Bublé Night (originally written on Oct. 27, 2010)

After a tough work week, I have decided October 27, 2010 to be my Bublé Night. It’s been quite a while since I listened to pure Bublé music. Sav usually chooses the playlist with various artists but now as my younger sister is hanging out in another room (exercising as I presume), I have the chance to play all his songs.

To those who don’t know Michael Bublé, he is a Canadian jazz singer. I’ve followed him ever since I heard his first single entitled “home”. From then on, he became my favorite artist and always listened to his songs. You would think that his voice and singing is that of an old man, but he is just in his early 30’s and just as young as most artists, it’s just that his type of music and most of his songs are old fashioned.

Well, call me old-fashioned, too but jazz soothes and I am lured to this kind of music. Moreover, jazz is almost always romantic. I am just 24 and a lot of people my age love dancing-up beat, acoustic, pop, rock, RnB music. But jazz is me.

Anyway, my MP4 now plays “I’ve Got You Under My Skin”, a Frank Sinatra original. Its tempo is a bit upbeat and I loved the song the first time I heard it. Piano, trumpet, saxophone, bass, drums, and of course, Bublé’s voice. The combination makes me feel really relaxed and happy right this moment. The lyrics of course when taken literally is weird but everyone knows songs are like that. They make you think and their words create somewhat like magic phrases giving those who listen creative imagination and a burst of feeling which depends on the music and lyrics of the song.

It is already cold and dark now as I gaze out our window. I wonder when winter will come. Work has been tough and tiring this week.

The cool breeze circulated by our fan makes some of my muscles tense, on the contrary, my mind gets relaxed upon hearing another classic  Bublé music “Mack the Knife”. I bet a lot don’t know the song even existed, I confess that I don’t really understand the meaning of the lyrics, but I love the music. I have still thirty minutes before sleeping and ending my day. And those thirty will be consumed by listening to the jazzy music of Michael Bublé. My mind is calm and relaxed now, thus I presume to have sweet dreams tonight, thanks to my Bublé night.

N.B. Now that it is June 27th 2011, I am in a lot of stress and jazz helps me ease things a bit.

Real-life Dementors

The title may sound geeky but this morning I felt so low and sad.

The nurses receiving in the station I was assigned to last night sucked all my energy and happiness.
For crying out loud they just can't stop complaining about anything. It was already 8 in the morning, and they still haven't finished the endorsement. It might be exhaustion but I wasn't feeling tired really. In fact, if you'd ask me to run the whole block of the hospital, I still could. But all this energy was being sucked out by these insensitive nurses not thinking you are way past duty hour and had to endure a long graveyard shift.

Usually and all the time I just smile and keep my happy thoughts and positive energy around me. However it wasn't the case this morning. I couldn't even lift my chin. I would smile for a moment but slump right back the next second. I try to laugh at the slightest comic thing then I frown knowing that my own grin is lying.
My colleagues (and i also like to call them friends) keep saying it's okay. I keep that in mind. But my head is low.

What I am saying is that I never felt this way before. I guess at age 24 going on 25 (thanks Jasmine for correcting my age) I still have a lot of emotions to feel. The feeling was different. It was a mix of disappointment and sadness and mental exhaustion. It was negative yeah, but the emotion will make me a wiser and more experienced individual.

As my article now moves further still from the title, I am still not over this slump feeling. But I know I will recover through some of my favourite things. So thank you Formula One, thank you games, thank you movies, thank you music. Of course, I also pray for help and guidance. Oh and I forgot to mention: thank you 3 days off. And I hope when I come back from duty, I can do what is properly due to my patients: 100% care from me.

Vettel Fact

Current Formula One World Champion Sebastian Vettel has 12 wins to his name in his very early career.

He has now won 2 out of 2 races this year but still I cannot rate him as one of the greats.

Lewis Hamilton, although I am one of his antis', is one of the great drivers of today including Fernando Alonso and Michael Schumacher. So why don't I rate Sebastian as highly as I did Lewis? Here is why.

In all of his 12 wins, Sebastian Vettel was on pole bar 3 times.

The first one was in Malaysia of 2010 where he was third from the grid but had a great start and was first going into the first corner.

Another same circumstance was in Brazil of 2010 where he was second on the grid to Hulkenburg, but of course, everybody knows the Williams wasn't competetive. He jumped right through before hitting the first corner and was first from then.

The third was in Abu Dhabi where he was second and Lewis was running first until he had a brake failure and had to retire from the race thus handing the win to Sebastian.

He has still a lot to prove, like winning from behind or having a non-dominating car. Only then could I rate him highly.

2011 Australian GP

I did not watch the race live so I had to watch it from youtube.

Anyway, it was hard to think that Ferrari are way off pace compared to Redbull and Mclaren. Just compare the speed of Button and Massa during the first stint. It was incredible though and fun to watch Massa defending hard against the charging Button. I admit I was impressed with how Massa controlled his car and defended well.

