The Guinea Pig Chronicles

The Guinea Pig Chronicles

I started this blog with three choices for titles:

• Adventures in Social Media
• The Social Media Guinea Pig Chronicles
• The Guinea Pig Chronicles

The first sounded boring and the second one was too long and didn't fit in the box at the left.

So I'm settling on the third title because that's what I always say to people when I try out social media or social networking sites: "I'm guinea pigging myself."

I'm a huge information junkie. It's a leftover trait from when I worked in radio years ago where my core value was: Info in, info out. I probably click on 90% of the links that are shared on Twitter and Facebook that have anything and everything to do with social media, links that come from people I've come to trust on Twitter in particular and not the kind that has spam written all over it. I blame it on my Input Theme. Links from streams like TweetSmarter (formerly known as Twitter_Tips), FasTake, and SocialMedia411, provide me with a steady diet of social networking morsels to feast upon.

So this is me starting another blog. Most of my other blogs are dead now. I blog on Typepad for work, and not being able to pass up "Free", I decided to try on Typepad's Microblog for my new topic dump, social networking.

I'm not an expert, nor a guru. Just a guinea pig.

Modest Needs

I got a most compelling e-mail from a complete stranger. It wasn't spam, nor bacn. It came from a man who was instrumental in helping me and Kyera get out of a temporary financial set back last June.

To make a long story short, money I was expecting to cover the deposit on our apartment didn't come and I had absolutely no one to turn to for help. (It's been one of my toughest realities since resuming my life back here in the US; tougher still because whereas before I was an only child being raised by a widow, now I am here, single parent, raising an only child.)

I heard about Modest Needs at work, crossed my fingers, and visited their website - http://www.modestneeds.org. Their mission in a nutshell: to help normally self-sufficient individuals get back on their feet.

I applied for a grant and hoped for the best. Each day as I logged in to see if our request had been funded, I prayed, sometimes fearful, sometimes hopeful, waiting for the small change from around the world to come in. Thirty days later, I got e-mail with this in the subject line: Help is on the way. I posted my thank you on the site and a few days later, a check came in the mail made out to our apartment complex.

In these tough economic times, Modest Needs has a total of 447 individuals on their site waiting for a grant. The e-mail I got was a simple request to help spread the word for these people. Having once been in their shoes, how can I deny them the help I myself once received?

Small change may not seem like much but it has the power to make a big difference in someone's life. Hopefully, this blog and the others I keep will help do the same.

QotD: End of Summer

Schools are coming closer to starting once again, any particular memories/thoughts associated with this time of year? Submitted by Chuck

I grew up in Portland, OR before my mom moved us back to the Philippines when I was twelve.  School years begin in June there so since returning to the US last year - after 27 years overseas - it's been a new experience to see things through new yet familiar eyes. All the ads for back to school shopping bring back my childhood in the Pacific Northwest. Being an only child, I was spoiled to the point that I never repeated my clothes! My teacher asked my mom one day if we owned a dress/ clothing shop because I always went to school in nice outfits. Little did she know that my mom had a great eye for bargains. Every year before school started, we would hit JC Penny's, Montgomery Ward, KMart, Payless and Fred Meyer for my clothes.

My mom passed away in 1997 and since moving back here, I think of her often and fondly remember her when I drive by the ubiquitous KMart or see the Blue Light mascot dude on TV.  "Attention KMart shoppers!" used to have us dashing through the aisles.  She would have gotten a kick out of the little cartoon guy.  I must admit though that since coming back, I haven't set foot in a KMart.  I'm afraid I'll cry. Or maybe, I've just discovered another good bargain place called WalMart.

Finding the Words

How does one explain an absence?  Do I describe the prosaic dailiness of the routine that has become our life in the US?  Do I share the inner scape of the loneliness that is life in the diaspora? Do I regale you with tales of faith and the sometime lack thereof?  Or do I show you pictures that will hopefully help you see what has become of us?

For the most part, we've been tired from moving our life in and out of boxes, from my aunt's house to our new apartment.

We're learning what it is to be far from friends and discovering how truly loved we are from their visits from Tallahassee...

And as far away as Manila.

But mostly, we've been alone together. So utterly alone.

With God, that is, since He's promised to never leave us or forsake us.  And He did give us a puppy along with all this abundant Grace in making a new life, so we can't complain.

Rocco

 
And so much favor at work, that all we can do is thank Him.

May Star

current state of mind: thankful
playing on the ipod: electric president's we were never built to last

On the Road

Someone's been practising her driving.

At 30mph on a 45mph limit road.

Sent via BlackBerry from T-Mobile

K Driving.jpg

Moblogging

And so I'm back from outer space. With BlackBerry in hand, I shall now attempt to resuscitate my cyberlife.  Attempt.  Let's not get excited.  Or shall we?

Here's the debut photo from my new Pearl.

The daughter outside a restaurant taking a photo of herself for her mother's address book.

Kye Pout.jpg

Let's see if this BlackBerry can boldly take this blog where it has never gone before.
 

