Pinoy Blog Machine (Beta)

It has been 2 weeks since I tried to look for a new career or should I say a new job, but up until now I haven’t made my decision as to what I should do next. A contract is waiting on the table for me to sign and start a new career. Peoplesupport has [...]

I love this song. Carrie Underwood Rocks!

OMG. My favorite photo-sharing site Zooomr is unveiling its much touted Mark III right now, again. Mark III offers numerous features and upgrades to the existing Zooomr Mark II. What I'm most excited about is the Groups and Marketplace, where users can sell their photos. Kristopher Tate is one of heck of a genius.

I'm not sure how long the transition will take, but I hope this time, everything would be running smoothly. I want my Mark III for real goddammit.

Meanwhile, check out the Mark III demo. You can now start drooling.

Narrow-minded people have this idea that atheist are inhuman, unfeeling persons.  They just can’t accept that atheists would be capable of being moral, something that they attribute solely to being “religious”.  However, I’ve come across this blog and I believe this post about why he choose to be an atheist is the sincerest blog post that I’ve come across.

Tags: atheism

Another test blog…

Please be patient with me.  This is my first time…

… to be using a sideblog.  Hehe.  Welcome to my first sideblog post

Who would have thought that Ms. Annalyn Jusay of Manila Bulletin’s Blog-O-Rama will take notice of this lowly doctor’s blog?

But then, she did. And I’m particularly flattered and excited that she took notice. I don’t know if my blog is hot stuff like that of Misteryosa and Mae Paulino’s blog, which have also been featured in her column. But then, maybe I do offer some uniqueness in the world wide blogosphere. After all, it is not everyday that one encounters a blogger doctor, right? Haha. I think I should ask Ms. Annalyn why she chose to feature my blog.

But anyway, I’m happy to be seeing my own words and header image printed in color in a newspaper.

If you can’t hunt for a Manila Bulletin newspaper at this time, maybe you’d just like to read the online version or just continue reading this post…

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A DOCTOR BLOGS AT ‘PRUDENCE AND MADNESS’

By Annalyn S. Jusay (now blogging at www.annalyn.net)

Tess Termulo is a 26-year old who blogs avidly while serving the rest of humanity as an emergency room doctor. Though she aspires to be a specialist in internal medicine someday, there’s no stopping her from writing about her life at her own site mystically titled “Prudence and Madness.” Does writing and being a doctor go together? She says it is possible and the secret is passion. ” The pursuit of scientific knowledge allures me, as well as the art of expressing my thoughts through writing. It is one proof, perhaps, that a creative writer and a scientist as one person is not really that far-fetched and contradictory nor does it require enormous ingenuity. Only honesty and true love for what you are doing are needed.” Let’s get to know more about this doctor’s thoughts in the following interview:

Q. Can you give us a background on how and when I started to blog?

 

A. Like many other bloggers, I started with creating personal websites using free webhosting services like Geocities, Angelfire, and Tripod. I got attracted to the idea of making myself and my work (my writings) known to a community of online users who are interested in what I’ve got to offer creatively. So, my early websites consisted of a short biography and samples of my poetry and essays.

 

 

But I’m not much knowledgeable with HTML back then and I just relied on the tools offered by these free webhosting sites. After a while, I got dissatisfied and for a time, I wasn’t able to post much on these personal sites.

 

I don’t exactly remember how I started with blogging. Most bloggers I know usually ask this of me and I simply don’t know the answer. I can’t remember if anyone introduced me to blogging or if I read some particular blogs. All I know is that I ended signing up for a Blogger account. I was, then, born in the blogosphere on May 18, 2005, in my new home, The Darkness of Prudence. This was a personal blog but then I started posting some poetry. I used “The Darkness of Prudence” as my poetry blog and created “Prudence and Madness” ( http://prudencemadness.blogspot.com), still in Blogger, as my personal blog.

 

I got the usual “hang-ups” that I started exploring other sites that offer free blog-hosting and photo-hosting services: Buzznet, Multiply, Friendster Blogs, LiveJournal, and others that I’ve already forgotten. I’m still maintaining my multiply site (http://altashheth.multiply.com) and using it as my photo gallery. About the other blogs, like my friendster blog, Prudence I Write ( http://altashheth.blogs.friendster.com), I only get to visit once in a while.

