Categorization

This was supposed to be published last Friday but I didn't actually know what went wrong and it's still saved as draft in my dashboard. Anyways, here it is. 

Categorization is the science of categorizing and assigning categories to a lot of files for easy and quick access later on...duh! I made that one up. Benta ba? Haha. Btaw, so finally, I had categories for my blog. I don't even know if you're following me but I need categories in my current state of mind just to rev me up. Wala lang. OA lang. Haha So the categories that I wrote are listed below with "descriptions" unless self explanatory. The "descriptions" are more for me than for those reading my blog. Hay, I don't know if I'm even making sense here but yeah, categories are:

• Arts, Crafts and Creativity - I am one frustrated artist. I love colors, watching my brothers draw and paint and gets fascinated with cool design concepts. This actually is not my niche, but I am hoping to include here the works of creative friends who just tends to shy away from exposing their really cool and creative artworks. I am gonna do the exposing for them. :)
• Blogging and Other Challenges - I have this "trip" of joining blog challenges or doing challenges which I never get to finish. I actually attempted to finish a 30-day blog challenge thrice and a 21-day challenge once but I never got close of finishing it. Fail. But I would still want to do challenges, like 365 photo challenges or 365 stories to share. I am inspired by this blog, "1000 Awesome Things". Very simple but very "tagos sa puso". The only challenge I know I finished is earn 10 pounds in one year. Great. Haha. 
• Books - I love books. But I've stopped reading for almost a year now. I can't even remember the last book I've finished reading. But I am planning to pick out one and start reading again.
• Bucket List - I already have a bucket list and I hope to document and share every item that I have crushed out.
• Celebrations- Family celebrations and share every milestone worth celebrating!
• Childhood Memories
• Dear Diary - My rants. Yes, included this so if ever you don't feel reading rants, you can simply...um, find another blog to read! Btaw, I kid. 
• Family
• Filipino Culture
• Food
• Gawad Kalinga
• GK1world
• Green Lifestyle - Green warrior mode on! 
• Health
• Hope and Love Stories - Inspiring stories reposted. 
• I'm a Work in Progress - Self-checking from time to time. 
• In His Steps - My God stories. My journey with my ultimate Love. <3
• Life Learnings
• Missionary - My life as a nation-builder.
• Movies 
• Music
• Online Finds - I get to stumble a lot of interesting and pretty useful stuff online. Kahit online, magala pa rin ako. Haha
• Photography - Frustrated photographer din ako. Lahat na lang gusto kong pasukin. Ay ambot. Not because I have not found my niche but because I want to be able to try a lot of things. All I know is I just love capturing moments, especially with my family and the kids in the communities that I serve. 
• Projects - I see myself working on online and creative projects other than GK, to help me sustain my missionary life, provide for the family and start up my dream of being able to send kids and youth through college. 
• Quotes - I love collecting 'em!!! Same as how much I love collecting bookmarks. Web bookmarks. I've got hundreds of them.
• Shopping and Other Girl Stuff - I hope to share my Divisoria and ukay-ukay finds. 
• Sunshine Chaser and Nature Lover - My stories and adventures of witnessing sunsets and sunrises and exploring and preserving nature! The explore I get to do, the preserving I hope to do, with my family.
• Trailblazer - Mission work + Travelling = Trailblazing 
• Traveller - I love to travel, travel, travel! 
• Web Marketing and Social Media - I finally found what I want to do for the rest of my life, a job that I love, a job that I know I will strive to become better and I am grateful for GK for helping me discover that. So I dream now of becoming a Web and Social Media Marketing Rockstah so I can best share the inspiration of GK to the rest of the world. I wanna take crash courses, I wanna have an online mentor, I want that I'd be able to become the best in this field. 

There you have it. My blog posts will be categorized this way...until further notice. Now time to work on my bookmarks. :)

I Have the Right to Write

Yaaaay! Can I say I never have been so excited to blog again (and regularly, I claim it!) in my entire "blogging life" 'til now? Waaah. I can't exactly say/write the right words why I am. All I know is I wanna write, share, inspire, be inspired and just put down here all that's stuck in my mind right now. But, but partly, because I also found Shai Coggin's blog (that majorly caused the excitement, I am so lame that way...HAHA) which just stores or documents everything, and I meant everything, that she's into. Arts, online marketing, hobbies, her line of work, personal stories, writing, travel,shopping, music and all that jazz and she's been blogging since 2000. I wanna have a blog anniversary too! Babaw eh noh. HAHA I know I've told you, whoever is reading this (Hi bestfriend! *nagaassume* HAHA), time and time again that I promise to blog, and I never fail...to disappoint you. But now, I plan to take this to the next level. No holding back. Will put everything out there. Well except those I know that may hurt other people, or with lots of sensitivities or may cause a stirring online and offline. I promise to be a bearer of good news, hope and inspiration, no matter how boring it may be you for you my dear reader (Hi sister! *nagaassume again* HAHA)...but not bad news. Ever. I know you had enough of those on TV, radio and even here online (assuming that there really is someone listening to me ranting.). And I wanna put my writing muscles back to practice, back to work, since I want to write a GK1world-worthy post in the near future. Naks! As if di ko pwede i.post whatever or whenever I want to. Haha. Yes, I manage Gawad Kalinga's website and all of GK's social media networks. Spilt the beans. There I said it, I said it, I said it, cause I care! (Sorry, got carried away...on a Last Song Syndrome of that song.) Anywho, so I want to be able to finish 2 things first.

