A JOURNEY HOME

The road leading towards the city from the Eden, Toril, Davao City.

I love this poem and I'm quoting it from Mark Slaughter.

Journey to Be

By Mark Slaughter

I think I’ll journey out some day to wondrous lands afar,

Or even chart a journey to a distant blazing star.

But rest assured that where my journey sees to take me to,

Always know that when I go, this journey takes you too.

We’ll start our journey out from here by horse and cart of old,

The seaside docks - and journey pauses - where we shall behold

A noble schooner for the journey primed to launch as planned:

To sail with dolphins cross the seas then journey back on land.

And so our journey goes by foot to conquer mountains tall:

A chapter hence the journey reached, with scenes that should enthral.

But when we tire, let's rest our journey, stretched in fields of flowers,

And bathe atop the mountain from the journey - autumn showers!

Refreshed, our journey takes a turn - we'll venture back for home,

But first we'll let the journey take a tangent just to roam.

And in the winding route, this journey's bound to bide content,

But most of all take heed - let's make our journey life's event.

ON PHOTOS AND LIGHTS

I romanticize the idea of freezing moments of just about anything around, I really love this craft and my expertise in this field is a work in progress, I am constantly in search for expert’s notes to help me enhance this unpolished skill of mine.

Lighting is one most core factor of photography that can make or break your photo, good perspectives in using light will result to a great exposure and if you want to know more about how lighting is being played in the aspect of photography, the internet is an excellent depository of knowledge when it comes to this subject, you will really not get lost with professional how-to help.

In fact I stumble on this article Playing with light when taking a photo outside your home, this article is an excellent read when you want to know how to play with numbers in your camera to acquire appropriate lighting for a good photo or if you want to know how to add a fill light when taking a photo the easy way this article is just perfect.

The features are well written and the authors indeed are well knowledgeable of the subject, and have explained it the way an amateur like me can understand it, thus it is very useful for beginners or even for professionals who wants a review. Overall, it is a must read if you are honing your skills in photography.

THE LAST LEAF OF SPRING

….just imagining, we don’t actually have true seasons in the Philippines; we just have wet and dry one. But I would know if summer is around the corner as the Talisay tree leaves would fall off.

I took this yesterday while lazying around our campus.

Thanks for dropping by see you again for another experience in this side of town.

See more Skywatchers here

PAYBACKS OF WEB DIRECTORIES

During my infancy stage in blogging I was wondering whether I will make it or not, I have hanging questions how to increase my ranking? How do I drive in traffic? And my hesitations had brought me to ask people around this blogosphere who had been blogging years before me on what would be the best strategy to increase my blog visibility. There were plethora of suggestions, enroll in traffic exchange sites, buy ads and many more that I have gathered on how to make your blog afloat and get higher search engine rankings.

And one of the recommendations that standout among those suggestions were to submit your blog to web directories, this strategy not only gives you higher search engine rankings, but it is also one way of getting backlinks.

But then newbie as I was then, I was prodded to ask what a web directory is? Then a blogging friend of mine commented that it is just the same as your local yellow pages in which all your physical business name, business nature and contact details and everything a finder would want to know and what you would want with your business or just something personal to be known for are listed. Web directories are similarly positioned, only they are developed and runned to cater and to organize sites on the World Wide Web under most appropriate and specific category.

There can be a number of SEO friendly directories in the internet, there is DMOZ that has over 590,000 categories to search on, you have Yahoo directory which is practically a word of mouth when it comes to web directory all of these are human edited to ensure specificity of category of the sites submitted. Although some require monetary charges to review your sites there are also a lot that are absolutely no obligation at all, you just have to carefully follow their guidelines and you can already be listed.

On a personal note I have also submitted this blog of mine to various web directories, as an evidence you can browse up to the bottom to see some, but one thing that one should note about is choose and prefer web categories that are pushing for real traffic and directories that regularly updated with listings, news or relevant stuff.

So there, start finding some SEO friendly directories now and submit your sites or blogs and expect your rank and backlinks to soar.