 

 

Eventually, I gained more knowledge about blogging and wanted more flexibility with managing my blog. I moved to my own domain, http://tesstermulo.com, I think, January this year.

 

 

Q. What do you like about blogging as an activity? What do you think is the best thing about it?

 

A. It’s a great stress-reliever. I started blogging when I was a medical intern and the 24-hour duties and obnoxious patients, residents, and consultants were just so damn stressful. I needed an outlet for all my rants about the co-intern or resident that really pissed me off, my frustrations with a really arrogant patient and my raves about a movie I saw or a book I’ve just read and the like. The blog afforded me that. The blog is also an avenue for my writing. It is a space where I can practice my art and receive the response I needed. Comments encouraged me to write more, as I suffered a sort of “creativity constipation” (I’m in remission, but I do get lapses every once in a while). People are also welcome to criticize the writing style, etcetera, but most of my blog visitors don’t do so, but, instead, just respond to the ideas that I want to come across to them, my audience. They appreciate my sensible and interesting ideas. And maybe they also appreciate that I let them take a peek through my life as a young Filipina doctor in a country wherein health care professionals are starting to dwindle.

 

 

The best thing about blogging, perhaps, is the sense of having your own space in the cyberworld, where it can be accessed by thousands of potential readers. Though many people might want to write in newspapers or to be on TV or radio so that their ideas can be heard, not everybody will be able to do so. Blogs, at least, give the lay persons the chance to broadcast whatever they want to tell the world and the world, if it chooses to, will be able to hear them and respond to them. That is, in essence, a freedom of expression.

 

 

Q. What advice can you give on getting started in blogging and maintaining one’s blog?

 

A. Being a blog addict that I am, I’ve been encouraging most of my close friends to start and keep a blog. The common questions that I get from them are the following:

 

 

1) I’m not good with HTML or CSS. What do I do?

2) I don’t know if I have enough time. How do I go about starting it and when?

3) What do I write on my blog?

 

 

As for #1, there are plenty of blogging platforms these days that will not require you extensive knowledge of HTML and CSS. For beginners, I would recommend using LiveJournal or Blogger. One can create a blog in a few minutes in a step-by-step fashion. You’ll need to be only minimally computer literate to be able to do this. And it’s free! Also, it’s almost hassle-free because you don’t have to worry about maintaining files, etcetera. You only need to concern yourself with the content. Just write your post in the text editor and then click the submit button when you’re done. Simple as that.

 

 

But, of course, when you’ve gained experience as a blogger, you may want to put more enhancements in your blog. You can still do this with Blogger. But, when you come to this stage, I would say it would be good if you get your own domain and a good web-hosting service provider. It will give you the chance to learn and practice HTML and CSS. Also, your own domain is more personalized, speaks more of who you are.

 

 

It would be good to think of a catchy, unique domain name before starting to register one. I don’t know just yet if my decision to name my domain with my real name is good or not (it’s been only up for 5 months, as of now). But at the time I registered it, I got attracted to the idea of “owning” a space in the WWW. So I named it like that. Maybe it’s vanity speaking.

 

 

As for #2, like with the other activities that you do, looking for the time to blog is up to you. Even the busiest people find the time to put up their blogs, if they choose to. So, if you do decide to put up a blog, then think of your schedule and decide when it is the best time for you to make blog updates. Do it at night after work or in the early morning before you go out, or while on the go. It’s really up to the blog owner.

 

 

As for #3, for newbie bloggers, just write what’s on your mind. It’s easier to start a personal blog than a topic-specific blog. Eventually, though, you’d find your “niche” (one of the favorite and most overused word by bloggers, hehe) in the blogosphere. Or you may just stick with keeping with a personal blog. If you’re still uncertain, just start with posts about what you’re thinking most of the time. Or something that has caught your attention. Write a commentary on a news article or a movie or book review. Start with something and when you feel the “flow”, go where it will take you. In my case, I write about my moonlighting experiences because that’s what I have most of the time.

 

 

Q. Care to share your online/blogging habits?

 

A. When I start my computer, the first things I check online are my blog and my email inbox to check if there are new comments on my blog or new threads in the mailing lists I’m subscribed to. I also update my twitter. After I’ve responded to the comments and discussion threads and updated my twitter, I go post my blog entries or visit my favorite blogs. I use a site, www.rssfwd.com, to subscribe to my favorite blogs. Partial and full-text feeds of blogs I’m subscribed to are sent to my email using this site. I prefer having it this way than using a separate RSS reader because it’s much convenient for me, knowing, at a glance, which of these blogs have been recently updated. Of course, I still go visit their sites.

