Philippine Blog Awards - Cerebral Insights

musings during a sleepless night

I have had the privilege of being a finalist to the 2009 Philippine Blog Awards. Although it was true that I nominated myself to the Best Personal Blog category, still the judges were the ones who deemed my blog worthy of being part of the Top 20 to be considered for the final prize. Although I didn’t win the place, I am still proud for being considered alongside such great blogs as Jim Paredes’s blog, Writing on Air, which was also the winner of the said category. For me, this is a great honor since I‘ve never really written for anything save for myself. Writing blogs for me is my way of releasing stress and tension that would otherwise build up inside of me. Ninety percent of my posts are all about me and my world – selfish if you may call it. The only posts that I write that are, in my opinion, written for information’s sake are those posted under the CURRENT AFFAIRS category. Those are my opinions on what is happening in our society – be it national or international.

Yet most of what I write are actually rants about my hopelessly dry love life, my dissatisfying job and my seemingly dim perspective in life. Seldom do you find posts wherein I actually give an optimistic view about the world I move in. Something so unlike myself really considering the fact that I’ve always been an optimist. Yet reality sinks in and gets the better of us and we learn to see the world without rose-tinted glasses.

Of course I hope to get out of this doldrums. A renewal of my First Love ought to do the trick. I have always been optimistic when I was with Him – seeing the world with all its imperfections yet believing the goodness in each and every situation, person and circumstance. I long to get back to that good old self or maybe I long to find and repair my rose-tinted glasses, wherever I may have placed them.

Reality, as I see it is harsh. Too harsh really.

Today, after dinner I cannot help but cry. In the course of my training as an MT, and even in the words of the HR manager to me, I am really a pretty much skilled person. Without so much except my Bio degree for a background in a job in the medical field, I am able to excel and surpass even those with backgrounds and educations on this field. Without even resorting to cheating, as most of them do, I am able to extract from stock knowledge and common sense forged years ago answers to daily exams so I could pass them – not really with passing colors but rather with acceptable marks. Slowly I can see that I am skilled. I am good, if not great and I say it not with pride or bragging but with honesty on my part.

I can see that I can really get any job my heart so desires. I even have the courage to pursue what I want and the skills and aptitude to learn how to acquire it. Yet the downside to all this seemingly idealistic qualities is that the truth of my compensation hurts even more. The pain forged in my heart runs deeper than for most. The cut is sharper. Everything is more painful. I get to see how much I could actually be worth – how much I should really be earning.

Being part of the workforce is selling yourself. You have your skills, experience and expertise as your commodity. You sell it to the highest bidder. Yet in a society wherein unemployment is the common trend after graduation (or becoming a call center agent), job seekers are left with no choice but to accept whatever a company dictates for their skills. It is no longer the applicant who dictates the amount he or she is worth but rather the employer who determines the salary to be paid based on the contingency measures of the company. As such we become slaves to this degrading society wherein to cope with the effects of regression, multinational companies must search for cheaper labor force but greater quality. And since we face the more garish alternative of becoming hungry due to unemployment, we sacrifice the salary we are supposed to get for whatever it is they are willing to offer. We are slaves in our own countries – skilled yet severely underpaid.

And I lament such depressing turn of events in my life. I am finally in a job I enjoy – I learn everyday and I revel in the knowledge I gain yet when I think of how much I’ll earn, I lose heart and can’t help but regret over the higher salary I was already earning in my otherwise brain demeaning job.

They say in life you cannot have it all, but I beg to disagree. Someday I will have both. For it is written, just as it was promised long ago that the plans He had for me were plans to prosper me and not to harm me; plans to give me hope and a future. And I cling to that.

Finally I can sleep.

on awards and recognitions

I have had the honor of being a finalist in the 2009 Philippine Blog Awards – a really funny incident for me considering the circumstances of how I was encouraged to make public my otherwise private blog and how I got nominated to the PBA in the first place.

I have been blogging since 2005, despite the fact that when it initially became popular in the online community, I had detested it. I have been writing journals since I was a kid – from diaries of daily activities to personal opinions of what is happening around me. I have never published any of this work especially since they are contained in “volumes” of notebooks and were always for my private eyes alone. Yet some twisted part in my brain urged me to publish my thoughts in a blog yet my sense of privacy compelled me to keep it private for a long time.

One day, I was doing a search for information about Mar Roxas. I knew he had a blog I was following for some time yet I lost the link. I was trying to locate it when I encountered a blog which featured news about Mar Roxas. I was shocked at what I read! At first I thought it was true. I had no idea it wasn’t. But when I read the sidebar, I knew I had been goofed. I enjoyed the blog – perusing its other stories and laughing my heart out. I back read each and every entry although it took me days to do so. Eventually I got out of my lurker identity and joined the throngs of commenters in the blog. The response of the blog owner – his hospitality and warm welcome – really amazed me. And it was his blog that urged me to publish my own.

Because of his blog I saw what it would be like to share your thoughts to people – not just keep them for your own. Because of his blog I got a glimpse of what it would be like to have a devoted sea of blog followers even blog pals or friends that can be like another social network in this vast and dynamic world. I now have my own blog pals and my blog stats have increased to numbers I never knew it would reach before – still a humble number compared to what other blogs are receiving but then who’s in a rush?

And so I owe a lot to Good Times Manila. And for that reason I’m rooting for it on the 2009 Blogger’s Choice Special Awards.

Another thing, GTM did for me was to hook me up on Facebook. Facebook to me before was just another fad, a social networking site that everyone was joining but I was too lazy to join to despite the countless invitations I receive from friends. But after GTM said it had a Facebook account, I decided to join. And now my Facebook account had evolved into gargantuan proportions. It had surpassed my Friendster and Multiply accounts of which I use sparingly now. And Facebook, I must say, connected me to more people in my various social networks than the other social networking sites had ever done.

