Random thoughts in building my blog!
I was surprised to see that Blogbastic stats for today shot up more than 10 folds and I haven’t updated regularly!??? When I inspected, I thought, what’s with the day? It turns out that it was the Pacquiao-Barrera fight. Most Filipinos who don’t have access of live video feed tried to rely on live radio feed to be updated by the fight.
Salamat po sa pagbisita.
Glad to be of service,
Blogbastic!
I have yet to hear from my friend from Myanmar. He was supposed to return last night. I saw a video clip of what happened in Yangon over Mizzima News. When I saw it, it reminded me of Mendiola Massacre–I just couldn’t take the brutality of the situation.
A friend of mine was in the front line of the protesting peasant farmers. Her colleague was hit by a bullet in the face. She survived and so did her colleague. I saw the event on TV and it became one of historical events on TV that I’ll never forget aside from the assassination of Ninoy.
It was reported that the Military Junta had cut off the internet connection in the country to avoid any leakage of any documentation of the military action against the protesters and hold a clip on the nation’s blogger informants. The military had previously cracked down on protesters in 1988 when thousands were killed. They are still defiant again despite increasing international pressure including from its strongest ally, China. If they continue their defiance at this stage, will they have the guts to annihilate more than 10,000 people at one go? Will the international community, again, just watch and contribute to the rhetoric of diplomatic scolding and spanking (economic sanction) of this country? It’s everybody’s guess and I hope that the video clip at Missima News will be the last image of that kind that I will see from Yangon.
My family’s refugee status would slightly take longer than expected. A little over a month and after almost five applications with various real estate agencies (from the fruit of a hooker to ray’s one and only 🙂 if this phrase makes any sense) it has been failure after failure.
They say patience is a virtue but I did not come here just to spend my time inspecting one house after another and just be rejected and rejected again and rejected again. These real estate agents have their reasons for declining our application. We are a returning temporary resident here in Australia and the almost a year stay in New South Wales was not enough to satisfy any property manager’s standard. This made me think, if I were an ex convict trying to start anew–it would be very hard to start over again-clean–do you get my point?
I’ve learned from almost a month of filling up application after application and asking people here the following:
If you’re a newbie nowadays here in Australia and will rent a house, prepare for a battle with other tenancy applicants as one tries to outbid the other. This development further pushes the rental market prices to an average of Aus$270 for a three bedroom house in a decent suburb.
A colleague of mine was so desperate that he grabbed (and was lucky enough to get the property) the opportunity to rent a Aus$220 one bedroom unit, although one ride from the Uni but still far off. He has a wife and a two year old son.
As for myself, despite having a number of personal references (from WA to NSW) and a letter from the University expressing my regular financial support this isn’t enough. One agent told me, “oh we’re not like other real estate agents–they could be very greedy.”
Greedy, indeed, is the word and they are trying to push the market higher and higher until Australia registers its first few hundreds of homeless families. I hope we will not be one of them. 😦
The test of a true Sigma Rhoan
Is not his individual greatness,
But the virtue of not leaving any Sigma Rhoan in disgrace,
For until the day breaks
And the shadows flee,
Time will always be the essence of
Our oneness,
And we shall always remember,
That we are called Sigma Rhoans, Because we stand as true
Brothers above the rest.
The True Sigma Rhoan from Sigma Rho Fraternity, UP
A special report by GMANews.TV on political clans and pork barrel caught my eye last month. The Philippines is said to have good laws against corruption including nepotism however, it seems the Filipinos have not learned in the past when only the few controlled the government.
According to this report, at least nine families have access to at least PhP1 billion of pork barrel funds–a source of corruption as this kind of fund does not usually undergo scrutiny under the Commission on Audit. Now, do you still wonder why election, more specifically politics is a BIG THING in the Philippines. People literally kill to get their hands on various political posts.
Tag from Sir Sonny. 🙂 This might be the tag game that I might end up hating 🙂 well, actually this is just my list of least liked things not really that I hate these.
Ten hate list and now for the ten tag list, not that I hate them. 🙂
paolomendoza, chuckie, daniel, dan, laya, lynette, sheila, jonas, czille and mimie.