 

 

 

Q. Your opinion on blogging for therapy and blogging for monetary rewards.

 

A. As I’ve said, blogging for me is a stress-reliever. I don’t want this taken away from me. I think I’d go crazy . On the other hand, I think, if I’m not too careful, though, I might end up getting too consumed by blogging and forget about the other parts of my life. It’s just a matter of balancing my online and offline existence.

 

 

I have nothing against monetizing one’s blog. I, for one, have been using Google Adsense and Blog-to-Profit. As of now, I have only reaped monetary reward from BTP. It’s fun receiving a monetary reward for doing something I consider as a hobby. I don’t mind deriving some income from it. But I don’t think I’d be gearing my blog to be a money-making site. I think my vanity takes precedence over my want for money. Hahaha.

 

 

Q. What do you think about having a Blogger’s Code of Conduct or Code of Ethics?

 

A. At this stage of the ever-evolving blogosphere, we are already following unwritten rules in blogging. One of these is the rule regarding plagiarizing blog content. We, too, are pissed off when another blogger copies our posts and reposts it as his own just the same way we are pissed off when something we wrote in a book/journal/magazine/newspaper is ripped and reproduced in another form and another person claims ownership for it. We get pissed off when a certain information presented by a blogger as truthful misleads us. We are greatly bothered if another blogger would start to be verbally violent towards another blogger to the point that he gives the impression that he may actually carry out what he’s been threatening to do.

 

 

To this, one would say, “but those are common rules, common sense”. Precisely, my point. Common sense is but a collection of points proven rational/logical. And common sense are rules that we follow in everyday life. So why be averse to putting up such rules?

 

But then, again, it depends on the rules you’re going to put up. If bloggers, somehow, would consent to putting up “rules for blogging”, I’m not convinced that the present draft would be the best way to go about it.

 

 

So, for those who’re waiting for me to say yes or no to Blogger’s Code of Conduct/Ethics, I’m saying yes…if the blogger’s code of conduct/ethics will read: be a rational and moral human being. Rationality is all we need in the blogosphere.

 

 

 

Q. Name five things you can’t live without as a blogger.

 

A. 1) Online Dictionary/thesaurus (although a hardcopy would do) - there may be some grammatical errors and typos once in a while, but I’m conscious about those and I prefer that I stay acceptably grammatically correct most of the time

2) My notebook (a.k.a. scratch pad) and a pen - I come up with blog ideas at unexpected times, like while riding the MRT or while cooking. I need paper where I can write down ideas as it come to me. I’m still a bit old-fashioned. I love paper.

3) My camera phone - I don’t lug a digicam around with me all the time. But I do have my cellphone with camera with me at all times. So, if I see something that looks “bloggable”, then I try to capture it with my camera phone. It’s not a high resolution camera but it works for me.

4) My computer - okay, I know I can blog even at internet cafes. But I’ve got lots of files stored in my computer that might be of use whenever I blog of something. Graphics, photos, texts, whatever. Nothing that I can’t carry in a flash drive but I just prefer updating my blog while I’m home.

5) Bluetooth for my PC - that’s how I transfer photos taken with my camera phone to my PC.

 

 

 

Q. What’s your dream blog post?

 

A. My wanting to post an experience with a breakthrough drug or procedure or something about that is greatly influential in the medical world, I think, will qualify for a dream blog post. No, I don’t want the post to sound too academic. I want to be able to word it in such a way that lay persons will understand it well enough to appreciate the vastness and significance of such drug/procedure/event in their daily lives. But I haven’t had the chance just yet. If I may add, another dream of mine is to be able to maintain a medical blog geared towards both the professionals and the patients. I’ve attempted to start one, which I named Prudence and Wellness, but I wasn’t able to maintain it so I have to put it down. Until such time that I’ve gathered enough experience perhaps to be an authority to put up such a blog, then I’ll just have to stick to my personal/medical blog.

 

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I hope you enjoyed reading that one

私の方法（ほうほう）watashi no houhou (my manner; my way; my means; my technique)

My last week's experiences were a godsend. I started working and my first few days were incredible. I think, I found a very suitable office and having a job as a web designer again. I was very surprised that they think I am really good with what I do and that is designing  websites. I was really humbled that most of the people there knows me and have been following most of my works.

