dispelled… Although he was able to alleviate the issue with our bathroom (caused by a combination of accumulated muck, sediment, and fat), the problems in our kitchen were proving to be much tougher to deal with.  Something about some corner resisting getting poked, which results in continuous flooding of that particular cupboard area during hard rain.  Oh well, he’ll find a solution to that in time, I think.

As for me, hmm… I think I’ll have to decide on what to translate by tomorrow.  So I can actually start on the translation project itself. Yeah, a day should be enough, right?

Right?

Rainy Midweek

It’s been raining almost nonstop since this morning, but that’s to be expected since the main island got slammed by a typhoon.  It wasn’t a powerful typhoon, but it had a large enough area that while it made landfall somewhere in the middle of Luzon, it was still raining buckets here in Metro Manila.  And while we’ve managed to avoid any sort of flooding in our neighborhood, it still made for a very wet and gloomy day.  Heck the rains were enough that my father had to cancel his usual Wednesday trip to Baclaran Church, and that never happens.

I’m sure grade school and high school students all over the city are celebrating the resulting cancellation of classes though.  College students… not so much, ahaha.

The rains didn’t affect work much, if one didn’t count the fact that it gave the air conditioning on the work floor the curious property of making me go to the toilet even more than usual.  Aside from that, it was relatively slow for the mid-week, but I suppose the fact that two of the folks from the night shift doing overtime eased the queue enough that there were large gaps of time between calls by the time it hit about nine-thirty in the morning.  I’m not complaining though, since it made the day all the less stressful.

Back at home, the temperature drop brought by the rain made it so much easier to go to sleep, which is why I did so. Though I could have done without having to get up and run to the toilet (due to the same drop in temperature), but that’s to be expected…

The rains should end tonight though, which means its back to the same usual work day tomorrow.  Hopefully a few people go on overtime again, as I’d really hate to close out my work week stressed out and frustrated.

Doorstop Purchases

Foot, meet mouth.

Remember how I mentioned in a previous post how I hoped to try avoiding needless, expensive credit card-based purchases, especially since my salary really can’t support the months worth of payment that would follow? Well, I just went and did it again. Today’s purchase set me back more than five thousand pesos, but I think (or at least hope) that I can get a lot of mileage out of one of the books I bought: The Norton Anthology of Literary Criticism (2nd Edition).

While we do have copies of the various Norton Anthologies at the university library, they’re not really available for borrowing, and most of the time (particularly those volumes found on the 2nd floor) you can’t have them photocopied either. Although I don’t find note taking as tedious as some teenagers think these days, it’s never fun when you have to transcribe ten to twenty pages of teeny tiny text, including annotations. Which is why when I saw the lone volume at Powerbooks this afternoon I thought, well, that’ll be handy. After all, many of my classes go back to Literary Theory in the end, either through reference or application.

Yeah, I’ll just keep telling myself that. Anything to justify paying for a reference book that’s worth half a month’s pay…

It’s really too bad that there weren’t any books on Translation, particularly on Steiner, but that was kind of expected.  I guess I’ll have to try my luck finding free ebook copies somehow.

Anyway, it’s back to the real world tomorrow. I am so going to hate my shift tomorrow, doubly so if it just happened to be raining on the way to the office.

Always Raining On My Day

It looks like Yssa had her share of fun yesterday, so good for her.  This time it’s my turn, but unlike hers it’s been raining on and off ever since this morning.  While it’s not much of an issue while at the office, it’s going to be a pain going home, that’s for sure, as it’ll means that the streets will either be flooded, muddy, or both.  The downside of riding a bike to and from the office, I suppose.

Hmm, I wonder if I can pass by church on the way back. One might say that it’s a family tradition, to give thanks to God for being alive yet another year, and praying for continued health in the months to come. Normally we try to attend the first mass in the morning, but given my line of work (and today’s weather) it wasn’t possible today.  There should be an evening mass at around 6:00 in the evening though, so I’ll just try to attend that one.

It’s kind of funny. My mother commented (during her long-distance call earlier) how it always seems to rain on my birthday.  This isn’t true, and I can only count three birthdays in recent memory where the weather wasn’t sunny.  I blame global warming, but no one should be surprised about this.  It is the rainy season, after all.

At the very least I’m not sick in bed this time around.  2008 was it?  That was something I didn’t want to experience ever again. Okay, it was nice being looked after by Ma. Gaile during that time, but I still felt terrible.  It was no ordinary fever, that’s for sure.

Anyway that was then, this is now.  What’s in store for me when I get home? Maybe some valenciana or spaghetti, possibly pork barbecue as well. If I’m lucky my sister will allow me to open one of the bottles of red wine we have, and have a few sips (not too many, as we both have work).  After that, receiving greetings from my relatives on Facebook, then bed.

It’s the best a bachelor like me can hope for in a birthday, I suppose.  Snuggling up to someone I like for the night… Ah, such a pleasant fantasy.

Is It My Day?

It’s my birthday. As mentioned by my friend Alain Gravel in reply to my post the other day, it doesn’t feel any different from the usual weekday, except for the fact that my family had made an effort to prepare something other than the usual viand to go with rice.  Suffice to say there was lumpia, spaghetti, and lots of pork barbecue to be had.  It was fun, but I’d be lying if I didn’t say I didn’t feel bloated by the time lunch was done. Ugh.

Although it was just four of us today, the greetings by the folks on Twitter made up for the lack of a proper party. So let me thank all the people who tweeted a greeting. Thanks for keeping up for me, and maybe you can endure my pessimism for another year, ahaha.

