MMMiii!

Who ever said that being on Night Shift is healthy?
Who ever said that being on a different shift every month or every two weeks is healthy?
I don’t think anyone would.

Being on a shifting schedule is unhealthy, yes, but what kind of unhealthiness? Especially if you’re on Night Shift, and your schedule only changes with an 8-hour difference, but still basically at night?

While waiting for UnionBank to open this morning at Starbucks, I was so bored that I read the papers (Yes, OMG! I can read!). I just found out that the country is having a food shortage and that the Ifugao Rice Terraces was selected as a UN treasure or something and that they’re kind of renegotiating our country boundaries for the Kalayaan Group/Spratly Islands, and some other stuff. Well, the only one I really read on was the Ifugao Rice Terraces.

What caught my eye was an article about how being on Night Shift can cause sleep deprivation (no, really?) and the health problems that come with it. What really piqued my interest in the article was how people had a higher risk of obesity when they’re on Night Shift. Because you get more hungry often when you’re on Night Shift and something to do about your metabolism and body clock and what not. I do notice that always, after my shift, I’m so hungry. Like I’m starving. So I grab something to eat sometimes on the way home, and when I arrive home, I’m going to eat again because Mama cooked breakfast to me (I know I could say ‘no,’ but who the hell can say ‘no’ to Filipino breakfast?).

Double breakfast.

I also think feel that I’m getting a tad heavier. *sigh* *starts blaming getting fatter on Night Shift*

But anyways, there were tips on coping with Shift Work.

Coping with shift work

Sleep experts suggest various ways to cope with unusual work and sleep schedules.

• Regular hours: Keep the same sleep schedule on days off from work.
  • No really? It’s past five pm, going on sick six and I’m still awake. Although… I really should be waking up at this time on normal work days. I time myself. I try to sleep by 10am, not later than 11am. I wake up at 4pm, not later than 5pm. That’s on normal days, but today is my day off…
• Strategic napping: Studies show naps of 20 minutes to two hours — either just before a shift or during a shift — can improve alertness and performance at work.
  • Strategy? Like whenever I’m Sleeping at Work? I’m really trying to avoid that now. What I do is if I get done early with bath and dinner, I sleep until 5:30pm or 5:45pm.
• Bright light: Exposure to bright lights during the first half of a shift may help fight fatigue later in the shift.
  • I’m not really sure about this. It’s always usually bright there, so I don’t really know the difference if I started in a dark place or bright one.
• Light restriction: Avoiding bright lights in the morning (such as by wearing sunglasses on the way home and sleeping in a very dark room) can help night-shift workers sleep better during the day.
  • I think my mother noticed that I’m still really having a hard time sleeping in the day even after she put curtains on my windows to kind of reduce the sunlight so I could sleep, so she put on thicker
    curtains. I really love my mother. Now it’s dark … ish…. here, but it’s really a LOT of improvement. I just got hooked up on J-Drama what’s why I’m still awake, not because of the light.
  • I have these neat cheapo shades that I use a lot these days. I bought 2 expensive ones but they weren’t dark enough. One was P200 and the other one was P250. This uber neat shades was just P55. One can usually find the best buy in cheapo places like Dakki or Daisan or whatever you call it, or Uncle Ben’s Store… Ugh, I can’t remember. But it’s UBL sunglasses and I got it in a Japan Home+Dakki+Daisan(?) Store.
    
• Melatonin: Supplements can promote daytime sleep when taken an hour or two before bedtime.
  • Haven’t tried. Probably will not try.
• Modafinil: This medication, brand name Provigil, was approved in 2004 for the treatment of shift-related sleep disorder. Taken just before a shift, it can enhance alertness at night, studies have shown.
  • Haven’t tried. Probably will not try.
• Caffeine: Caffeine has been shown to counteract drops in performance levels at night.
  • I love coffee. Except that coffee hates me. I have hyper-acidity and coffee gives me diarrhea as well. But sometimes, I do feel the need, and sometimes it doesn’t really wake me up, but it’s good anyway.

Sources: Dr. Diane Boivin; American Academy of Sleep Medicine.
c/o Shari Roan, Los Angeles Times

Stolen from … Darn I forgot. I’m not even sure if it’s Manila Times. -_-;; But thank you, one of the local news papers. I do remember the page. It’s on E4.

The ones in italics are just my side comments. Don’t pay too much attention to them.

Anyway, my first thought of this was, “This should be shown to all Call Center Agents. This should be circulated so that we can all stay healthy.” A lot of my teammates have fallen ill and may resign because of health issues. It’s really sad.

So… to all you call center agents out there who are on shifting schedules or always on night shift, make sure that you get enough sleep.

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Lately, I’ve been hanging out in eBay. I’m getting frustrated not being able to get my money from PayPal because Xoom is being utterly stupid. Not that I’ve got a lot in my PayPal, but still… it would be nice to be actually touching them or seeing them take interest in my bank account, right?

So… I signed up for eBay! And I bought three things.

Silicone Skin Case for my Zen V Plus with lanyard and armband.

You’re probably thinking I’m crazy. The item is $1.00 but shipping is $9.49, a total of $10.49. If you convert that to peso, that’s still less than how much the silicone skin case will cost here. Including the arm band. So I’m still fine with that. It’ll just take about a month to get here plus red tape, so that’s two months… maybe.