TOO MANY NAMES FOR A MANGO

I was home alone last night, my troop went out to attend a children’s party, I opted to stay at home since there were already too many of them, the invited by the invited, and out boredom I ate all the green mangoes on our sink top, which I handpicked from our front yard.  I dipped it in salted soy sauce, if that may sound superfluous but that’s the way how I ate it.

Munching over it while watching Gourmet, (another Koreanovela starred Kim Rae Won, by the way Gourmet is a very good material if you want to understand how culture influences the kind of food that we eat and how food is also a culture) My reckless thoughts keep grinding and I thought that we Filipinos really have a lot to say when it comes to mango, we have names for every stage of a mango fruit’s life.

Commonly, English language only have two names for a mango fruit, that is the green mango and the ripe mango, which is the yellow one. But Pinoys have more to that, take these for instance; (Some words are in Bisaya as I’m a native of Davao)

Putot – for a small very young fruit
Bangkalawag – for bigger green mangoes that has young crunchy seed
Gulang – for big green ones with fiber coated seeds
Gulang-gulang – for mangoes in between gulang and manibalang
Manibalang – for old crunchy just right for bagoong (call it salted rotten fish or whatever, but pinoys only have good thoughts about this delicacy) and sukang tuba dipping
Hinog-hinog – for a stage between ripe and manibalang
Hinog – for a ripe mango, this is the yellow one
Lata-lata – for a stage between ripe and overripe
Lata – for overripe ones
bulok-bulok – for mangoes between overripe and rotten ones
Bulok or dunot – for rotten ones

You see , we have more to tell than the foreign ones, and if you have more to these terms just leave a comment so we can add up to our vocabulary.

That’s for some reckless thinking dude, thanks for dropping by, see again for another experience in this side of town.

ON TATTOOS AND CELEBRITIES

I ran over this article in web-articles.info on Celebrities Love Tattoos, this article talks about how Hollywood celebrities have adorned their bodies with tattoos and their influences to their fans and how media has picked this up that creates a trending stream.

The author has presented sufficient information on understanding why celebrities put on tattoos and it’s quite satisfying to read, and has constructed this piece well that I don’t find flaws grammatically and that the writing style is acceptable, I don’t dwell in rigid writing styles though as different authors have different strokes in writing and I give due credit to this author for this own writing style.

It’s quite clever for him/her to think about this subject and to me it is significantly interesting to know different celebrities having to put on different skin decorations.

I’m in agreement with the author that celebrities really have that great influence towards their fans and what they see from their idols they too follow suit. Thus the author made a good point in presenting this concept. Overall, this article is acceptable as a read.

Celebrities truly have tremendous impact on the choices and preferences of those who are faithfully following them, thus trends are at all times influenced by celebrities and tattoos or designer tattoos as what they call it, are one of them. All of our body parts are given it is only through this art that you can add or change what is given.

BEAUTIFUL PEOPLE

Our internet DSL connection was installed some three years ago, but it was only about five months ago that I got interested in blogging, least I realized I will be finding new friends here.

I have some friends who blog then and I really can’t understand at first the adrenalin that runs along with them every time they talk about blogging, but it was when I started doing it myself that I got hook to it, that sometimes my husband really can’t get it letting him stop in the middle of the road just so I can take pictures of some strange things that interest me.

Having all these conveniences and inconveniences of blogging, what can be more rewarding than receiving a badge of recognition from your friends around here …… And I’m proudest having this badge… it’s A BEAUTIFUL BLOGGER Award from my friend, a pinay transplanted in Malaysia, Loveleng of Chronicle of An Inconsistent Mom. Thanks Loveleng for passing to me another badge of inspiration.

Accepting this award would mean letting you know seven things about myself? Hmmmmmmmmm.
1. OC
2. coffeeholic
3. tea addict
4. frustrated painter
5. budding potter
6. trying hard blogger
7. dedicated mother


Oh, got only five people in my mind which I truly feel they are beautiful blogger and I’m passing this badge to them (in no particular order)

Life Moto

Manang Kim of My Life’s Journey in Focus

Maritz of A Walk To Remember

Gagay my lab of Pinoy MD 

Jenn of My Sweet Haven

GOD BLESS YOU ALL BEAUTIFUL PEOPLE!

