Sa Pusod ng Dagat...Ano Daw?

My last topic consisted of a rather asinine discussion of the word bellybutton and its previously unknown Tagalog counterpart. It was rather a relief for me, literally and figuratively, to finally chance upon the native term for the navel, which is pusod. Pusod is the navel literally, and so my friends say, should not be confused with the word puson that is the rather noticeable tummy part below the navel for most women. The puson becomes rather enlarged due to lack of proper exercise, pregnancy, or the monthly visitor, and has a tendency to make one's shopping trip miserable when one discovers that a beautiful pair of bottoms cannot fit or look right.

Anyway, the word pusod is also a mystery to me in the sense that it was used in the phrase sa pusod ng dagat. (I remember this Tagalog flick that was titled Sa Pusod Ng Dagat; and I don't know or care what it was all about.) Does it literally mean “the navel of the sea?” The sea actually has a navel? (Hello, sorry, bimbo moment right here...) Does the phrase refer to a part of the sea much deeper than usual, or where the oceanic crust (oh, the Geo 11 nerd in me!) is much thinner that you can actually skewer the mantle after drilling into it a few meters or so? Is it the part of the ocean once connected to land? Somebody better give me an answer quick because such questions give me insomnia most nights...

Speaking of insomnia, isn't it quite irritating when your body clock goes haywire on you? Most people actually do experience what I shall term anticipatory insomnia. When you have an early class/engagement/meeting/event the next day, the body simply refuses to get a much needed 6-8 hours of sleep to keep the mind fresh and the body energized the next day. You wake up groggy and crabby after some 0-2 hours of light sleep. When you have nothing much to do or things of little importance to you, your body simply hits the pillows as if hypnotized by the bed itself. Or sometimes, you have an exam or a major project due the next day and you take a little “5-minute” nap expecting to get an energy boost, only to wake up the next day in horror upon realizing you've slept for fourteen hours straight, with nothing on your hands or the fact that you have no excuse for missing the exam. Then there are the days when you have nothing to pass or that you have no classes but then your stupid human shell suddenly has this bright idea of adapting the “early-to-bed, early-to rise” or “the early bird gets the worm” or “an early bird is a nice obedient virtuous bird” sort of thing. Crazy isn't it?

Now, you have to excuse me because I have to ponder on my list of life's greatest mysteries and why I dreamt of bacon (yummy, crispy, golden brown, and full of nitrates that can kill me before I'm thirty sort) all night last night.