Brand New Sennheiser CX300 Ear Canal Headphone Silver Black.

Actually, I wanted the black one, but stupid me didn’t notice that I bid on the Silver one. I emailed the person and asked him if he could send me the black one instead. I don’t know if it’s real or not, but it’s cheaper than the Phillips in-ear earphones that I’ve been eyeing for some time now. a LOT cheaper, and a LOT cheaper than it’s price in malls. I can’t spend my real money, so why not spend money that I can’t obtain? right?

And my last purchase…

Nodame Cantabile: Megumi’s Piano Pattern Tote Bag + Coin Purse

I don’t remember seeing Nodame with this coin purse, but what the heck. I’ve been wanting to buy a new bag and I don’t see anything that I like that is within my budget (my budget for a new bag is P150). Nothing I see, even in Ukay-Ukays, meet that budget and design that I want. So… I thought of getting the Nodame bag. And it’s … not very cheap, but good enough. It’s about 5 times my budget, but considering I didn’t really spend anything from my salary for these… s’all good.

Well… those are my first eBay purchases. I hope I don’t get addicted and spend too much. The things I usually see have to come from overseas, and knowing how this country’s postage system works, these things will probably arrive past my birthday. *crossing fingers*

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These past few days, I haven’t really bothered to go on IRC. One reason is I can’t really be bothered. I don’t have enough time. But lately, I manage to go home early and actually, I do have time now if I wanted. However, lately, I’ve been watching J-Drama again. I’ve been using up my AznV.TV credits. Considering I’ve almost had the account for 2 years now since KALIF gave me a premium one pre-loaded with 30 hours I think. And then I asked for more hours. And until now, I still haven’t used them up. And now that I’ve unplugged my cousins from the router, I can actually watch on AznV.TV now without a lot of problems. Because before, when they were connected, it was impossible to watch there… so now …

Well, now, I’m thinking of topping up this time using my own money, instead of freeloading.

Has anyone been in need of therapy for anime/drama/movie/music addiction? I wonder if there are drug treatment centers for these kinds of addictions. I call myself a music addict or a music whore, depending on the situation. I mean, there ARE some people who declare themselves addicted to this or addicted to that, simple things, not necessarily drugs, but has anyone really been diagnosed as addicted to [insert something here that isn’t drugs internet or games]. I remember when I doing a paper on Internet Addiction there was a Chinese therapist for internet and gaming addiction. It was really cool and pitiful at the same time. And this was around 2002. What about now? There are more games and more things you can possibly do online these days.

Well, for now, let me be addicted to J-Drama and watch what I’ve missed out for the past years. Those J-Dramas that I’ve always wanted to watch.

~Currently watching Orange Days~
~Just finished Motokare and Oishii Propose~

BTW, AznV.TV is an asian media streaming site. It has premium accounts wherein you could watch almost anything, and free limited accounts which also has lower quality streams.

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Here is a song that has truly touched my heart. Well, I finally went and did it. I recorded it with myself on the guitar. I couldn’t do a more dramatic rendition of it, but I did put my whole heart into it, so much that I feel my fingers were going to bleed if I didn’t stop playing it.

According to the websites I saw while looking for the lyrics and translation, it was used as an insert song in a drama called Perfect Love. I’ll look for that drama and watch it as soon as I finish school.

Version 1

Version 2

I know you might say there isn’t much difference, but with Version 1, I was already getting hoarse and if it was full of emotion, like sounding almost going to cry, it was because my fingers hurt so much already. With Version 2, I tried hitting the high notes better, but I think it wasn’t as emotional sounding as the first one.

Oh well. Here are the lyrics:

Masaharu Fukuyama - Squall (Taken from megchan.com)

Because I know I suck, I’m also going to include Masaharu Fukuyama’s and Eiko Matsumoto’s versions.

Masaharu Fukuyama - Squall

Eiko Matsumoto - Squall

I’m so stressed out with school, I feel I’m going to break…

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The title says it all… but wait! There’s more!

I’ve been watching Toki wo Kakeru Shoujo or TokiKake for short and… T_T Well… it’s good. I should watch the original movie (Live Action) since it’s been sitting in my soon-to-be-full-again hard drive for like 2 days now.

But TokiKake isn’t the only thing I’m watching right now (Look at the outdated list to the lower right). I’m currently following the Japanese Hotelier. Only 3 eps subbed so far.

Aya Ueto is sexy, but really, keigo and extreme politeness doesn’t seem to suit her after seeing her as the lean, mean, sexy killing machine Azumi like 10000000 times. And after Attention Please where she played as a punk-turned-Flight Attendant, she must have mastered all those polite speech and manners and so on.

Attention Please has no romance at all, but Hotelier seems to be a love drama aside from the inner drama in hotel staff rooms and business mergers.

Another drama I’ve seen her in is My Little Chef where she acts as the little sister of the talented young chef who cooks delicious food based on the personality of the people she cooks for.

Anyway, I’m straying away from pretty Aya. I downloaded her movie Install… for the second time. I was watching the first 20 minutes of it I think but got bored and deleted it. So… Months later, it appears in this private tracker I belong to, so I go download it… again.

So back to the real topic of this blog. I need to sleep. o.o

Wait. As a final note….

Aya Ueto is now a woman. TT___TT

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