THE THREE SIDES OF THE COIN

If you can remember I had a post on does the Bible really subjugates women? Well, this article is a continuation of that feature as my students can’t get over the issue and again we had a heated discussion last night about the issues involving women and religion.

As the facilitator of the class I have to present the two sides of the coin, the bad side and the good side of religion in relation to the lives of women. Then all of a sudden this bothered student of mine, raised his hand and said;

Maam, the problem with religion is that it is absolute, whether you commit sin small or big it is still a sin, there are only two kinds of identity that the Bible imposes for humans to live, being a straight man and a straight woman … what about me?

For quite a while the whole class was in silence as we didn’t expect that he would confess his chosen gender identity being him a real masculine in the outside. And then he continued speaking, saying ….

……the problem with our society is that we often look at the coin having only two sides, in Bisaya… patay o buhi lang, religion in the same manner looks at life as black and white, no gray matters….. The third side of the coin is often overlooked, ako tong giring-giring maam…. (I’m that grid side of the coin) in which women and men who claim this side are often overlooked.

And let it be known that there are three sides of the coin, he continued. There are people like us who belong to this side which are often overlooked because we deal so much with the face and the back of the coin.

Indeed, students learn from their teacher and sometimes teachers also learn from their students.

Thanks for reading, see you again for another experience n this side of town.

I GOT FEATURED

 
When I opened my email last night I was surprised to receive an email from Shiela of makingjewelrysupplies.com informing me that they have stumbled on my blog and they have featured me in the directory of the largest Jewelry supplies website of about 30,000+ blogs.Too bad the screenshot is too small.

I love jewelry but from the looks of it my blog it not about jewelry thus I was amazed even more that they have me featured.

To Shiela and the people behind makingjewelrysupplies.com Thank you very much for this recognition… All the Best.

Curious? Take a look at their site Jewelry Making Beads.

I JUST NEED SOME OF THESE!

My Mellow Yellow Monday!

Oh yes, some time for silence is what one needs when everything around seemed so loud and rushing from here to there, try it for just 10 minutes it helps to loosen up a little.

Thank you for dropping by.


See you again for another experience in this side of town.

TEN THINGS THAT MAKE ME HAPPY

I’m real happy today, sorry for my Imeldific tendency but I have bought another pair of shoe again, sad to say I only have two feet and I cannot wear them altogether LOL! But this post is not about the shoe. It’s about another badge of friendship in this sphere. I’m talking about this Sweet Friends badge passed to me by January of January’s Scraps of Life.

This is not I think a very nice venue to air my sentiments regarding my physical networks but all of my friends in this physical space have all gone out of this country, and I’m just thankful that blogging became a trend and I have found my new networks here and one of them is January.

To January, thank you dear for this badge. I truly appreciate it from the bottom of my heart.

Accepting this award will let me tell you ten things that make me happy…… Hmmmmm so here they are in no particular order.

My Children

Husband

Pedicure

Lipstick/Shoe

Camera

Internet

Self-declared day-off

Thai massage

Last leaf of the book I read

Tall Macchiato

And I’m passing this badge of happiness to:

JOHWNIE of johwnie’s Haven

AMINA of It’s My Life

CARMS of Carms Page

LOVELENG of Chronicle of An Inconsistent Mom

MINNIEMADZ of Not So Personal

Thanks for dropping by everyone ….. see you again for another experience in this side of town.

JUST LET THE TEARS FLOW!

After several days of crying a river over a 20-episode Korean Drama, Sad Love Song, starred Kim Hee Sun, I finally shed off my last drop of tear, which most often than not people in the house would end up teasing me why cry over people you don’t know? (Well, just in case you are also a drama addict like me check this site.)

I just feel that connection towards the characters of the drama that I’m watching thus every time the show ends I also end up wiping my eyes with tears, and on some occasions where drama plots are so heavy I sometimes find myself sob as hard as the actor.

Having this kind of emotional set back I began to question, why do we cry? What is it in crying that sometimes get us drained and sometimes make us light?