1. I want to be able to have standard "categories" for my blog that I wouldn't want to change ever for the next 5 years or so...not like what I currently have right now. I am so not good in creating "headlines" and that include categories and titles. If Bisaya, kaya pa. Or I bet even Tagalog, but English...maka-nosebleed sometimes. 

2. And I need and would want to organize my bookmarks first. Promise, it is kinda connected so I can proceed with my blogging career. Naks! But yeah I know, I'm just trying to make lame excuses just so I can procrastinate more. Hayzz, so me. 

The Right to Write: An Invitation and Initiation into the Writing Life by Julia Cameron  Brought it with me during our Palawan trip but still wasn't able to finish it. 

But, but no, I will conquer thyself, thus the title. I just want to remind myself that there is no need to be conscious and be critical of my own writing because each of us has its unique style of writing and the the right to write. And pagnapapractice, napeperfect! And I wanna write because it gives me joy...it makes me think more...it makes me want to learn more so I can have lots of stories to write and eventually share to the rest of the world. Actually, the title of this post is from a title of the book that, I again, did not finish reading, The Right to Write by Julia Cameron. I love how she says that all of us has the right to write. It's pretty inspiring and refreshing, an eye-opener...and I am inspired to finish reading it! Lez dow dis! Okay, so I'll be off fixing and renaming and finding "cool" names for my blog categories. I promise I will not try too hard to sound smart or else I'll be spending the next hour doing just that, renaming. Hehe Let me leave you with a few lines from the book, "The Right to Write."

"I love it when I write well, but I love it when I write, period."

"Start where you are."

"Taking the time to write in our lives gives us the time of our lives."

"Writing is like breathing. I believe that. I believe we all come into life as writers. We are born with a gift for language."

"Listen with your heart. Let yourself listen. Let yourself write."

"Writing need not be fancy. It need only be regular and steady. That is deep enough. That takes us deeper."

"Heart is where the art is." 

Special thanks to Kuya Kirby Llaban for the book! He got lots of inspiring reflections and insights about life, family, friends and community life too! Visit his blog here. 

I am Home

I am back home...literally. But just for a week. More posts are coming soon, I hope, and I want to. Just want to test this new look of the blogger dashboard. Hope to be able to post before I leave for Manila again. And so I leave you with these inspiring quotes that I grabbed from my Facebook friends' posts that I so wanted to repost but did not. So here's my chance to post them all at once without flooding anyone's timeline. (Labo!) 

photos from Pinterest

Have a great week ahead! 

This is Farewell

Been procrastinating...still...haven't overcome it yet. Difficult. Painful. But must discipline myself. I think I deserve to be shouted at and be reprimanded but my boss chose to deal with me gently and reminding of things I must finish. I am grateful. I am lucky. But I am embarrassed as well. I won't be as lucky always. Must do the switch, from procrastinat-er missionary to hardworker missionary. Right now. List things I need to do and lay them all out and finish them all in one month's time. Before I go home to Cebu. I don't wanna be hard on myself though. God wouldn't want that too. He'll be hurt more than I will be. Don't want that. Will take it one great day at a time. Will take it one-item-in-my-things-to-do-list at a time. Must learn to time manage. Reminded for the nth time once again. Must know when too much is too much. Praying for the grace and strength and courage and motivation to be able to do so. I was able to do a week of sleeping early and waking up before 8. I can do this too. My boss, my team and my family trusts me. That is more than enough encouragement and strength. God has planted a seed in me, love towards online and web marketing. I will nurture this. I will allow myself to learn and to share whatever I am taught. To God be the glory! Bye, procrastinat-er me. I will miss you...NOT. You have not served me well. You have stopped from allowing myself to more growth to achieve and work for my dreams and plans for the future. This is farewell. This is goodbye.

Posting this on my blog para pressure on my part...Teehee...

It's a Sign

I miss writing randomly and posting long posts! So I'm back to updating my blog since we'll be having a blog activity with my sisters. Fun! But I'm still trying to figure what to do to make our online interaction fun and interesting! But for now, I'd like to share what I took as a sign to visit my blog and write again. Actually when I "encountered" the sign, I just couldn't stop laughing the whole day. Haha.

Kerygma, the biggest Catholic magazine in the country, asked us to submit an inspiring GK story. They feature GK stories from time to time as their commitment to helping spread GK awareness and reach out to more people, especially in their network. So I sent them an article written by a GK volunteer and a couple of photos to go with the article. But what came out was...guess what...it was written by me. Haha. Hay. Kaya nagpress release na ako. I panicked when friends started congratulating me. It was actually my fault because I failed to check if the writer's name was in the word file that I sent them. Kakahiya talaga! Haha Yes friends, the Kerygma article is not written by me but by Ate Marjorie Duterte who writes beautiful and exemplary transformation stories as always. You can read more of her inspiring write-ups here. No don't ask me for a photo cause I don't actually wanna see it. Yes, that's how OA I am. :p Haha. But, but, please do grab a copy of Kerygma's September 2011 issue and tell your friends about it. No, not this story but the story, "Songs from Her Heart". And yes, I am going to start writing again from hereon.