Well, well, well, it’s been a looooong hibernation. Snake alert is already out (meaning spring is near) and I thought I wouldn’t be able to come back to blogging. Well, I’m back (again–how many times did I’ve gone to blogging hiatus these past few weeks???). Well, I thought I wouldn’t be able to come back. I’m still trying to finish three reports but at least I’m a bit relaxed now as I was able to finish some parts of the three drafts (well, I’ve been trying hard to write everything at the same time 🙂 ).
While I was on hiatus there’s so much abuzz over the blogosphere, I don’t need to link them here but I know you know. Mr. Pogi accuses Ms. Kind-hearted as a self-serving blogger, while a print journalist goes OFW bashing and getting the ire of almost every blogger on the blogosphere and I’m sure even over Friendster! I’m not adding my note to these two big stories as it seems anything that should be blogged about from these two cases have been blogged already. 🙂
Well, the best news that I couldn’t resist not blogging about is blogbastic is one year old. 🙂 I’m soooooo vane. eheheh! forgive me just give me this moment. ciao!
I almost missed it because of the almost never ending chase for report deadlines among others–imagine, I’m still chasing up reports almost three weeks after I ended my contract in Bangkok. Well, it’s a long story but to cut it short my research topic is closely connected with my work in Southeast Asia that any output is of great importance to my research.
Anyway, what I almost missed–Blogbastic is one year old!
My good online buddy, Massa P. marked the day and made sure that she greeted me! Thanks Massa P!
Well, it’s been one year since I moved to WordPress to explore further the wonders of blogging and while I’m currently sidetracked with the stressful reality of the academe and just waking up from realities of working for an international organization, I’m still loving it! It’s good to just look back to how blogbastic developed from being a personal blog to a blog about news (well, it still sometimes function as a “pseudo-personal” blog as Jayvee F. puts it although I’m not sure whether it IS my true calling–well that’s another story).
I’m still blogbastic! Thanks all. Keep on blogging! 🙂
Well, this post is part of my payment to my tag dues I have to a number of people. I’m now tagged by three people for almost the same thing! This is what you get when you fail to update your blog regularly, not that I’m complaining! 🙂 I’m quite happy to do this.
Sorry for not posting this the soonest now I’m answering three tags from Alma, Jonas and Chuckie. Anyway, I’m following Alma’s format here. 🙂
The rules:
- Each player must post these rules first.
- Each player starts with eight random facts/habits about themselves.
- People who are tagged need to write their own blog about their eight things and post these rules.
- At the end of your blog, you need to choose eight people to get tagged and list their names.
- Don’t forget to leave them a comment telling them they’re tagged, and to read your blog.
Fair?! 🙂 Here’s Blogbastic’s lucky eight facts
Now, I’m not sure if these are not so interesting facts, what do you reckon? (Naks, nakatungtong lang ng Australia, may twang na?! hahaha! 🙂 )
Now, I have to tag 8 bloggers. Here are the lucky blogs/bloggers: Mimie, Czille, Elaine, Jun, Sheila, Ivy, Ana and Lynette.
The results are out. Glad to know that at least one of my nomination was judged as one of the top 10 emerging influential blogs for 2007. 🙂
Fruityoaty made it to the list and also took home at US$100 for blogging about it! How lucky could this blogger get?? The list of the Top 10 Emerging Influential Blogs for 2007 are as follows:
The following bloggers are US$100 richer. 🙂
As with all successful writing project on the blogosphere, there were suggestions and few observations regarding the blogs nominated and even the bloggers who participated. Shari was complaining a bit on the representation of blogs. She argued that most of the bloggers who participated were Filipinos and most of the blogs were owned by part or full blooded Filipinos.
Actually, when I blogged about it, I was afraid that it will not get much international coverage when it became evident by week 3 that most of the bloggers and even the nominated blogs were Filipinos/Filipino owned. However, if the contest was only dedicated to Filipino Top 10 Emerging Influential Blogs, I guess there might be a few choices despite the growing number of Filipino bloggers.
But hey, this is just the first year of this writing project. Who knows what will happen next year? Well, I hope that more bloggers will participate and this will be one of the most “popular” popularity contests on the blogosphere after the bloggy and other award giving “bodies.” 🙂
Blogbastic! 