Map of the Philippines

Alright … I’ve post­poned this long enough. If it’s one thing that Fil­ipinos are good at and known world­wide for is pro­cras­ti­nat­ing. I mean really … why else would we have our own “time zone”? (Okay, so Fil­ipino Time is not exactly a zone, per se. Rather it’s a … I don’t know … a phi­los­o­phy? Lifestyle? Cul­tural trait?)

Any­way … a fel­low blog­ger I met in Blog­ger Town (you know, the place next door to Fac.ebook and Mysp.ace?), Joanne just tagged me about a week ago and it was about gosh-​​darn time I get to it. And because she’s also “Flip”, I fig­ured she might for­give me for fol­low­ing the typ­i­cal Fil­ipino Time pro­to­col. So here goes …

1. Why did you start your blog?

Well hmmm … I’ve always just loved writ­ing. It’s a way for me to express some cre­ativ­ity and allow me to vent. Back about five years ago, when I was deep in the heart of my IF jour­ney, my Mom had made a sim­ple com­ment that I should start writ­ing like I did back in high school and col­lege, using the let­ters I wrote to my cousin as an exam­ple. My cousin and I wrote let­ters much like the two char­ac­ters in “Beaches” did. She was, in essence, my “liv­ing jour­nal” at one of the most con­fus­ing and hor­monal times in life.

Now, I’ve been some­what of an incon­sis­tent journ­ler all my life; always start­ing one but then los­ing inter­est in it after awhile … which is why I didn’t start this blog until just over a year ago. I had finally got­ten to the point where stuff­ing my feel­ings to “Save Face” just got to be way too much. I had to let it out some­where. And because I wasn’t able to share this con­fus­ing and hor­monal time of my life with any­one close to me … well, it only seemed nat­ural to put it up on a blog to see if any­one out there could even begin to under­stand the kind of emo­tions I was going through.

2. How did you come up with your blog name?

Well … I sup­pose it’s much eas­ier to send you here to read about my name. Much eas­ier than hav­ing to cut & paste. And you get the added ben­e­fit of not hav­ing to read it again if you’ve already read it.

“Liv­ing Jour­nal” Cousin, Dr. Brother & Me, circa mid-1970’s

3. Do your friends and fam­ily know about your blog and what do they think?

Amaz­ingly, yes. Not all of them read it, but they know about it. The one thing that I’ve found really great about hav­ing my fam­ily read it, is that they can finally be able to real­ize just how much of my life has been about my infer­til­ity and how hard IF’s emo­tional toll has been on every aspect of my life. Fil­ipinos tend to avoid talk­ing about dif­fi­cult issues such as drugs or divorce or … gasp … infer­til­ity. This goes back to the whole “sav­ing face” thingy and the extreme lone­li­ness that becomes part of it. By putting my blog out there … well, I’m still able “talk” about my infer­til­ity while still being able to show up at fam­ily din­ners or other social func­tions with­out feel­ing as if I’m “bro­ken” or “weak” or just plain “out of control.”

As far as what they think … well some of my IRL (in real life) friends have posted com­ments to show their sup­port and agree (or dis­agree … I love get­ting per­spec­tive from other peo­ple) with what I’ve writ­ten. As for my imme­di­ate fam­ily … My Mom, as I’ve men­tioned in pass­ing before does read it … albeit incon­sis­tently, as she con­fessed to me. My MIL (whom I truly love and respect) has admit­ted to read­ing my blog, which again, is a good thing. She has, in fact, told me many times that she never truly under­stood how and/​or why I felt the way I did until read­ing my blog. I also know that my (cur­rently) pregnant-​​SIL reads my blog … and I’m sure that what I write may have hit many-​​a-​​nerve with her. It isn’t meant inten­tion­ally or mali­ciously to hurt anyone’s feel­ings … it is sim­ply my thoughts, my feel­ings, my way to vent. I don’t think Dr. Brother or Dr. SIL read this blog, but I could be sorely mis­taken. And I know that Hubby reads it. If any­thing, he’s the one that will reach out and hug me when he sees the sad­ness in my writ­ing. Or laugh with me about some of the silli­ness I write.


Mmm … Yum!

4. How do you write posts?

I guess it varies on my mood from post to post. Mostly, it’s just me writ­ing about me in the first-​​person per­spec­tive. Other times, when I’m try­ing to be vague, I’ll take on a third-​​person nar­ra­tive … but if I start writ­ing like The Rock talks … some­one should just vir­tu­ally slap me. “Can you SEEEEEEE … what the EM is writ­ing?!” :-P

5. Have you ever had a troll or had to delete unkind comments?

Thank­fully no trolls. And thank­fully no unkind com­ments. I do get some unso­licited com­ments with some sort of “sales angle” that Word­Press some­times misses … and those I will delete. Oth­er­wise, I’ve found that any per­son that has com­mented on my blog has been extremely nice and empa­thetic. I’ve “met” some really cool inter­net bud­dies this way. And I hope to con­tinue to do so. So for those that might just be lurk­ing … please please, pretty please … I’d just LOVE to “meet” you!

6. Do you check your stats or care how many peo­ple read your blog. If you care how do you increase traffic?

Yeah, I admit it. I’m a sucker to see how much my blog gets viewed. I don’t know why. It’s not like this is some sort of “pop­u­lar­ity con­test.” Really, I just want to know whether or not some one finds some inter­est in what I’m writ­ing. And I’m hop­ing that per­haps some­one else might find com­fort in know­ing that they’re not alone in what they might be feeling.

I really don’t do any­thing to increase blog traf­fic. I hate the thought of plac­ing ads on my blog. Because even if I do like my elec­tronic “toys” and designer “duds,” I’m still a “respect mother earth” and “there’s gotta be a bet­ter way” lib­eral at heart who absolutely hates mass pro­duc­tion and consumption.

*******************************

So that’s that. I might be a lit­tle “late” in respond­ing to this meme, but if there’s yet another thing Fil­ipinos are good at … it’s mak­ing sure that they fol­low through in any promises or oblig­a­tions sent their way!

Now .… hmmm. Who do I tag? I think I’ll ask twoPINK! and kcmarie122 to be the next vic­tims. But don’t feel like you absolutely have to do this just for me … ’cause i’d hate to think that I “guilt-​​tripped” you into doing this.

How very un-​​Filipino of me. :-)

Related Posts