Glimmer of Hope?

I am not too sure if free insurance quotes would still work to a lot of Filipinos. I am a little unsure if they would buy the idea with the rising number of insurance companies that declared bankruptcy and had decided to close down. Quite a handful of Filipinos felt they were cheated. There was even no warning of the problem prior to closure. If they have heard of it long before, they should have pulled out their resources and invested their money to something more and fruitful endeavors. Well, it is really a pity! The world needs no more of this brouhaha as we are in our worst situation with the global crisis and all. I hope and pray we still could see a glimmer of hope and get up from all these worst things that have been happening around us. 

SOCCSKSARGEN Bloggers' Genee Experience

I thought I am going to miss another bloggers' event on Thursday night. It was our midweek worship service and the rendezvous with co-bloggers in this part of Mindanao at the new and cozy Genee Restaurant was set at 6:30 PM, right at the corner of the city's Freedom Park. My mother and I were about to go home after the worship service at 8PM when Rosilie of Rosilie: My Blog sent me SMS telling me that they will be waiting for me.

So off I went to the Bloggers Night with mother chaperoning me, hahaha! I was a little stunned to see a huge number of fellow Soccsksargen Bloggers (South Cotabato, Cotabato City, Sultan Kudarat, Sarangani, and General Santos). The formidable presence of each and every blogger is more than enough to make our existence felt in the world of blogging.

Indeed, Soccsksargen Bloggers have come a long way since its conception in November of last year.

View my page on Soccsksargen Bloggers

The Genee experience on Thursday night, which was spearheaded by the Bariles man himself, Mr. Avel Manansala, made my blogging journey meaningful and colorful. Not only was I able to have a feast on the sumptuous and delectable tuna cuisines offered by the establishment, but more importantly, meet ups of this kind are well-meaning as it develops rapport and camaraderie among and between co-bloggers not only here in General Santos City but to its neighboring cities and municipalities as well. I still actually have to know a lot of my fellow bloggers from here. Some of them I just know from their faces but frequent meet ups in small and big groups is helping a lot in getting familiar with them. I am also trying to keep up in familiarizing each and everyone's blogs. By doing so, I expect my fellow Soccsksargen bloggers to be my blogging comrades making us a formidable force to reckon with in our yearn for a truly bonded Soccsksargen Bloggers.

There are still a helluva lot of things to be done to achieve everything that bloggers from this part of the country wants to accomplish but with Genee Restaurant among others who have been very supportive of our cause, everything is possible.

Photos courtesy of Kyawster and Rosilie.

My Groovy Mother

Can you recognize who's in that photo above? Well, it is my one and only groovy mother. She is obviously having a grand time smiling and projecting infront of the camera, Just do not think though it's her real hair, haha! She is precisely in the prime of her life and just like any other mothers out there who are of the same age as my mother, gaining more pounds to the point of becoming overweight is becoming a real issue for them.

We used to often tease our Mum everytime she sits down in front of the dining table that she is taking a long time eating! And she doesn't run out of excuses.

Example: "No one will eat these foods I've prepared so I better eat them all!  "

We sometimes act like we were all calling the police, haha! And all we could get from her is a huge grin! But after eating and having a bulging tummy, she would immediately mumble her annoyance why she got it so big. And to make things worse, she can't even zip her pants and dresses! I would often tell her: "Well, while you were eating you haven't thought of that... " She would just simply retort back: "Hmm, I will just have to take some diet pills..."

Blogging Is Now A Family Affair

With two of my cousins now being active in the blogosphere, I have thought that it's a lot more fun with family members being around here. Even if me and my cousins Mystique of Mystique's Moments and Allena of In the Eyes of the Beholder are miles apart from each other, we can now get to update each other's lives with our blogs. By going through each posts, we will get a chance to learn on what's new with our lives with each day that passed us by. Even if we are not able to exchange daily conversations, our blogs can speak in our behalf. They can get to penetrate on what's working up in my head and I will have the chance as well to know what's with them.

