Breaking a Bad Habit

Today, I have decided to start my day early, so that I could end it early as well.

I've been used to waking up in the middle of the day (literally, at 12 noon) ever since vacation day began. I would eat lunch (powerlunch, to compensate my non-breakfast habit), have a bit of stretching and clean my room. Afterwhich, I would clean the bathroom (my brother and I alternately does this). Then either I take a bath or eat meringue to wrap things up, usually at around six or seven o'clock in the evening. Everything after seven o'clock plays around with watching TV, reading a book, writing stuffs or listening to radio while relaxing at the rooftop. But I usually stay up late in the internet - late equated to almost until the dawn of the next day.

This has been my routine in the 2 months that passed. And I say - evidently - that it has been unhealthy.

Apparently, I must admit that there is something wrong with my body clock. I couldn't sleep at night, so instead of tiring my eyes by forcing myself to sleep, I would just frolic with the vast pool of information and communication that the Internet provides. Hoping that once I shut the light of our AVR off, I would peacefully get to sleep.

That is why I wake up in the middle of the day. Or is this the reason that I wake-up that late - because I stay awake very late?

Hence, today I have decided to start my day early, so that I could end it early as well. Hoping that I would be able to get sleep early, and wake up early again tomorrow.

This has been a blessed day.

The Benefit of being Inter-connected

It's two o'clock in the morning yet my eyes are still as open and as active as it is at two o'clock in the afternoon. Ever since I have tried to control my sleep when we were still busy doing school works, I haven't been able to regain my normal ten o'clock to eleven o'clock sleeping time. It's probably one of the biggest things I have adapted from college busy-ness - sleeping late until dawn. Yes, until dawn.

When I stay awake until two o'clock in the morning, I usually spend my time surfing the net updating my social networking sites (Facebook and Twitter), checking e-mails in Yahoo and Google, and browsing blogs of friends which jump from one to the next. From Friend A's Facebook-connected Tumblr post comes a comment of Friend B, from Friend B appears a thumbnail of a seemingly familiar face on a thumbnail. There he/she is: Friend C.

This is the wonder that social networking sites - and the worldwide web as a whole - bringsto the society. Apart from allowing a room for people to chat and see each other while comfortably sitting on their rolling chairs at home or in a couch at a coffee shop (or wherever it is), the Internet gives people the access to the thoughts and life status of other people - whether a friend or not. And this virtual connection instantly makes a relationship-cum-friendship between two complete strangers. As the very-first-introduced networking site Friendster says when one stranger spots your profile: "Add as Friend". Voila, instant friend.

There are various things to be thankful for in terms of technology, although sometimes I tend to curse it because of errors and inconveniences that are totally out-of-control (most especially when I was still in college) . Nonetheless, the benefits outweigh the costs in a big margin. And yes, at this present moment of staying-awake-until-dawn, I am thankful for the worldwide web.

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I chanced upon Kathrine Blaise Panaganiban's (or Kate, as close friends call her) Tumblr account through Meng's. Posted in her Tumblr account are photos taken from her internship in ABS-CBN News and Current Affairs - from the ABS-CBN Halalan 2010 coverage poster and the "War Room", to the off-cam "kulitan"(as she termed it) moments of the ANC anchors of the Monings@ANC. Apart from these are photos of Karen Davila doing interviews during her ANC morning program Headstart (I am really a BIG fan of Karen - in every sense of the phrase). Hence, while browsing through her page, I just uttered to myself, "Ang swerte naman ni Kaaaaaaate!"

With all honesty, I felt a tinge of envy bordering to hatred when I first saw the photos Envy: sana ako nandiyaaaan! (I wished I was the one there). Hatred: Bakit noong time ng OJT ko walang ganyang offer! Urgh. I hate you, life! (Why was it during my turn to have an OJT, there was no offer like that). Yes, I sort of envied Kate, but what I hated was the seemingly unfair timing of a season like this.

But all these feelings vanished into thin air when I suddenly thought of Kate.

Kate has opened herself to all possibilities and has nurtured courage in facing various people in the real world - before she got this really good opportunity. As she wrote in one of her Facebook replies to her friend, "Kapal ng mukha ang naging puhunan ko". If I were in her shoes, I think I wouldn't be as successful as she has become in her internship as a Halalan 2010 cadet. I have never been an all-out people-person (I can be, but only to some), and I only possess a charisma that would work to only a number of people. All I uttered to myself, "Kate is one passionate girl. What an inspiration".

Dragging further down the scroll bar, I saw a photo of her and her fellow cadets seated on the Halalan 2010 lectern for anchors, with which she has written as a caption:

Watch out for the new batch of ABS-CBN journalists! ;) From different universities with one aspiration. The Halalan 2010 Cadets: hopeful broadcasters. Years from now, we will be delivering the most accurate news to every Filipino. Soooon! We promise. ;)

I felt the passion and aspiration which I have felt last year - upon finishing my internship in DZRH-Aksyon Radyo (which has also been an outstanding experience) - as I read this. With one aspiration. Hopeful broadcasters. Years from now, we will be delivering the most accurate news to every Filipino. And I do believe that she could do it, with the guts that she had.

With this, the passion that I feel to fulfill a dream has been rekindled - and intensified. With all the signs favoring to the path that I have envisioned for myself (abundantly blessed to me by God), I know in my heart that someday, too, I will be there (enough of constantly checking Karen Davila's photos in Twitter because I will already be working with her. Haha!).

And Kate and I will see each other, as well as other dreaming fellows.

God bless our dreams.