The Little Things

Stopping by and realized I have missed VOX sooooo much! And I see that I missed the anniversary yesterday too! My timing is normally impeccable but considering that I've moved continents and miss my daughter heaps and am job hunting left and right, I'd like to think I'm off the hook for ignoring my blogs.

I've been in Tallahassee for a month and it was rough at the start not just for the aforementioned reasons, but more so from the lack of the little things that I always used to have - my own computer and an iPod. Things as simple as cyber-surfing and listening to music would have been a huge help in transitioning. There's nothing like the comforts of things familiar that help us get our bearings when all around us is new.

(That's one of the reasons why I always have a photo of my daughter nearby...)

Anyway. I'm happy to have discovered the alarm clock in my room has a radio so I've been listening to it as often as I can. Not the same as music on demand from an MP3 player but I'm not complaining. And I do get to use a computer, just not as voraciously as before since I'm sharing it with a family of five.

All is good. I hope it's likewise with you and yours.

Where's Thelma?

Greetings from Tallahassee!

Life's still upside down and sideways and I still haven't landed so I am hardly in front of a computer.

When things return to normal, I will be back to my old demi-cybergeek self. Blogging up a storm about my new life. But for now, this is as best as I can do.

Check out my blogspot posts for regular updates, in case you're interested - http://thelmabowlen.blogspot.com.

Hopefully, life will be normal sooner than later.

Micro-Vaca Weekend

Everyone needs to get away from their routine now and then. Thank God I have a good friend who feels the same way

Kyera and Nikki

and happens to have a vacation home far away from Manila. It's actually their family's farm.

Not the kind where cows produce milk and chicken eggs are collected at the crack of dawn. It's a kind of farm resort, if you will. They do have a few horses, and pigs, and goats, a cow, a snake and various dogs. But it's more of a weekend getaway spot where they have built a large kidney-shaped pool with a two-story cabana on 15 hectares of land.

They are like family to us. I think it's because we're both single moms. She has three and my one, together with hers, are like siblings. Before we head for their farm in Bataan, we went to church and kind of hung out. Red played drums Sunday morning with the grown-ups and then I took the big kids to have lunch while we waited for my friend, Len, and Red to finish with their stuff.

Red on Drums

The girls tried on dresses and then we ate at Pancake House. I was having a bad hair day that day so on a whim I decided to get it cut. It's not normally a wise thing to do something like that! And many an emotional woman have been reduced to tears because of a curl, or a color, or a relaxing, done without any foresight. But it was one of those moments wherein I said to myself, "Just do it!"

So while I made a beeline for a nearby reputable salon, Kyera, Nikki and her brother Miguel fooled around with the camera and had cupcakes a block away. Not before taking pictures of ourselves over lunch, which by the way, were taken with an Olympus E-410D that I'm reviewing for a newspaper article.

So while I was getting my short hair cut even shorter, the kids got cupcakes and took more pictures. I should actually have them write the article for me! They're actually pretty good photographers. My daughter will post pics on her blog. Sorry.

I can honestly say that Len and her kids are some of the people I will miss the most when we leave for the US next month. But for more on that, you'll have to read my other blog, exits and entrances.

Miguel and Kyera

Oh! Here's me and my new hair. Cheers to random hair decisions and the joy of being with the people you love.

My New Hair

I hope your weekend was just as fab.

Miguel, Kyera and Nikki

Wet Jeans and Shoes

There's a typhoon in Manila. We've been getting rained on incessantly this past week. Apparently as one typhoon exited, another entered our "area of responsibility". But life in the Philippines is experienced in either extreme heat and humidity or extreme wet and humidity, so this is nothing new.

A life lived in Manila will always be punctuated with stories of flooded streets, power outages, and the cancellation of school, and sometimes work. We're pretty good with dealing with these factors! (I'll save these stories for some other blogs.)

Philippine tricycle

Last Wednesday, Kyera and I had an urgent errand to run so we had to brave the pouring rain. Just as we stepped outside, it started to pour. Bucket-fulls. Two blocks down the road at the tricycle stand found us drenched despite our umbrellas. By the time we got to our stop, my jeans were soaking wet up to my waist.

If you were to ask me a year ago what I thought about the idea of having to take public transportation at the height of a typhoon, I would have told you how thankful I am that I don't need to since I have a car. I would have said I felt really sorry for the people who had to walk in ankle-deep, or knee-deep flood water to get to school or work or home. I would have told you how more than once I had accidentally splashed into puddles and drenched pedestrians. I would have told you that if I were in their shoes, I would certainly throw myself a pity party.

But here I am a year later, without a car, getting drenched and splashed on and totally alright with it.

As I sat in the tricyle with my daughter by my side, I realized how different our life has become and how everything is fine after all. We chit-chat en route to our destination like we used to when I drove; she is able to nap on occasion; I am freed from the confines of Manila's butt-numbing, claustrophobia-inducing traffic.

It's all good.

Now when I am behind the wheel of my friend's car when we take turns driving her van on weekends to church, I have a better appreciation, and patience, for pedestrians and commuters.

Is there anything you didn't think you could see yourself doing but ended up being okay with after all?

P.S Look who else is here in the Philippines! Quentin Tarantino! Click here for my friend's blog!