The saga of Mystique's journey to forever unfolded when she wrote about their 5th anniversary. I was also able to get a good glimpse on how she spends her Saturdays and Sundays. Through blogs, I was also able to comprehend Ally and her Dad's relationship better when she posted on what happened between the two of them in the past and how she wished she could turn back the hands of time. She also enumerated the things she is so grateful for. These things we don't get to talk about comprehensively and whenever we do get the chance to talk, we don't have all the time in the world. But our blogs made it possible for us to speak our minds and get to update each other's lives. I believe it is truly one of the great perks of blogging.

Here's my list of bloggers who are family/ blood-related:

• Siblings Mayang of Hawaiinas and Twerlyn of Twerlermz Blog
• Siblings DJ Tammy and Rosilie of A Closet of Limitless Adventures
• Siblings Joy of The Luttrull Journey and Ivy of The Designer's Chic
• Siblings Rose of The Solitairy Love and Junivel of Junivel Online Journal
• Couple Jemi of Live, Laugh and Love and Roger of Life with Rog
• Couple Jennie of Marriage and Beyond and Jeff of Football Videos and Pictures
• Mother and Son tandem of Polly of Random Ramblings and son Beaker of Beaker's Dimension
  
• Mother and Daughter tandem of Vilma of The Maiden's Testimony and daughter Lollii of My Kawaii Life.

I am sure there are still a lot of family/blood-related bloggers out there. I might be unaware of your relationships but we do share the same passion for blogging.

The Ever So Hardworking Mom

My mother is working as an insurance agent aside from her full-time work during weekdays. On weekends, she has endless appointments for her prospective clients. This is the only time she got wherein she could offer a cheap life insurance to them.

Well, I salute my mother dearie for being such a hardwoking mom and dad all at the same time. We are all hats off to her. Since my father died six years ago, she has assumed the role of both our mother and father in the family. 

My mother isn't as lucky as me because at a very young age of two, she lost her own mother. She was deprived of the loving, nurturing presence of a Mom. But that didn't prevented her for being such a loving mother to us. Her gentle and caring ways, not to mention the nagging styles, haha made her so uniquely Mom! I am a very lucky person for despite life's lowest lows, especially when my parents were just starting out a family, they held on to the one covenant that they pledged before God. They didn't deprived me of having a father and a mother. Since I was conceived out of wedlock, my mother was given an option to continue schooling, give birth to me and never marry my father. But then, my mother wanted to give me a complete family. 

To me, she is such a supermom that I can not imagine life living without her. To me and my siblings, she is the best mother that we could ever have. Not everyone is blessed for having such a mother like her. I thank the Lord for this beautiful blessing. 

A Night To Remember: The David Pomeranz Valentine Concert in GenSan

David Pomeranz, who bears the moniker King of Love Songs, is coming over to GenSan on Valentines Day, February 14, 2009 at the Lagao Gymnasium, Gen. Santos City. Pomeranz' indeed lived up to his moniker with his hit songs King and Queen of Hearts, Born for You, and Got to Believe in Magic, among others.

The popular singer is well-loved by so many Filipinos. Why not? Filipinos are known to be hopeless romantics. David has captivated the hearts of a huge number of followings and his songs are like the National Anthem of so many Filipinos that even a toddler can sing along with them. All his hitsongs have always given me that giddy feeling. Enthralled with his soft and melodious singing voice, I can't help but wish My Prince is here come Valentines Day! Sigh!

Slow down , Lainy! You might get too disappointed...

Well, if it's any consolation at all, I might just get a chance to watch David Pomeranz Live with a VIP pass worth PhP 1, 500!

Gosh!

That is...

If I get too lucky to be one of the Top 5 Blogs. Please pray for me ;-).

Oh! How I so love to listen to David's beautiful music! He makes my heart melt just by listening to his love songs! That's how smitten I am to his kind of music! I can now imagine myself and the four other bloggers having a pose beside the King of Love Songs himself! Isn't that great?

And here's more!

We can actually have a taste of the sumptuous foods served at the cozy Grab-A-Crab Restaurant and Coffe Club 101 via the gift certificate worth PhP 1, 000.00! Whoaaa! If you're a Mindanaoan, you can check out more about this contest which is up and running at the Bariles site.