When you cry you are actually providing an emotional punctuation to the content of what you are saying and feeling. You shed tears silently as an emphatic reaction to the movie or scene that you are seeing. And when you cry in concurrence with something that you are saying or expressing, the tears bring about the depth of your feelings, be it sadness, frustration, happiness, even anger that is contained in your words.

Your tears can be used as an aid to read your own emotional message clearly and may help you understand more precisely the content of your personal message that is most hurtful, painful, the most miserable or the happiest to you.

For someone to be experiencing grief, unacceptable or improper behavior, or you are embarrassed or you were busted by someone you really like, or more so broken marriages, or just feeling extremely happy and you feel emotional outburst and you just can’t help but cry, do it out loud, just let the tears flow, and just remember to keep an absorbent handkerchief handy.

Just let the tears flow. Thanks for reading and see you again for another experience in this side of town.

COPING UP WITH MODERNITY

I had this picture taken some years back when I was conducting my ethnographic research for my masters paper on the community of Dulanan Manobo in the mountains of Sultan Kudarat, so let off the technicalities of the quality of the picture as it has been edited-reedited so many times. Luckily, I had a flat one for this paper, excuse my lifting of my own chair, but that’s the truth. LOL!

These people traditionally make use of horses to draw their produce to the market, but the rise of modern transport system is inevitable, it has penetrated even the remotest area just 5 cents to heaven. For Anthropologists, this is not a welcome idea though, but whether these people resist it or not, this phenomenon has pervaded and has change the way people live there.


Oh yeah! We complain so much about our transport system, but this photo might let you think once more you are far more lucky you got to ride a jeepney safer than riding a motorcycle turned horse or a horsed motorcycle whichever!


Thanks for dropping by in this side of town.

ON KNOWING HOW TO BECOME ONE

When I was young my parents would ask me, what I want to become when I grow up? I can’t remember what exactly my answers were but I figured it out while seeing and knowing things around that I wanted to be become a teacher.

I call this social technologies or social know-hows that continue to serve a great role in the organization of our society, our parents were the first agents to have these technologies passed to us, how to become a cook, how to clean the CR, how to eat pineapple, etc. etc.

But as society becomes complex we came to specialize certain fields of learning and doing, like how to become an actor, how to become a plumber, a graphic designer, etc. Social templates, or guides on how to become now are being professionalized and is readily available online.

I came to browse this site and I swear you will find everything you need on becoming what you want in this society, name it from A to Z. or if you know something how to become what then you also can submit your articles and share what you know.

SIR ARNY GETS A VISIT

My Mellow Yellow Monday

This is Angelo, my son, who went to see Sir Arny (the eagle's name) at the Philippine Eagle Center at Malagos, Calinan some weeks ago. When in Davao, include this eagle conservation center in your itinerary. The center have tour guides that will guide you around at a very minimal fee.

DOES BIBLE REALLY SUBJUGATES WOMEN?

Warning: You should at least know what ‘gender sensitivity’ is all about before judging me regarding my opinion of the next topic.

Note: This is not to discredit those who are believers of this so-called sacred book, The Bible, but I am writing this just for the information of those who just wish to know and as a pure academic talk.

I teach Women’s Literature this term and I’m really glad this term’s batches of students I have are so reactive that one single question consumes the whole hour.

Yesterday, we went to discuss the images of women in Early Christianity, I made it clear at the beginning of the topic that the Bible being our major reference should not be taken as a holy scripture this time but as a Literature so laden with value that can be deduced and interpreted.

I was at the point of presenting concepts about how the Bible has become a funnel in subjugating women when someone from the class raised her hand and said;

You mean maam, for centuries women have been fooled by just saying yes and yes, accept their fate by seating in the backset, by submitting themselves to their husbands without questioning what is written in the Bible.

Then I said, Yes! For the longest time women never question why they never had their names, why is it ideal to just stay home, do laundry, do breakfast for their husbands and tend to their children etc., etc. … (fact is, I majored gender studies in my Masters just to find some ways to get out of this male-dominated society, but the more I resist the more it persist, so I decided to just live the life the way I wanted it to be, who cares!)

