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

My Raine has finally discovered that the yard stretches out to the neighbors’. He recently has this habit of disappearing from our boundary and out of our sight.

You can call me paranoid. But even if I allow this 3-year old boy to play outside to his heart’s content, I make sure that I or another adult is watching at a near distance.

So the other day, I reprimanded Raine for playing in the neighbor’s yard without asking permission and in the absence of a nearby adult person. I insistently reiterated that he’s not going anywhere without anybody else to watch over him.

Me: I don’t want you to go out of bounds without letting anybody in the house where you are going. What if something bad happens? Who’s gonna watch over you?

Raine: An angel.

;-) 

Recently, I left my regular day job for various personal reasons and have been problogging full time since April. Currently, I am committed to regular blogging at CW’s Straight From The Doc and KMM’s The Pharm Voice. Both are science blogs that of course needed a know-how in science ( I majored in Chemistry) where one is a medical blog intended for patients and the other is a pharmaceutical blog intended generally for pharmaceutical industry, mixing business and science.

Blogging wise, I normally start the day by spending some 4 to 5 hours reading my RSS feeds for potential blog entries. I am subscribed to major online journals, newsletters, newspapers and magazines related to the pharmaceutical and medical field, as well as google alerts.

After those head-aching readings and copying my references to word, I stop and spend the middle of the day (until afternoon with my son). We play, eat, watch TV, etc. And then when he’s off to his afternoon nap, I go back to my PC and compose blog entries well into the night with lots of coffee and fruit juices. After dinner, I call it a night and spend time watching my favorites on TV.

Then the following morning, I publish all my required entries for the day. That’s because I have no internet connection at home, because of my remote location I need to go to town daily just to get online. Ha ha, imagine that!

However, despite the technological challenge and power shortage I am experiencing (power outages are unpredictable and intermittent) the time zone where I am  (GMT+8)has a big advantage. An advantage that I use to the fullest which enables me to publish entries and drip blog posts in advance.

Usually, I drip my posts three days in advance, an emergency counter-measure in case power or internet is out for as long as three days. With as much time as I can get, I surf the net for related interesting blogs and make sure I drop by my favorite blogs daily.

So I blog 6 days a week, except Sunday. While I would love to have internet connection at home, its absence makes me spend quality time with my family especially my three year old son. That’s about it, I can’t think of any special formula for effectively blogging. What I mentioned above works for me very well.

As predicted, Raine is becoming more and more bicolano each and every day. He has learned to eat suman and boiled cassava as well. Raine has also adjusted to the many playmates that he has to share toys (sometimes food) with.

He tremendously enjoys playing in the yard, even if he’s got bruises and scratches on his legs, there’s just no stopping him. He stops and gets inside the house to play while watching TV only when he’s hungry, thirsty or just plain tired to take his afternoon nap. As opposed to his usual, whole-day-in the-house-in-front-of-the-TV-routine in LB. While here, he doesn’t care about the TV even if we already have too many channels to choose from via Dream Satellite not to mention his many favorite CDs that we brought from LB.

It has been almost two months but he still complains about the cold water. The tap water in LB is luke warm to hot, therefore the cold spring water here is indeed a shock to us both actually. It will be noon before we can convince him to take a bath, we have to heat up his bath water though. Otherwise, he’d rather be dirty and smelly.

Though he’s got so many playmates, Kuya Abet is his favorite who practically lives in our house due to Raine’s insistent demand for Kuya Abet’s company who fortunately lives just across the street.

So happy that Raine is starting to live a normal life. That’s all I ever wanted.

My favorite net cafe these days is Netopia. Spacious and cool, the airconditioning is just right, on the very comfortable side. Then the PC units are top of the line with broadband connection.

Quiet. Well most of the time, except when the gamers (kids and teens) really get out of hand. Each unit has its own headset so computer game noise is mummed, it’s only the human noise that bothers me.

Most net cafes here are full of gamers. Except for a few adults that check their emails for a few minutes, I hardly ever see any normal professional using the net and the computer “sensibly”.

Yeah I don’t consider excessive online gaming as a sensible use of the internet and the computer technology. Teens and kids these days…the power of today’s technology is in the palm of their hands, I just hope they realize soon enough that there are better usage of it that will improve their lives.

Hayy…I wonder when the wonders of the internet will ever reach our home. I’ll make sure it is never used by family members with “senseless stuff”.

Buwiset na mga bata ito, ako dito duling na at masakit ulo sa paggawang pera sa internet, sila naglulustay ng pera. Eh buti kung sariling pera nila, eh pera ng magulang nila.

Power has been restored and the sorrounding has been cleared of the storm debris. House construction is underway and I am blogging like crazy.

Time flies. It is almost two months since we moved back here but it feels like being here forever. I guess that’s what you feel about home. And I have 3 job prospects that just came. Old applications that I’ve almost forgotten.

Stuff are picking up so I guess Raine will never get starved. He he. I told you I only care about the necessities these days. Food. Clothing. Shelter. Some savings. Others are just bonus: Fat savings, regular, normal job or even a potential fafa.

Not bad eh? Meanwhile, I can still put my feet up on banquet chairs.

After more than a couple of weeks of pushing raine around on his new bike…finally he can pedal by himself.

My heart was almost bursting when I saw him first biking around the yard by himself. I am just too proud…and its just biking.

While I always thought that little boys (and girls) are first taught by their fathers to bike or even drive their toy cars. But then Raine has always been the exception in most rules.

I wasn’t even looking much. Raine’s older playmates were just pushing him around.

Then voila!

(The photo is a little blurred, I can’t figure out what’s wrong with my phone’s camera. But, I wanted to show Raine off anyway!)

Just a quick note to let you all know that we survived the storm “Caloy” last Friday. We are doing fine except for the blown out roof of half the house.

Repairs will be underway soon, once the ATM machines in town get online.

Meanwhile, I’m trying to get back on my blogging duties. It was a good thing that I posted in advance (until Tuesday this week) last Thursday. Otherwise, I would be in BIG trouble.

Anyway, Raine is enjoying tinkering on the keyboards and wearing my headset while the electric power isn’t up yet. Meanwhile, we are still busy clearing up the remains of the storm.

Though I don’t know which was my first language, I certainly remember that I can speak both tagalog and bicol even as a young child. Today, in addition to english, I still switch from those two dialects without any problem.

But with Raine, I never spoke to him in Bicol. Since he was born in LB, it was just automatic that i spoke to him in tagalog (with some english) so that when a family member is visiting, he or she too has to speak to Raine in tagalog.

Before we came home the only bicol words that Raine already knew (courtesy of his lolo) were: udo, lubot and buto for poop, butt and penis respectively. So each time I would unconsiously say a bicol phrase to him, I always get this answer:ha?! ano sabi mo? (ha?! what did you say?)

It has been a month since we came home, Raine who only knew 3 bicol words now knows a bunch and its really funny hearing him say tagalog phrases with bicol insertions like: (bicol word highlighted)

Ayoko na ngani!

Hindi ako hadok sa spider.

Kaskasun yung car!

Can you guess what he meant?

And a bunch of others I don’t remember right now. As I am the only person talking to him in tagalog these days, Raine will be speaking all bicol before I know it.

Added May 5: 

Here’s some more I finally remembered:

Halika dini.

Kanino ini?

Asan na yung saday kong bear?

Ha ha. Really funny when you hear Raine speak these days.