I woke up at 330AM on this rainy Sunday with intermittent electrical power and typhoon Frank knocking on our door (both literally & figuratively). By 4AM, our street completely lost all electrical power (and I guess a big chunk of Metro Manila) and I completely lost whatever sleepiness I had in my body. In other words, by 4AM I was wide-awake with nothing to do. This got me thinking...what can one actually do on a rainy, "electrically-challenged" (did I just coin a new word?Ü) day? I obviously can't watch TV or surf the internet, so I got my iPod and portable speakers and played some of Chico & Delamar's Top 10 which I downloaded and have stored in my iPod. Good thing I just recently charged my iPod so I had full battery power, but I can't say the same thing about my mobile phone (which is about to conk-out any minute now).
So aside from listening to your iPod (or any mp3 player), what else can one do? After a bit of thinking, these are what I came up with:
THINGS TO DO ON A BLACKOUT & RAINY DAY:
(1) Listen to AM Radio. On a bad weather day, this is the best thing one can do to be updated with what's happening in the surroundings. This requires that you have a working battery-powered radio & batteries to power it. Good thing we had a working radio requiring only 2 AAA batteries since the other two radios we had requires 8 medium-sized batteries, which we unfortunately didn't have on stock at home. So, moral of the story: stock-up on batteries that can power any battery-powered radios you have so that when the situation calls for it, then your home will be "battery and radio-ready."
(2) Blog...which is what i'm doing right now. If you have a laptop with a bit of battery life left, then good for you since you won't have to re-type everything you've written down. If not, then do it the "old-fashioned" way: using a pen and paper (like what i'm doing now). If you're not into blogging, then just write on your diary (if you have one) or just simply write down any thoughts you have on your head. Try it out, you just might like it and who knows, you might just discover that inner writer in you.Ü
(3) Clean or organize your room/cabinet/drawers. This requires a bit of dedication seeing as cleaning is not really on top of one's list of favorite things to do. But hey, what better time to do such thing but on an electrically-challenged, rainy day seeing as the list of things that you can do are limited on such days. So rather than just sitting and doing nothing, go grab a flashlight (or if your room is situated in a place that reaches the light of day, then a flashlight is not necessary) and start cleaning and organizing. I'm sure, once the lights are back on and the rain has gone away, you'll get to appreciate more all those hard work on cleaning and organizing any what-have-yous in your home.
(4) Call a long lost friend using the landline. Gone are the days when the only means of communication was through a PLDT landline. In this day and age when accessing the internet is easier and mobile phones are a necessity, a lot of us have replaced long talks on the ever-reliable landline with texting, instant messaging, and short conversations over the mobile phone. Which begs the question: Is it really worthit? Replacing juicy & friendly conversations with SMS or instant messaging where the only emotion one can view and convey is when the other party sends a winking ; ) , smiley =) , or lonely =( face? I don't think so. So on a day when going out to the mall is out of the question (since it's rainy), texting is kept to a minimum (so as to conserve as much of your mobile phone's battery power as possible), and the internet is not within reach (duh! there's a blackout!), why don't you try picking up the phone and check if you still know how to dial a phone number in your landline. Who knows, aside from learning what's up with a friend (and hearing someone's reaction on what you're saying rather than "reading" it), you might just get to catch some juicy gossip as well.Ü
Well, that's all that I got to think of for now (since the lights just came back on...YEY!). If you still have some ideas on what to do on an electrically-challenged, rainy day, let me know by posting a comment here. Hope you guys enjoyed reading this humble blog of mine. 'Til next month's blog! Ciao!
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As a post script, I'd like to ask those reading this blog to offer a moment of silence and prayer to the victims of typhoon Frank and to those who perished in the sinking of M/V Princess of the Stars. May their souls rest in peace.
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