You might think that I’m just inventing things or something of that sort, then you can verify it yourself here;

• Titus 2:4-5 – Sober and obedient
• Colossians 3:18 – submissive to their husbands
• 1 Corinthians 11:3 – accept men as their authority figure
• 1 Corinthians 14:34-35 – silent in church

I’m no hard core feminist; it’s just that I am gender insightful, sort of!

Thanks for reading, see you again for another experience in this side of town.

THE MANGO POLITICS

When I wake up this morning my eyes poped-out seeing a big mango on our table, I ask people around where did it come from and they said it’s a gift from a friend of my mom-in-law from Calinan this city, they have a mango farm and they breed, cross-breed, marcot, graft different varieties of mangoes, vocabularies you often hear from people involve with this industry.

I was stunned because the night before I went to sleep I was reading Life Moto’s Blog about a report in Yahoo news runned some days back about a 3.5-kilo mango fruit from Iligan City, some 12 hours bus ride from Davao city northwards, was certified as the world’s biggest by the Guinness Book of World Records.

This mango is Florida in variety which was grown by Sergio and Maria Socorro Bodiongan from that city and surpassed the 2.4-kilo mango from Canada.

The mango that stunned me, but was amazed more by the Guinness Record breaking mango. The big mango is about 1.5 kilos (I was not able to ask what variety is this mango as it was already in our table when I woke up), and the small one is just about half a gram. The mango model is paid P100 a day and is still complaining.

My reckless thoughts began rolling, Oooh! Is this really how far humans had gone? We had surpassed the age of discovery and we are already in the age of mastery, we have mastered technology, biotechnology in this sense that we were able to reengineer nature to our own desire, we accurately have played god altering nature, even have altered life at its most fundamental level.

With this technology people will no longer go hungry, gone were the native mangoes where seeds are bigger than the meat, now you can have seedless on everything, from virtually everywhere available on our grocery shelves.

But then questions loom, Who can access this technology? Can small farmers afford to grow this given anticipated high-priced pesticides and fertilizers?

A lot of radicals would say, our problem on the shortage of food is not the lack of it, but a problem of distributing it.

So in the end, mango is not just a mango that you feed your stomach dipped in whiff salted rotten fish (I just love this stinky rotten fish) but a mango that is politically laden with honors and price.

Let me end this lithany of mine, believe if I say, he who controls the seed controls the food.

Thanks for reading, see you again for another experience in this side of town.

THE MOST EFFECTIVE WAY TO DRIVE TRAFFIC TO YOUR BLOG

When I first started blogging some months back, desperate that I was that there’s nobody checking on my blog, I was convinced by so many strategies around on how to drive traffic to your blog, and sign-up here and there and live on to their promise to receive swarm of traffic millions and millions, but after awhile when I get the hang of blogging I realized that those techniques if it actually help, just comprise at least 10% of your blog traffic.

When I started to blogread around and drop quality comments to the articles written by the blog owners that started my traffic to swarm. Comments inspire bloggers that will prod them to visit you back, inspire bloggers to write quality content, inspire bloggers to stay on their computers for longer hours and do more on the internet, and on top of everything you create a network of friends, besides it’s the surest way to create backlink.

If there are favors that some friend bloggers would request of me like to vote, to visit, to support their newly build-up blogs and to participate in whatever blog activity they have, I never falter to comply, this is another way to establishing rapport among bloggers that from time to time a part of the bulk of your traffic.

While there can be various strategies like advertising, PTCs and things of that sort to drive blog traffic in, there’s no effective way of driving traffic than reading content of blogs around, dropping quality comments.

So just don’t bloghop, I encourage bloggers to blogread.

THE SAFEST WAY TO RIDE A JETSKI

My Mellow Yellow Monday

OK kids listen to Mom, the safest way to ride a jetski… is out of water. ENJOY! (nyahaha!)

Photo taken at Paradise Island Garden Resort in Samal Island. Thanks everyone, see you again for another experience in this side of town.