Empress Of Drac, A Cebuana Blogger

Maayong Pasko, Sugbo or Merry Christmas, Cebu! I wish every Cebuano is enjoying the holiday season and that amidst the luxurious parties and eats, we are still fully aware what we are celebrating and why we are celebrating Christmas.

Aside from the fact that Christmas is part of our Christian upbringing, everyone should realize that it is not just about Jesus Christ’s Nativity.  Christmas is a yearly reminder that each of us belongs to a family. A family that plays a very vital role in shaping our personality and in nurturing us to become responsible citizens in our society.

The Belen or the portrait wherein we see Mary, Joseph, and the infant Jesus, is an obvious symbol that no matter where you go or no matter what you become today, you are the product of how your parents raise you.

If you wanted to know a person’s behaviour, you definitely need to start asking how his family looks like.  All the individuals listed in the world’s most notorious criminals are raised in problematic and broken families.

The Family, the basic unit in our society, is the most powerful community component that shapes up our nation’s future.  Merry Christmas & Happy New Year to everyone.

I will end this Christmas post with this quote from the Editor’s Letter of Readers Digest Asia - totally unrelated to my post but very inspiring.

“You know Dora, I think that most of us have lessons we refuse to learn.  But God’s going to keep throwing us into sticky situations until we grow up and deal with them.”

Is this true that there is an overpopulation of nursing graduates here in Cebu?  I only heard rumors and chit-chats but I haven’t seen any concrete figures yet that there is an over-supply of people in the nursing uniforms.

All I know is that most large universities in the city are offering nursing and medical courses since a huge volume of high school  graduates prefer to wear nursing scrub tops.  This, is due to various economic reasons.  Most parents who send their daughters and sons to study nursing aim to uplift their economic status by requiring them to go abroad after graduation.

Every year, more and more nursing graduates become jobless due to heavy competition and and not all those who graduated were able to go abroad.  And, for those ones who wanted to have more hands on experience wearing the hospital scrub uniforms, they endured  the minimum wage they receive working as RNs in the local hospitals.

It is actually very saddening that the very reason why most Registered Nurses can’t wait to leave the Philippines (and work abroad) is due to the fact that their potential income here in the country is too low compared to the green dollars that they will earn there in the states.

Well, we really can’t stop this trend.  Bottom line is, more money means lots of opportunities.  Overpopulated or not, these sad facts remain -  there’s not much opportunity here in the Philippines for any RNs and sooner or later, a scarcity of talented people will hunt down this developing nation.

Sashi Buri! Do you know that your most beloved Facebook was created by a 20 year-old geek in his college dorm (5 years ago), and a movie about it will be released this year starring no other than Justine Timberlake?

Well, if you are reading this post, it’s 99.9 percent that you are a Facebook user and you are somewhat curious with the title above.  The only thing you and I know is that, Facebook is the best social networking site ever existed in this friggin’ universe.  And you know that I’m not making a baseless statement.  I can attest to this and I can personally go into detail why Facebook is the most superior social networking site in the world wide web.

Aside from the usual social networking features (well, they are really not usual but I will go into details about this in my next post), there is this main factor which makes FB superior among other social networking sites.  I’m referring to TOUCH.  Touch is a term in psychology which is parallel to ATTENTION.  From infanthood to adulthood (an even from conception), the human consciousness always craves for this kind of warmth and bliss.  Everyone loves attention.  Well, not necessarily to become the center of it, but attention from the people they treasure like friends, lovers, family members, and the likes.  Most children who lack attention have high probability of becoming rebellious and tend to develop self hate and low confidence when they grow up.

So, what is the physical or rather virtual manifestation of attention in Facebook?  We can start with its “like” feature.  Believe it or not, you can’t find this feature in other social networking sites.  FB pioneered the use of the “like” button that enables users to like theirs or other users’ statuses, photos, notes, posts, quizzes results, and all activities published on their newsfeeds and walls.  This button looks like any other button out there but if you will examine it closely, it is actually one of the reasons why most FB users are active and love to share their online activities with friends.  If your status is being liked by your friends, it’s a positive form of attention and you will surely post another one again and again.

Another feature that triggers the manifestation of attention is the “tag” feature. If you found out that someone tagged you in his/her note (or post, or photo), the very first thing that would come into mind is that, that person remembers you and he/she wanted to share something with you.  Being tagged would give you a feeling of belongingness and can actually hype up your self-esteem.  Being tagged means that the person who tagged you has given an ounce of his time in paying attention to who you are.

The last feature that would make a complete combo to the features I mentioned above, is the “comment” feature.  This is rather a common one, but it is only in FB wherein you can comment in every activity your friends published (on their walls or newsfeeds).  Just like the like button, comments are one of the strongest manifestation of attention you can get after posting your activities on your wall.  But, it could result to positive or negative reinforcement.  Unlike the like button which only gives positive reinforcement, the comment feature can actually affect your temperament especially if the comments are bashful and indifferent, and contain personal attacks.  This is actually the form of attention that most users wanted to avoid.  Uhmn, well, there are actually deviant ones.  These are FB users who would do everything to anger or irritate anyone in their networks just to gather lots of comments.  They are called KSP (Kulang Sa Pansin).

Conclusion: Like button + tag + comment = The FB Attention Combo.

Ja Mata Ne!

That day would definitely come. The date most of us seem to suppress in our subconcious minds. Others may find it very disgusting to talk about and would fail to see its significance. People may look at it on their own way of interpreting things. Picture it out on their own perspectives and draw conclusions that are mostly harbored from what their faiths made them to believe. A few would just shrugged it off and swore never to think of it again, for they see it as very frivolous and it is neither an alternative for any topics of discussions and the likes.

Death. Whilst the sound of it may frustrate anyone or some may find it horrible and lethal to discuss, a few are really contented just to hear the finality of the word that in an odd way it brings them infinite peace and serenity. Death. This word echoes floods of unanswered queries and made havoc to those searching minds who are in quest to find the mystery that lurks behind the aftermath of its finality. And for those who are courageous enough to face it’s fatal sweetness, its like a gift shrouded with unfathomable darkness. This is because they know that only those enlightened ones who braved themselves to venture the unknown can see its truest essence.

Yes!  Cebu Bloggers Society does exist!  Hahaha!  But as I can see, it’s still in its forming stage.  I’ve already attended a few meet-ups, and the others even attend press conference and the likes.  Hmmn…I’m looking forward to meet more fellow bloggers who are not only into blogging for money.  I mean most bloggers I’ve known are so crazed up in monetizing their sites.

Well, I’m not against the idea of blogging for money.  In fact, I have blogsites under google adsense.  My point is, it should not become the sole purpose why we blog.  We blog because we wanted our voices to be heard.  We blog to share our unique ideas… to express our individualities and to make unlimited connections to fellow bloggers and people worldwide.

I believe that the passion for blogging is a reflection of our passion for writing.  The passion to write should be the primary inspiration for bloggers.  In that way, blogging can sustain its true essence.  And that’s not definitely the essence of commercialization.  It’s because blogging didn’t start as a tool for business, but a powerful tool for individuals to reach out and to be heard.

But on the other side, who doesn’t need money nowadays?  Everybody loves to earn while enjoying what they love to do.  It actually depends on what side  you’re into.  Good luck to all bloggers out there!