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

…and in my case, THANKS to blog networks who pay their bloggers with fixed monthly payment + traffic bonus and other frills.

Thanks too to the scarcity of science bloggers. At the moment, most scientists, doctors, medical practicioners and health workers are working in their respective industries, the academe, hospitals, research institutions, care-giving homes, etc. Even if they blog, I guess in normal conditions, they will not leave their work posts for problogging?

See Pinayexpat’s recent post for the carefully detailed description (including business models) of the different blog networks where she problogs and how to apply if you are interested in testing the problogging waters.

Apparently, I also currently blog for the 3 networks she specified, (b5media, Creative Weblogging and Know More Media) and I have been problogging fulltime for the seventh month this month (October) and in that course of time I have been supporting a household of 8: 6 adults (including me) and 2 toddlers, on top of building a house.

Well I know that may sound like crazy but due to personal family matters, it just happened that when I went full time problogger last April, everyone in my family went home a couple of months later. But that is an entirely different story.

Let me first clarify though that I did NOT quit my day job because of problogging. It just so happened that when I was done being a lab rat and decided to go home, problogging gave me a moving-out ticket.

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I would:

• Place the gamers in a sound-proof, dark room (if not totally banning them from the shop!)
• Separate the chatters and webcam-ers from the general population of net surfers, so as to prevent very personal (sometimes erotic!) conversations from being heard by the general public.
• Have a typing-printing room, for typing, printing and scanning jobs alone.
• Physically THROW OUT of the shop, all the NOISY ones.
• Give 25% discount to anybody who legally earns money online.

Grrr…enough said.

I would not:

• Allow games on school hours or school nights, whatever the client’s excuse is.
• A kid below 15 (or 18?) should be accompanied by a parent or a guardian when surfing the net.
• Allow by-standers. (1 computer=1 person, NOT 1 computer = 3-5 persons)

Grrr…again!!!

BUT of course, before I do the above, I’ll FIRST equip my home “office” with wireless internet, an arconditioning unit, a stand-by electric generator and a UPS; in that particular order.

at pista sa aming barrio!

Not attending school, but Raine has tremendously enjoyed attending the novena (the past nine nights) and joining the procession.

Well i guess he finds the slow walking with some other kids exciting (plus the goodies that I allow him to buy/have afterwards!). Especially that i let him carry a bamboo torch powered with kerosene, along with specific instruction to carry it way up over his face because all the dark soot will be deposited inside his nose.

There’s nothing else to do at night, no electricity, no TV, except a lot of talking with family (which is actually good)…thus going to novena is excitingly new.

This morning before the mass, i allowed him to light candles…

meron din kaming konting handa, just in case may maligaw na bisita…di na kasi kami nangimbita.

The photo on the left was taken last week on the last day that I attempted to convince Raine to attend school.

Because of typhoon milenyo, it was almost 2 weeks that Raine didn’t go to school. Like most schools here, Raine’s waited until everything has a semblance of normalcy before classes resumed.

BUT for some reason, Raine first didn’t want to be left in school that day he went back — which progressed to throwing fits and puking on the classroom floor, to running out the classroom door into the street road (the moment he found out that lola is not in the parents’ waiting area), to not wanting to go inside the classroom at all.

I’ve tried all kinds of deals and bribery just so we can all go back to our usual routine, with no luck. So I gave up.

Raine has been staying at home for the whole week last week until only he knows when.

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Finally, I was able to dowload the photos from my digicam (actually, my brother’s digicam!). One internet shop here in Gubat was kind enough to allow me to install the camera’s software as their OS is not “plug and play”.

Gubat is still in darkness and it has been part of everyone’s routine here to go out to town to charge their cellphones (and anything else that needs charging) in commercial establishments running on generators.

Though some parts of downtown Sorsogon has their electric power back, still majority of the province is back in the dark ages as most lines and posts needed major repair and replacements.

Cellphone charging here ranges from 15-30 PHP per unit on a full charge, depending if have your own charger or not.

Major rebuiiding is currently ongoing on our house, I’ve taken no new photos yet as the digicam has been full for the last two-three weeks. 

This was taken a week-and half after milenyo. For more Milenyo photos, click here.

Note: in photo here is the acetylene lamp that my brother improvised made of water and Calcium Carbide (kalburo). A lot brighter, cheaper and stable than kerosone lamp and candles.

The equality phrase that dosen’t only apply to blessings received but also the opposite of blessings.

What’s the opposite of blessing anyway? Curse? I’m looking  for another word. Where does a calamity like Milenyo stands?

Is it a blessing that humankind is reminded that we humans are NOT in control however much we like to act like we are? God, Mother Nature, a higher power (whatever or whoever you conceive it to be) IS. So that each of us will be better persons: better daughters, better sons, better parents even better politicians.

After all each one of us, is just a dust in the wind that a cyclone like milenyo sweeps up into mishapen pieces and throws God knows where.