Grab-a-Crab Resto at Night

I am actually a little desperate to win this contest all for the love of David Pomeranz and his songs. Wish me luck, Friends! ;-)

Tie a Yellow Ribbon

Oh! Tie a yellow ribbon round the old Oak trees

It's been three long years

Do you still want me... 

Does it ring a bell? Well, this song was so popular especially during the EDSA Revolution in 1986. I was still in Kindergarten at the time, hahaha! The song got famous because former President Corazon Aquino and her comrades were all wearing yellow to express and show their protest against the Marcos regime. The events weren't too vivid in my memory but I get to recollect them at my History classes in grade school till college. The Philippines was under the dictatorship government of Marcos since 1972 until Aquino stirred the Filipino  nation by going to EDSA and called for Marcos to go down as the country's President.

Finally, when Marcos was out of Malacañang Palace. there was a snap election where Aquino took over as the Philippine President. She took the reigns of the Filipino nation from 1986 until 1992. This time, Aquino is still behind the political scenes of the country but she is already suffering from cancer.

Featured BFF: Twerlyn of Twerlermz Blog

She is the longest standing friend I have here in the blogosphere. We've known each other since we were 12 years old. We have been classmates since our high school years and been friends for such a very long time. We separated during college, got our own separate Bachelor degrees but the separation paved the way for us to become real close right after graduation until we got our own jobs. Frequent bondings with our other friends made us realize we really hit it off. Sharing our aspirations in life and some dark and the-not-so-dark secrets among other things were common topics whenever we get the chance to really talk.

I feel proud in introducing to you my very good friend Lerma a.k.a. Twerlyn of Twerlermz Blog. You can swing by her blog to know how she got her name Twerlyn. She is actually the one who encouraged me to blog. I've already got a Blogspot account by the time she introduced blogging to me but I was never active. Through her constant proddings, encouragement, and the sharing of relevant blogging tips, I was able to make it here in the blogosphere. She has played a very vital part in my blogging journey. 

Lerma is never selfish. She has always been patient in sharing to me the ins and outs of everything around here especially when I decided to do paid reviews. She was still a full-time girlfriend by that time after she resigned from her full-time teaching job. She is the kind of friend who will stand by you no matter what. She is all supportive of whatever endeavors I undertake. She was one of the major sponsors in my Birthday Bash Contest in October.

When she and her fiance Andy decided to tie the knot, I felt honored when she chose me to be one of her bridesmaids. It's hard to say NO when a dear friend asks you to be part of her wedding entourage. I feel very happy for my friend. She is a happy and content wife and mother together with the Hapi Fam- Andy, Bienne and Baby Arianna.

Lerma never gets tired of telling the world how much she hearts my blogs, hehe! That's quite a real dear friend out there! I feel so proud with her shouting to the world I am a friend of hers. I love the way she speaks out her mind point blank and with such humor. She is such a treasure and I am a very lucky person for having her as my friend. A number of friends have come and gone but my friendship with her remained unfaltered and I know in our hearts, it will be for keeps.

CHEERS TO A LIFETIME FRIENDSHIP!

Twerlyn's Blogs:

1. Twerlermz Blog
2. Hapi Family
3. Stay In Love

SEE ALSO RELATED ARTICLES:

• Featured BFF: Uncle Che of AZ Blogging
• Featured BFF: Allena of In the Eyes of the Beholder
• Featured BFF: Ivy of My So Called Life
• Featured BFF: Bregie of Reveiling Oneself... Expressing D' Real Me
• Featured BFF: Lollii of My Kawaii Life

What Happened to My MT Course?

In 2006, I enrolled in Medical Transcription course. It took me six months to finish the entire duration of the course. I hurdled going to my classes at 6 PM until 10 PM. Mind you, I have a day time job so you can just imagine how tired and sleepy I was while the evening lectures were done by our physician lecturers.

Prior to deciding on whether to enrol or not, I have always admitted that I am no geek for the scientific terms. They are all so alien to me. But when I finally decided to embark on this endeavor, I found it so easy! Memorizing medical terms and familiarizing scientific names came all handy to me. That came as a huge surprise!