The surprise package for me was Mclaren. They were way off the pace during the winter tests but all of a sudden, as drastic changes were made to the car, they were at time matching Redbull's pace. It was incredible to see that at least, a team or two can challenge Redbull's dominance.

I believe that Ferrari need to step up their game. They weren't just quick enough, and as Fernando said before, strategy can play an important part but in the end, the quickest car will win the championships.

As of the moment they are way off, which means a lot of work has to be done if they want a championship this year.

Fernando Alonso, may I say, drove really great in the race. During the start, by the end of the first corner, he was 10th already but he made up some places which resulted in his 4th place. Sebastian Vettel was dominant, although I think that his move on Jenson Button was rather illegal and could have been the difference between Lewis or Vettel on the top step of the podium. Anyhow, Mark Webber was lacking a lot, of pace, and control of the car. On the third stint he made a mistake thus allowing Fernando Alonso through to 4th place.

The star of the race though was Russian driver Vitaly Petrov. He charged his Renault from 5th on the grid to his first ever podium position. He is the first Russian driver to do so, and it was a proud moment for him. Vettel now has a hat trick of wins on his pocket from last year. Such is the dominance of the Redbull.

So there, I could not wait until the next race to see if Ferrari have done something right, and if Mclaren have pushed their development in order to be as fast as the Redbulls.

I hope my work time does not coincide with the race so I will be able to watch the race live.

No Rest Off

Two days off, and I haven't had a good rest.

First night off, we went to Carrefour for some gruesome grocery shopping. Don't forget about Elma, going back home ahead and leaving Karyl, Marj and me until 10:30 pm, waiting for her in the mall.

After fixing tons of groceries, I continued my no rest pursuit by doing the laundry. And not just ordinary laundry, I cleaned blankets and bed sheets, and of course, our clothes.

By 4 in the morning, I took some sleep and awoke at 6, slept again, then cooked breakfast at 7. By 9 I was ready to accompany Kim to the post office. We returned to the room at around 11:30. I ate lunch and then slept. I woke up at 6pm and went to Duartani to send money to the Philippines. After which we went to Swefieh to buy some greeting cards but unfortunately the bookstore was closed. Then we went to buy DVD's. I bought myself a complete 5th season of How I Met Your Mother. Sav bought 2 movies, one of which, we already watched. We bought Paranormal Activity 2, and I hope by tomorrow I will be able to watch How Do You Know starring Reese Witherspoon.

All the walking was tiring and having not slept  for more than 8 hours wasn't really positive. On the contrary some in between's are nice and memorable, like the smell of KFC wipes, and eating Mcdonald's hot fudge sundae out in the cold with Sav. Bargaining for a lower price also is good. And hey! I got me some Jordan stamps!

I hope to have my off very soon again. Which will come after 5 days of graveyard shifts...

p.s. From March 1 up to 3 hours from now, I did not open the laptop.

The Lost and Finding of Fezzy Wezzy

Apart from the big news that Bahrain GP is cancelled and the F1 season will start on March 27th,
I had an interesting day waiting for the news about our cat.

Here are the text messages from my sister in the Philippines:

Received at 02-22-2011, 11:32 a.m. PH time:
"We have devastating news  nawala si fez kasi ipapaanti rabies siya tapos nagwala nabitawan pa ni dad yung chain tas tumakbo ng mabilis. Hinahanap pa rin ni ches at dad sa bundok."


Received the same day at 12:16 p.m. after I replied and asked some questions:
"Free kasi sa court taga health center ata ewan. Nakawala na siya bago pa umabot sa mga tutusok. Buong barangay hinahanap na siya. Nakachain kasi siya baka nasabitsabit."

At 2:46, I received this text message:
"Nasa bundok kami ngayon hinahanap namin si Fez."

And at 8:38 p.m., the following text was received:
"Fez is back! Umuwi siya mag-isa pero nawala yung bell niya at chain."

The full story of the finding of Fez is described below (from ate Jewnale's facebook wall)

• Nakabalik na siya haha. Pagod at gutom na gutom. Nawala yung chain at bell niya feeling namin may kumuha sa kanya. Anyway, tuwang tuwa kami at nakabalik siya.
• Paguwi niya nga nagulat kami eh nag meow tapos sabay sabay kaming nag Fez. Nagulat siya tumakbo sa ilalim ng table.

Hopefully our cat won't try to run away again because everybody loves him!

Love Your Enemies

It was the gospel reading yesterday. Three words. Very simple. Yet complex in a way.

Jesus asking us to love our enemies is quite hard especially when your foe has done something which is difficult to overturn. Wait, it isn't quite hard, it is very hard!

Imagine having to forgive a person who hurt you or your family, I know for sure it is unbearable to do. But then, Jesus asks us to do so in order to have peace in the community, and most importantly, to have peace in our hearts.

Forgiveness was also another point in the readings. A very simple word, yet again, also difficult to do.

I hope one of these days I will be able to forgive and reconcile with all my enemies.

With that, I hope and pray for strength to do so...