So to Deejay, the maker of GTM, I wish you all the luck – may you win in all 3 categories your blog is nominated for. Good job man!

******

When I made my blog public, I initially lamented at the sparse traffic it was getting. I had views of ony one or two a day, sometimes zero. And I knew that they were most probably my siblings or parents. But then the number started increasing, albeit slowly, as I waded my way unto other blogs and commented on their entries. As time passed, traffic increased yet it had never reached 200 views in a day and the average view per day would be about 20. But I was happy. My blog had been private for so long that these numbers were a welcome change. And people I didn’t even know started commenting and I was glad for that.

Then I encountered the PBA logo on some of the blog sites I went to. I admired those sites and I was happy they got nominated. I wondered when my time would come. Then sudden inspiration hit me – why not enter my blog to the PBA? There’s nothing wrong I presume with nominating yourself. So I did, with some small hope that I would get in but more so with just a happy thought at seeing the logo displayed on my site. I was happy for that.

I didn’t knew I was a finalist till about 2 days after the announcement. Someone made a post in my Facebook Wall congratulating me and someone already commented on it without my knowledge. I then went to my blog, saw another congratulatory comment in one of my posts and so I proceeded to investigate. Indeed I was a finalist. Tears of joy sprang to my eyes. I could hardly believe it.

I wished there was some logo that would announce to the world that I made it; that someone had judged my blog and found it acceptable. One of the reservations I had when I made my blog public was the judgement the public would have on my opinions and views. It took me such a long time to be ready to own up to my opinions and stand up for them. Now I am. I can stand up for what I say here and defend my views, whether popular or not.

I have never considered blogging for any award or recognition. I simply wanted an avenue to vent out all the thoughts crammed in my head. I never even thought of writing to please anyone. And so I am euphoric that my blog got in. To me it somehow validated my worth as a writer; as a blogger. Less than a year after I made my blog public, to receive such commendation is, to me, priceless.

I do not know if I will make it. I hope I do, of course. But I know I am up against really wonderful blogs and I have great respects for them. I know it is a tight competition indeed but as Brilliante Mendoza said in an interview with Yes! Magazine, the artist create his masterpiece not because of the award. The award is just a bonus. He creates the artwork as an expression of his beliefs or his message to the world.

*******

I have received the RSVP invite for the Award’s Night. Although I badly want to go, I’m afraid I may not be able to. For me to attend the event I would be missing two training sessions and since I am just starting, I cannot do that. Also, the trip (expenses, energy) would be too much for me especially in the wake of the recent onslaught of the previous typhoons. I cannot gamble my security at this point.

And so it is with much regret that I won’t be able to attend the said event. I hope next year I get to become a finalist again so I could attend the event. Who knows what direction my blogging activities would take by that time? I plan to also create a number of blogs on other topics; it’s just that I need to find time to do so.

To all the other finalists, good luck to you all and kudos to PBA for a job well done!

blogging to the next level

In my blogging history, this is yet another milestone, perhaps an achievement in the making. As I have no doubt constantly stated, I love writing. I began doing journals or diaries when I was 10 years old, shortly after I discovered my love for reading. Inspired by the Diary of Anne Frank, I felt compelled to also chronicle my life, no matter how seemingly mundane the daily details were compared to a kid who lived during the war period. And so began my experimentation with writing. Sometimes, I wrote in the vernacular, but mostly in English.

When I was in High School, my diaries took on a new form and became journals. No longer was I writing like one merely stating the details of the day but rather I was chronicling my daily life by writing about my opinions on certain matters, my dissections of my emotions and my observations of the things around me. The entries in my personal journal about personal stuff but were written as if it was being published in a school organ.

College saw me keeping journals in the same manner. I wrote mostly in the English language now. I began playing around with words, making my entries appear poetic and worthy of being read by someone. I have somehow managed to write in a way that if anyone read my journals, they wouldn’t quite pinpoint it to be me, except of course if they see my name in the front cover.

And so I discovered online blogs. At first I was averse to publishing my journals online. I considered it an invasion of my privacy. But sooner or later, I found myself instead of writing in my journal, to be typing away in my blog. Thus, I became a blogger.

That was 4 years ago. I’ve blogged on and off since then, depending on my resources and my moods at the moment. I still kept a written journal for all those years. Now, I still have a written journal, though I must admit I seldom write on it. I have begun blogging more actively, managing to switch from Blogger to Multiply, back to Blogger, and then ending up in WordPress. I have begun infiltrating other blogs and creating cyber friends through these channels. I am now familiar with how blogs are actually run and what widgets or gadgets are best for them. I have also encountered creatively designed blogs and began hoping that mine would one day be as creative as theirs. Most of all, I’ve began promoting my blog. Whereas before, I have kept my blogs a secret, open only to the random person who happened to pass by, now I am actively promoting it, reveling whenever the blog traffic surges or I get a new comment.

I am still a long way off from becoming the blogger I want to be. At one point, I came to doubt my intentions for blogging and have come to almost stopping my – according to some friends – shocking disclosure of my personal life.

But then writing has been my catharsis, publishing them my satisfaction and receiving comments my joy. Now I have taken blogging to a higher level for myself. I’ve entered the 2009 Philippine Blog Awards believing in that my articles are worthy for the said contest. I may or may not win, but then the mere fact that I’ve joined, consciously, for me goes a long way off.

For someone who’ve always dreamed of seeing her name with her own byline in a magazine or a newspaper, and yet ending up in a job she hates and somehow cannot yet leave, entering the contest is but an attempt at reaching that far-off dream – a dream she still hopes to fulfill.