Well, I think I was just too eager to learn. I haven't even thought that the six-month course cost me $532! That's already a huge amount here in the Philippines! That is tantamount to raising a capital for a small-medium enterprise. But since at the time, I was so set and ready to embark in medical coding training courses, I gave it a go. It was additional learning for me and there wasn't any shadow of doubt that I am ready to be  a Medical Transcriptionist.

But everything changed when I met my Prince. I was all set to try and venture a different job in Manila. But when I've met my Prince and we've decided to commit into a girlfriend-boyfriend relationship, I hated to alter the status quo.

I grabbed the offer from a government agency here in our city and everything just went on smoothly. If ever there's one thing I regret, it's the chance of not being able to put into practice what I had learned from school. I hope it's still not too late for me to grab a headset, and a foot pedal;-)

Happy Birthday, Mr. Bariles!

Yesterday, I've received a very special SMS informing me that the sender is celebrating his birthday today and he is enjoining everyone to help him set a world record for the most number of greetings received to one person in the world wide web! Do you find it impossible? Well, knowing him, I don't. It is actually just within reach.  

As of this writing, he already got 194 comments. How is that for a birthday greeting online? It's absolutely a feat! This man is behind the success of the 2nd Mindanao Bloggers Summit in October 2008  here in GenSan. And he is the author of the famous place blog Gensantos.com, An Idiot's Guide to General Santos City.

I so admire this "healthy creature" for being such a friendly, helpful and above all this, he is a very passionate man. Not only as a blogger but as a resident of Gensan, a true General at heart and mind. Which reminds me, he was asking for a Paypal donation in December for him to be able to purchase a lappy for himself. I promised him a dime which I will send to him after publishing this post ;-) .

My vote of confidence for this blog was very well deserved when Gensantos.com made it to the Top 10 Emerging Influential Blogs in 2008! 

This man is none other than...

MR. AVEL MANANSALA!

Happy, Happy Burpday to you, Sir! Stay blessed always! 

With Mindanao Bloggers During the 2nd Mindanao Bloggers Summit. 

Standing beside me on my right is the burpday boy ;-) 

My Old PC Model

I have an obsolete PC model. I made the purchase about three years ago. See, how obsolete that is! My brother has been endlesssly urging me to buy a new one but to me it's a little impractical. This PC can still be of good use. I've made some overhauling on some of the major PC parts though. I had the memory upgraded X three before I decided to go full blast with Entrecard. I had the hard drives checked, too.

My Prince suggested to purchase a virus scanner software. Well, there isn't a need since I have a friend who does the job of reformatting my PC and installing new softwares and updated virus scanners. It's a lot different with my Prince wherein he does more of the tasks taking good care of his own PC.

Cheribye EntreCard: Kuerdas Blog Deleted from EC

I began my dropping tasks early this morning for my Kuerdas blog before going to work. The "supposed-to-be" first recipient of my drop is Windmill. Upon clicking the drop button, I couldn't see any drop messages being reflected. So I thought it was one of those glitches and unannounced downtimes/ outages. I've even left a shout at Windy's chatbox that EC got a problem. I haven't realized that the problem could be my blog not until I've read the messages in my own shoutbox from Poray, Recel, Tyson, Pastilan, and a message from my friend Polly of Random Ramblings in my EC inbox telling me that something is wrong with my EC widget. I then concluded that something's amiss and the first thing that came to mind was my blog might have been deleted from EntreCard. Since Uncle Che & I had our first voice chat for 2009, (he keeps me company very early in the morning aside from Ivy), I requested him to open my EntreCard account because I couldn't access anymore my Kuerdas blog. And true enough, Kuerdas was erased from the realms of the EC community without issuing me any warnings. How's that for the New Year, huh?

I've learned from Uncle Che that an e-mail was sent to Kuerdas Yahoomail account. Entrecard sent me a message and I quote in toto:

Your account 'Kuerdas! ' on entrecard.com has been deleted. The administrator gave the following reason: Rule A2 http://entrecard.com/docs/doku.phpid=blog_quality_standards. Please contact deleted@entrecard.com if you have any questions regarding this action.

