The Journey. It’s Mine. [Raine’s Mom, Problogger, Techie-wannabe, Wheelchair-Traveler]

Life is great here, couldn’t be better. I haven’t been near any stove lately but I am eating on time regularly with the kinds of food that I really love: fish, shrimps, crabs and anything else cooked in coconut milk. If I don’t watch it, I’d swell like a balloon in no time. I haven’t done any laundry either for I immediately found a laundrywoman: not my mother but twice as cheap as what I’d pay in LB. All i needed to do is work…errr, blog some 4-5 hours a day (as long as there are no internet and power outages!) which leaves me enough time to talk and be with Raine.

Raine who doesn’t care much these days whether I’m home or not. He’s just too busy playing under the sun in my mother’s yard with the kids in the neighborhood. Gosh, he smells like sun already! Anyway, Raine is just too happy playing ball and car, climbing trees (at least trying to!), collecting dry leaves and insects, picking fresh flowers, bantering the dogs and chickens and incessantly complaining that the pigs smell. Thank God, he doesn’t smell like pig yet!

Raine has got his hands full, I only have to watch that he doesn’t get spoiled rotten with doting grandmother, great-grandmother, and uncles, lolos and cousins abound. But I think he already is when I am not looking.

Life may be great here but that doesn’t mean we’ve forgotten those friends that we truly love in LB. We miss you guys… everyday.

The oddest thing happened today. This morning, a geek-looking (thick, wide-rim eyeglasses), short and fat, english-speaking middle-aged man came into the net shop asking for the possiblities of data storage. CDs…etc. I overheard that the guy happened to be a writer (a real one!) and so is looking for a big memory storage beacause his hard disk just crashed and just have everything on CDs. When flash drives came into their discussion (that guy and the owner of the net shop, my classmate), I couldn’t help but butt-in and shown him my mobile disk (stick) that I’ve been using for quite some time, at least until I’ve gotten my own lap-top.

Well, he strike me as the guy who is tech-ignoramus, more than me I suppose, because he doesn’t even know what a flash drive is. So i couldn’t help but inquire more about what exactly he is looking for. That was when the conversation went to what he is doing: which happen to be writing novels and stories for children’s books. Ah ok…I said, so you are a real writer because he said he has published a lot of his work in the US. He just came come to Gubat when his parents (Gubat locals) retired home.

Then he couldn’t help but wonder too about what I am doing. I guess he was just being polite and asked if I am a writer too. So I said, well, sort-of but not really because I am only an internet writer, writing for blog networks about med and pharma. Well, he hasn’t heard the word blog before and he insisted that I show him the website. So I did.

He was more like wondering if I was for real than impressed.  Honestly, I didn’t care what he thinks or anybody else’s for that matter. And then he surprised me more by commenting on my rather-perfect english and asked if I can translate a book from english to tagalog. I said yes, no problem…while thinking, duh? why would that be a problem?! He he, yabang ko!

So we exchanged names, he got my contact details with his parting words: “I would certainly need an english-grammar editor and tagalog translator for my work, so I will really call you”.

Ha ha ha! Is he for real? Let’s wait and see.

I briefly mentioned that I need to go to town daily to get an internet connection. Our home is situated along the national highway (Sorsogon-Gubat) and some 5 kilometers away from the nearest town (Gubat) and 13 kilometers away from the province capitol (Sorsogon City).

Though we are located along the main road, there is only a meager signal enough for SMS to slip through in mobile phones in both leading networks of the land: Globe and Smart.

If your outdoor antenna is tall enough, you’ll get a decent reception on local TV, depending on where you are: you’ll either get ABS-CBN or GMA-7. Where we are (unfortunately for me!) it’s only ABS-CBN. Unless you are on Dream Sateliite TV, then you’ll have cable channels too at optimum reception.

At the moment, I need to convince 10 households in my area before a normal telephone line to be installed. Our neighbors are mostly farmers who’s got mobile phones, why would they need a land line?

There goes my options for a dial-up.

Months before I came here, I’ve already researched how I’ll get online at home:

1) Smart Wifi: Unfortunately, currently available in towns of Bulan and Irosin…God knows when the service will reach Gubat.

2) A satellite phone, SMART LINK: A whooping $650 a unit and will give me only dial-up.

Meanwhile, I have an old classmate who owns a computer shop in town. Internet is running on DSL at 25 pesos per hour.

Are you a regular at Straight From The Doc? Please let me (us at CW) know what you think about that blog and participate in the network survey.

Meanwhile, you may read my very first interview on problogging. Abe didn’t warn me that it’s going to be posted on-line, so my answers are very direct to the point.

Here are other blog entries I posted today:

Inhibitex Inc.’s Veronate Failed Phase III Clinical Trial

HFCS, No Different Than Table Sugar

Would really appreciate it of you could visit The PharmVoice and Straight From The Doc more often.

Finally, I am blogging direct from Bicolandia. Though still a bit dizzy with the big move, I hope to return back to regular blogging routine on Monday. Meanwhile, I just wanna let you all know that Raine is having the time of his life. I will be too I’m sure, once I get settled to this new routine.

This is still a work in progress. Thanks very much for finding me here. Not only is this blog in transition but I am too.

So excuse the sporadic updates and i look forward to more frequent posting once I catch my breath and footing.