The Journey. It’s Mine. [My personal take on love, life, parenting and blogging.]

When rainy days become gloomy, it helps to look at sunny summer photos. Speaking of summer, this is my recent favorite:

three women and a baby!

Are you on Friendster? I am. For quite a while now. But honestly, I rarely update my profile and I do not surf through it as often as some people do. But when I do, I am always surprised by who I find. I am such a bad contact I do not even greet my friendster-friends on their birthdays even if I get alerts.

I am sooo lazy in that aspect, I rarely reply to their messages, if I get one. That’s the very reason why you won’t find me on other popular social networking sites.

However, email-wise I am so active I won’t end the day without replying to your email. So just shoot me an email instead of via Friendster (or via YM because mine is off all the time) or you can comment to my blog as well (as long as it won’t offend the general readers, I will approve it).

Besides if you know how to use the internet and its search engines, you will definitely find me.

Three years ago today I posted my very post on the blogosphere at my old blogger account. Only in April 2006 that all my blog’s content at blogger was transferred to this domain (c/o Yuga) in time for our homecoming.

Everyone knows who influenced me to blog - who taught me all the technical ropes in blogging and also paved the way into going pro. I was convinced to blog because I have a lot to say while I have no one close to talk to at a time when I was struggling emotionally and financially when Raine was just barely two. The blog became my sounding board, the therapy that in a way allowed me to re-evaluate and re-focus my life.

Honestly, the money in problogging was just the icing on my cake - the icing that turned out to be my bread and butter. Thanks to the people who was most influential in bringing me here, you all know who you are.

Am I going back to a regular day job? Definitely yes, but if and only if it is a writing job and not lab work. I’ll let you know once I get that kind of job. Even if I get that, I will remain the problogger. Hopefully, the problogger that got the writing job. But if not, problogger i will still be.

See…blogging continuously presents its perks. I will never regret I took this road.

For the first time last night, i watched the recently new show at the Travel and Living Channel: Bizarre Foods by Andrew Zimmern.

Last night’s episode featured the Philippines. Guess what was the first stop for bizarre food? Of course, the famous balut. Andrew Zimmern visited Pateros for the balutans and here is what he said about balut:

“It’s the strangest food I’ve ever tasted in my entire life. BUT it is a lot better than what I thought it would be. The juice in there (referring to inside the balut) is the funky thing.”

Andrew Zimmern is one adventurous guy in terms of food. I can eat balut (max 3 in one sitting) but that is nothing to eating frogs,worms and crickets. I am a coward in trying anything that says exotic or delicacy.

Around here, meats of dogs, monitor lizards and pythons are cooked and eaten like chickens. They said all of the above (except the dog’s meat) taste like chicken. Well I wouldn’t know because I haven’t tried them ever and I have no intention of trying.

I will not try a frog, worm or cricket. (I don’t even eat cow’s tripe even if it is kare-kare.) Not even for a travel and living show. He he.

Remember that 1996 Tom Cruise-Renée Zellweger swoon movie: Jerry Maguire?

Who wouldn’t forget the famous lines “you complete me” and “you had me at hello”?

I was on my second job in 1996 and was on crazy hour shifts. Probably the reason why I didn’t see that movie in a theater house. I’m sure I would have seen it, that was the time when I was young, hopelessly romantic and would have seen any popular movie that comes along. He he.

(I am not really a Tom Cruise fan, but I think I’ve seen most of his movies!)

Maybe a year after its showing , I saw it I think on HBO or some other channel- i can’t really remember.

But anyway…fast forward to today, the movie is being replayed the past week (or maybe the last month) on Star Movies. Now, I’ve realized that there are more profound lines in the movie I didn’t notice when I was younger. Yeah far more profound than those two kilig one liners.

Single mothers don’t date.
They’ve been to the circus.
They’ve been to the puppet show and seen the strings.
Single mother is like a sacred thing.

I had this great guy who loves my kid a lot.
Who sure likes me a lot.
But I can’t live like that.
I’m not built that way.

The movie wasn’t as kilig as would be expected then and is surely isn’t now. But there is that underlying deepness that I guess just some people can relate to.

Annulment is an expensive and tedious process. (Sorry, no divorce yet in the Philippines! As if that’s a lesser evil?) I know for sure because I had a first hand information from an old college friend who went through the process of annulment. (you know who you are!) However, in her case, the newly-gained freedom and being single again is all worth all that - as much be in most annulments.

Granted that if your marriage is difficult or abusive, annulment for the first time is understandable. I have always been supportive of a woman’s right and her freedom to choose — including getting out of an oppressive marriage that is just not going anywhere.

However if you are going to file for annulment the second time (or the third time!), parang hindi na kapani-paniwala. I’m talking about Aiko Melendez!