To each his own…is Milenyo God’s (my concept of higher power) hands striking us of what we each deserve? So that we are stricken by how God perceives us to be. Kanyang kanyang kaparusahan, If you’d call it parusa.

Indeed kanya-kanya. Depending on your state of mind, your state of finances and your capacity to produce and the depth of your needs. If you are living in a bahay kubo made of bamboo and nipa, you can rebuild in 3 days. Milenyo even brought you new materials to use, scattered in your backyard under a pile of debris. In the same way that if your house is made of stone it is probably your whole roof (not made of stone) that didn’t hold against milenyo’s strength. So it would take you a month (probably more) to make a new roof. So you stay under the pouring rain for weeks or sleep under what’s left of the neighbor’s roof.

To each his own. While my brothers are rebuilding, cleaning and clearing, problema ko to find an online internet shop so I can publish blog entries in order to buy materials for a roof and sacks of cement for the beam WHILE other net clients here will push and shove for an open PC so that they can access on-line games or chat with their online BFs.

To each his own talaga, GRRRR.

Yung kapitbahay naming balikbayan (asawa ng German) problema niya kung saan ipapalit yung Euro niya, samantalang ako naghahanap ng pambili ng generator dahil 3 months daw walang kuryente. Hayy, buhay alamang…tig-alat na.

1) Though was able to walk some 10 kilometers just to get home, that kind of walking-running isn’t exercise nor leisure, it was torture and i was physically useless for days. ( i swear I am not walking ever if it gets more than 1 km!)

2) There’s nothing more miserable than spending a stormy night with strangers ( however friendly) under a roof whose owner you don’t know or haven’t even met.

3) Most people like their coffee a lot sweeter than I do.

4) If you’ve spent the night standing wet and cold to your bones, you wouldn’t ever mind little raindrops on your head.

5) Three MMS phones are bright enough to serve as flashlights.

6) Still I don’t understand why most houses in rural Bicol are surrounded by trees (coconut, pili, mango, jackfruit, acacia, narra, tagbon, atipolo, bilwang, etc.) I appreciate the shade and the fresh air, but it’s horrible when they fall on your roof during typhoons.(From now on, we are cutting down anything that stands within 5 meters of our house!) In addiiton, never live on a bahay-kubo along seashores and near fish ponds. ( but what if that’s what most people got for sheltering options?)

7) Green mangoes on an empty stomach is like a week-long laxative, afterwhich your bottom and the toilet bowl’s lid will become best of friends.

There’s nothing sweeter than fresh buko juice the morning after a typhoon on a sad note that your next fresh buko (not to mention the copra for cash!) will not sprout in years to come. daig pa ang sinabunutan ang m ga puno ng niyog na nakatayo pa matapos daanan ni milenyo.

9) I wish I could still see through the eyes of a child so I won’t get angry at God for leaving people homeless, lifeless and hungry after big storms and typhoons, hurricanes and other natural calamities and disasters.

10) Sacks of cement + rain (as in ulan, not raine) = blocks of stone. What are we to do with those? Ahh..they can be inserted on the flooring!!

Though my stomach went crazy for days for drinking coffee (that tasted more like brown sugar than coffee) on water that just simmered (did not boil), I would always be grateful to the people of Brgy. Buhatan, Sorsogon for taking under their roofs the travellers (going home to Gubat, Barcelona and Prieto Diaz) that got stranded in their midst.

Salamatonon po.

Most of us only got as far as Buhatan when the road to Gubat was blocked already in Cabid-an due to acacia trees that went down as early as 3 pm that September 27.

Walking (read: running while looking up for flying tree branches and GI sheets that might break your neck) from Cabid-an to Buhatan (about 5 kms.) turned out to be a better option than spending the night cramped in a jeepney stucked in the middle of the road among raging winds, falling trees and flying GI sheets.

Buhatan to Payawin (my Brgy.) is another 5 kms that took almost 4 hours of walking over and under fallen trees that blocked the road. Only firefilies displaced from trees and our cellphones served as our flashlights when we started walking at 2 in the morning after Milenyo left.

Rebuild. Clean. Clear.

There’s nothing else to do than those.

Wireless internet connection should better penetrate Sorsogon by now. Otherwise, it will be 2007 before we get decently connected.

Physically I am tired cleaning up and washing stuff. My skin is burned from too much sun, there’s no more tree leaves to provide us shade.

Badly, I need a haircut, a facial and a pedicure.

But first I have to find my shoes and favorite underwear. (duh, what’s the connect?!)

Emotionally, I am still too darn sentimental to let go of any little piece of paper I’ve collected in the last 18 years.

Typhoon Milenyo was a literal blast (the blastest one in the last 30 years of Sorsogon typhoon record) and I am just lost for words right now. Maybe next time.

First I had to report at The PharmVoice, Straight From The Doc and Cancer Commentary. (So I can buy new shoes and GI sheets!)

Wow, I have 16 comments to moderate. Thanks guys for the love links (or link loves!), the comments and the concerns. I can’t wait to bloghop and blog and blog and blog!