Last Friday, one of my officemate and a so-called friend who I met on the Internet around five years ago told me why shouldn't I work in Singapore or something. He believed that I am really good with what I do. Honestly speaking, I don't think I am that good. My self-esteem is too low. I know that I love creating websites and creating art but working outside the Philippines isn't what I have in mind.

It is kind of sad that most companies here in the Philippines doesn't give much appreciations to most designers and graphic artists alike. Most of them think that being a graphic artist is such an easy job. Making websites isn't all fun and games. Also in creating paintings, one place their emotion in their work. Some people are business minded and I understand that. I guess, having the idea of staying and working here in the Philippines is such a small effort on being a Patriot.

I love my country, even if there are poverty; monkey business in politics; very unusual weather; alligators in the services;  those things also exist in other countries. Although, despite of them all, I love the people. I love my family, friends, my home and the food. I don't want to be far away from these, not even for a second.

I'd like to visit other countries but I can't imagine staying outside of the country for more than a month. I admire those who I met who are working in other countries for they are brave.

As my list of Twitter friends grows, I have come across many conversations about everything from The Sopranos to American Idol. Mostly American Idol, that is. And a good sprinkling of Heroes and Gray's Anatomy and a little bit of Lost. It got me to thinking about how little K and I know about what's going on in TV Land.

You see, K and I have been living without TV for more than seven years.

I know. Sounds funny, doesn't it? Especially in this day and age wherein almost all media is on demand at our convenience. Including television shows! And they're pretty good ones at that!

Our reason for this TV-less existence is simple. I was in a financial crunch at the time and had to sell nearly everything we owned - car, fax machine, my mom's china, washing machine, VHS player (how ancient!) and our television, among other... luxuries.

The first week was horrible. We were bored out of our minds and found ourselves at a loss with what to do with the time. So we hit the mall across the place where we lived. Which was easy because we were in a high-rise smack in the middle of the busy Ortigas Center. Actually, we were a stone's throw away not just from one mall, but three! We'd kill time window-shopping and movie-watching when money could be spent.

But then that got expensive.

Thank God we discovered newspaper-reading. How boring and geeky. I was such a bad mother to let my child know about current events. Gasp. And to make matters worse, she actually enjoyed reading the Science Section and even the front page. Shocking. We gave up our beloved television, mourned its loss, and found our minds stretched and fingers inked. Gasp.

At that point, about six months to a year without a TV at home, we started asking ourselves how we were able to get anything done in our days when we did have a TV around. And to the daily newspaper, we added on our re-discovering of...  books. I subjected my child to Jane Eyre, Little Women, A Wrinkle in Time and other mind-stretching reads like my old encyclopedia. Shocking.

And then someone gave us a computer which was an instant hit. Not for its internet connection. We couldn't get any in our building. But for its VCD player. So off to the friendly neighborhood video store we would go for a stack of movies every few days. We would watch, watch, watch movies. Movies that I grew up with; movies that she grew up with; new movies that we missed either due to time or budget constraints.

Our most treasured VCD discovery came from former Morning Show assistant turned jock, Larry Burns. One day, he came to the station with a double set of discs of a show called, Friends. "It's the Best of Friends Vol 1!" he volunteered as he handed me a thick case. I rolled my eyes. "I can't believe I am borrowing this. I can no longer claim to be the only person on the planet who hasn't seen an episode when I pop this into our computer..."

Larry smiled, "You will not regret this. Trust me."

To this day, I cannot thank Larry enough for introducing us to Chandler, Ross, Joey, Monica, Rachel and Phoebe. They turned our boring newspaper, book and movie ridden existence into a non-stop Friends-watching marathon that would go on for days. Larry had to pry his VCDs from my hands when I gave them back after three months.

I did buy us our own copies though. They're a bit worn out by now but they never fail to make us laugh. All on our beloved PC that has been a part of our lives longer than our favorite New Yorkers. The same computer that plays Heroes as fast as my friends can download it after it airs Monday nights in the US. The same computer that faithfully keeps us connected to the rest of the world through VOX, Blogger, WordPress, Multiply, tumblr, Twitter and Jaiku. The same computer that also plays DVDs now too.

Seven years... and it looks like we'll still be counting them. As long as we have our Friends collection, a video rental store, and cyberspace, I think we'll be fine.