Rule A2 states:

Sites where more than 50% of the content consists of paid posts, posts with links to online stores, or affiliate links. This quota is a total, so if you write less than 50% of each type of paid content but the overall paid content quota exceeds 50%, that is not permitted. Reviews are OK, but not if every post contains an affiliate link.

My previously written article When All Your Posts Are Nothing But Paid Posts has been ironically applied here. I am not trying to dispute nor argue that Kuerdas blog shouldn't have been deleted. I actually saw it coming and I am guilty as charged. I have actually planned of doing some changes for Kuerdas, I have even asked my cousin Ally to help me think of a nice concept for a layout coz I was thinking of starting from there. I just couldn't find the time doing what I want to accomplish for my blogs. I know it's a lame excuse. I am a very good procrastinator so the changes might take me a long time to implement, haha! Dilly-dallying is a bad habit that I wanted changed for 2009.

But anyway, I won't be overhauling Kuerdas blog just because I wanted to meet EC requirements alone. Well, blogging will continue even without EntreCard. Come to think of it. I am a little sad Kuerdas was deleted from EC. It has been my comrade in my blogging journey for close to a year now and it was great sailing with EC. But blogging is not all about EntreCard. Life will continue for Kuerdas blog with or without EntreCard.

Determined and Willful

During the holidays, I have been eating quite a LOT! And I say it is a little hard for me to discipline and control myself. The sumptuous foods laid down on the table are so hard to resist. My face is beginning to balloon if you know what I mean and my tummy is again bulging to my dismay. When My Prince saw me on cam, he told me it is a little hard to tell on cam if I really gained some weight. But one day, he told me I should take care of myself more. I think he noticed I have gained some more weight. Well, I am determined to lose some pounds again to the extent of taking some weight loss products. I had difficulty losing weight the last time out even when I ate less carbohydrates. Does it have to do with age? LOL!

Well, discipline is still the key here and it should come from ourselves. Just thinking of my height not proportioned with my weight, I find myself screeching and telling myself: "Hey! Enough is enough!" I know I am a little exaggerated now but I have been thinking of the worse scenario. Though my Prince doesn't like me getting too thin, he doesn't want me to get too big either. So getting proportioned is the best and I intend to do just that.

The Holidays Are Over!

I had a long day. Since it's my last day off work for almost two weeks, Ally and I along with my pretty mother planned of going to the movies and watch Baler, the most awarded movie for the 2008 Metro Manila Film Festival. We've met Ally's younger brother, his wife and his cute little son at the mall as well. While we were drinking a cold glass of coffee, we were having second thoughts as to pursue watching a movie earlier this afternoon because all theaters in the mall were on Standing Room Only tickets. And we haven't much time left since we were expecting a brethren Australian visitor at home by dinner and we need to prepare some foods to be laid down on the table. On the other hand, Ally was still undecided as to go trekking with her friend Czarina at Camiguin Islands or not. Finally, before the last hour for the trip going to Davao City, she made up her mind and decided to enjoy and make the most out of her vacation. So Ally won't be around for three days.

We then went back home but not without having some snapshots of us at the mall:

Since it will be back to work mode tomorrow, I can't say I have enjoyed much the almost two weeks holidays. I wasn't able to accomplish everything that I set out to do. There were still so many things left undone. But it's ok. I was able to spend more time with my family which for me is more important and got more sleep than normal, hehe!

Dilly-Dallying @ Home Sweet Home

I envy my cousin Ally because she was able to make the most out of her vacation. I haven't been to the Camiguin Islands yet but I have heard it's heaven and sure is worth visiting. I hope one day I could get there, too.

During the 2008 holidays, a lot of people are on planned vacations. Why not? The almost two weeks off especially for the government employees is more than enough and sure is worth spending the vacation with families and loveones. For the well=off families, Westgate is a common destination. Others took their trips in many of the islands here in the country. Poor people like me contented ourselves dilly-dallying at home and trying my best to keep my blogs alive, hahaha! I prefer to just stay inside the house than go out. If it's not really necessary to go out, I really won't. But doing some errands during the holiday was one of my daily activities. Sigh! But it's ok. The best part of spending my vacation was that I am my own boss. I own my time at least for almost two weeks, hehe!