Aside from that, it was also my payday. I was significantly less happy about seeing the salary I could withdraw (barely 4400 PHP), since I had to use 2000 of that to pay off the phone bill, and about 500 to completely pay off one of my credit cards.  That leaves me with about… less than 1500 to tide me over until the next payday.  It’s not much to work with, to say the least, and is definitely not going to cover my portion of this month’s electricity bill.  Face the wrath of my sister yet again, or starve? Choices, choices…

It’s a good thing (or a bad thing) that tatay deposited about 300 USD into my savings account sometime after I turned in what was left of my salary for savings; good, in that if I play things right, the next four or more months worth of bills are more or less taken care of; bad, in that I’ll have to endure another round of backtalk from my sister, and I’m once again indebted to my parents for bailing me out.  So much for financial independence once I hit thirty. *sigh*

Ah, so frustrating.  Maybe I’ll spend the rest of my day tomorrow sleeping in bed…

Why Bother Counting

Today is my cheat day, which means I won’t restrict my diet for a change. It also means that I won’t do some exercising as well, aside from the usual walk to and from church, to give my muscles a chance to recover.  It’s back to the usual tomorrow though, but I’m wondering if it won’t end up as a loss, considering that it’s my birthday the day after.  Have to spoil myself after all.

What?  Expecting me to say something else?  Hmm, well I’m at a loss for something to say for a change actually.  It’s just your normal Sunday, which means that for about two hours the calls were hectic, but after that the queue was light enough that there were several minutes in between calls.  Just how I like it.

My bank account is, as usual, close to dying, but that’ll be remedied by tomorrow, since it’s payday once again.  Deducting this month’s phone bill, and I should still have enough to last until the next payday, barring unforeseen purchases of course (which have dropped close to zero since I started working part-time).  Aside from that, I really need to cut down on my daily spending, but that’s difficult since I work smack drab in the financial district, and most of the time the closest place to get food is the convenience store at the ground floor of our office building.

Hmm. Two days off. What to do, what to do…  Kind of a shame how I couldn’t get three consecutive days off, but I guess I’m already lucky as it is.  Too bad this means I’ll have to come back to work at the height of the workweek, but that’s a given I suppose.

Eh, as usual with me, I’ll just have to see.

Serious Business

I’ve gotten more details about the final project we have for the Translation class, but while it seems simple at first it’ll prove to be something that’ll once again come down to the last minute.  The main issues are of course a) selecting what to translate (the criteria being ‘must raise academic interest’) and b) the methodology and theory that will have to be used.  Surprisingly a lot of the class share my problems with the former, though I’m more worried about the latter as literary theory has never been my strong point.  Although we technically have until the 25th of next month to finish and submit it, the clock is literally already ticking for us.  I really hope I’ll be able to come up with something before the end of the workweek, so I can start on it and avoid the usual cramming.

Speaking of ticking clocks, I have one inside me which I’m trying to ignore.  Yes, I’m terribly aware that it’s my birthday in about two days.  I’m trying to ignore that fact, thank you very much.  It’s also kind of hard to be happy when I only get to have money again just the day before it, and even then it’s not something I can actually spend.  It’s a good thing that both my father and sister are contributing for the barbecue and spaghetti, or else it’d be a very sparse celebration, ahaha.  

Oh well, at least I managed to secure a day off on the day itself as well as the one that preceded it.  Two days away from angry customers can do wonders, I suppose.

I took another walk around Makati today, as soon as it stopped raining in my area in fact. The tightness in my chest wasn’t as bad this time around, and I can job for six to seven minutes now before having to slow down and walk for around four minutes.  It’s not much of an improvement, and for some reason my right leg keeps cramping up, but it’s far better than my previous effort.  If I keep going, maybe I’ll be able to jog a straight fifteen minutes by next week?  

Ahaha, it’s always nice to dream, yes?

On the dieting side of things, I cheated a bit today, since I ate some rice for my breakfast and lunch, and ate half a cob of corn.  The rice wasn’t much, just a cup for each meal, but since I’m trying to avoid the ‘white’ carbohydrates it’s already a guilty pleasure I suppose.  That aside, I think I’m getting used to not stuffing my face at the first sign of hunger.  Though, for some reason I’ve been stricken by gas for the past few days, then again I suppose eating legumes in lieu of rice will do that.  At least my digestive cycle seems better, and it looks like it’s gradually going back to how it was prior to my binge eating.

Now for less yucky dieting-related matters…

Several episodes into my rewatch of Sora no Manimani, and I’ve fully thrown my lot in with the Fuumin camp.  I found Fuumin’s growing attraction to Saku (due to shared interests) far more compelling than Hime’s very high school-ish crush.  Hime might be a nice girl, but she’s trying a little too hard, whereas there’s obvious chemistry between Saku and Fumie.  Also, as Executive Otaku commented before, there’s just something fun in shipping two tsunderes together, ahaha.

My fangirl’s choice of ship aside, the coupling pictured above is almost inevitable.  Mii-chan’s immaturity aside, most of Saku’s thoughts gradually return back to the pint-size bundle of energy who just loves dragging him out of his comfort zone.  You know it, I know it; fate will conspire to drive Mii-chan and Saku together so that they’ll produce a bookwork of a kid, who will then be introduced to a genki older girl… At which the cycle starts anew. All is then right with the world.

I’m close to the end of the series of this point, and new developments abound, as well as new characters, one of whom puts a little wrinkle in Mihoshi and Saku’s relationship (as it is).  Still, it’s pretty much the same lighthearted fun, with a dash of character development. What else can I ask for in a rom-com?  Except for another rewatch or two of course, ahaha!