To me it seems stupid to fall into that same trap once more. You should have learned the first time and should not have jumped into a second marriage. Not into any marriage at all, even if you are pregnant. Yes, I’ve realized that now. No out-of-wedlock pregnancy should be the reason for marriage. There must be valid reasons beyond that.

Luckily, in Aiko’s case, money must not be a problem in pursuing an annulment case. Even so, yung emotional lamat sa pagkatao parang hindi mababayaran. I wonder what stopped her from just living together with her second husband? Considering the it is like the norm in show business?

But anyway, I can just speculate. My point is, if you’ve been burned at first, you should be more careful the next time, right? A second annulment (or divorce) should not be in your path at all which you have the power to prevent from happening, I think.  Like choosing carefully, or living together perhaps? Or doing your part to make the marriage work? He he he. What do you think?

[Photo taken last year, post-typhoon milenyo]

singing in the rain? nope. i hate it when it rains hard , like it did the whole weekend.

blogging in the rain? almost…may anggi lang ng ulan sa bintana where my PC is.

For sure, si raine (at ako) bathing in the rain! (si mommy ang promotor)

We’ve always done that - bathe+play under the rain - got it from my father since I was little. Raine and I have been doing that too since we came home last year and it is always fun. However, this one time Raine got a fever afterwards.

I feel so guilty!

Creative Weblogging is looking for bloggers for the following existing blogs:

http://www.gambling-weblog.com/ (7 posts a week/$225/mo comp)
http://www.bizplanhacks.com/ (7 posts a week/$225/mo comp)
http://www.tjacobi.com/ (5 posts a week/20 a month for $112.50/mo)
http://www.endzonebuzz.com/ (5 posts a week/20 a month for $112.50/mo)
http://www.digitalmusicfuture.com/ (5 posts a week/20 a month for $112.50/mo)
http://www.p2p-weblog.com/ (5 posts a week/20 a month for $112.50/mo)
http://www.igotspam.com/ (5 posts a week/20 a month for $112.50/mo)

Also, this growing blog network is open to talking to any experienced bloggers who have current high-traffic and high PR blogs (6+) in the following fields and may be interested in working with Creative Weblogging: social networking, business, finance, pregnancy. Considerable blogging experience is required. For those who have the level of traffic and quality that the network are looking for, compensation is negotiable.

If you are what CW is looking for, please send a brief email to recruiting@creative-weblogging.com requesting an application and specify which topic on the above list you are applying for.

I have always suspected that mine is running below 230.4 kbps as it appears in my internet connection speed monitor.

Thanks to speedtest.net my suspicion was confirmed.

At the moment, there is no better alternative in my home location, so i have to make do with the above specs for an average of 5K PHP per month. I know that this really sucks while I am not getting a nice deal for my money. So if you know of a better (not to mention cheaper) alternative, please let me know the moment it becomes available.

Thanks to Rico for the link.

Update, September 12:

I found a spot where there is the best reception fro my cellphone’s signal and have been working on that spot since then.

[Click on photo to enlarge]

If you are in the Philippines, September 1 marks the start of Christmas. It is as early as today that this country will already smell like Christmas - what with the playing of Christmas carols and putting up of Christmas decors already. Sometimes it is irritating but what can we do, that is just so pinoy.

Yes, Philippines always have a headstart on Christmas. If only each and every Filipino will put Christmas in their hearts and make everyday be like Christmas. Not with the carols and the decors and the whole festivity but with the sense of giving and forgiving and loving.
I hate watching the local news here, simply because of the crimes and brutalities each and every day - from the raped 4-year old to a mugged grandmother. Experts say that it is poverty that make people do such crimes but sometimes it makes me wonder if some people are just naturally evil and these harsh societal conditions just makes that evil come out in the open.

If you have a young kid like mine, would you watch the local news with your kid? Of course not, it is just too hard to explain why one can beat another to death. And I as a mother teach Raine not to hit back when he is hit by another kid. In that world of wolves that society is made of, It makes me wonder if I should still raise a “lamb”? Maybe a lamb that can handle himself among wolves?

In raising a kid and a little boy at that, often times it is just too difficult to draw the line. Of course I do not want Raine to grow up a cry baby who cannot defend himself. In the same way that I do not want him to grow up the aggressor who finds pleasure in hurting others. What should a mother do? For starters, I’ll just make sure that Raine hangs out with the right crowd in the right places - whatever that means!

Anyway, going back to Christmas…

Christmas to me is like a second chance: a second chance at giving and forgiving and of loving, a second chance to set your life right and a second chance to start life anew - regardless of your religious affiliations.

If only all mankind will keep that in mind, then maybe the pinoy local news wouldn’t be as harsh to watch.