I attended the first Philippine Blog Awards awarding ceremonies last night at the RCBC Plaza in Makati. As a finalist, I am allowed to bring along a guest so I asked Ayeen to come with me, right after our semender ‘picnic’ at the La Mesa Dam ecopark.

It was my first time to attend any bloggers’ event, convention or gathering. I felt quite uneasy at first, especially since everyone else seem to have already acquainted themselves well with each other. It’s quite an insecurity of mine. Unlike many of the notable and well-linked bloggers now, I’m probably one of the few who barely gets to comment on other people’s blogs. And it’s not because I’m a snob, as I’ve heard somewhere, I do lurk around all your blogs, but my lack of online correspondence is really just a function of me being very very preoccupied with various things offline. Hehe.

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I didn’t grow up celebrating Halloween. When we were much younger, my brother and I didn’t go trick-or-treating around the subdivision, exactly because there wasn’t any celebration at all. It was only until a few years ago when suddenly the village and my elementary school started organizing halloween parties and trick-or-treating for kids. I still actually don’t see the point. The whole concept still seems alien and foreign to me. It appears to me that it is simply an attempt to copy what Westerners do and an excuse to needlessly spend money. Halloween is irrelevant.

Driving alone at night was never that lonely.

I came across two interesting blog posts while doing my routine blog-hopping today. Both of which basically brushed on the topic of masculine culture among guys.

The first one, from Bulletproof Vest, talks about how our macho culture is a function of Filipino men being generally insecure.

Filipino men are insecure. They womanize incorrigibly to prove their vitality (and their moral weakness). They are contentious, prone to display, pretentious and arrogant only to prove that they are better over another man. In short, they are posers. They will cut, duck and weave through traffic to prove that they are faster and more wily. They will buy the biggest cars, the biggest guns and hire the biggest goons.

Another one from Jaypee Online, Things Guys Do, But Won’t Admit To, talks about, well, what guys do but won’t admit to doing.

Mama went to Cagayan de Oro last Sunday, so she asked me to ‘take care’ of our grocery store in Bulacan while she’s gone. It was the first time I drove all by myself to Bulacan from our Quezon City home. Once I got past through the tollgates of North Luzon Expressway, I rolled down all the side windows, turned the radio off and sped through the highway.

With the radio turned off, I actually had time to think and relax (Yes, I find leisure driving relaxing). One of the thoughts that ran through my head while driving was, “What if I meet an accident and, God forbid, die?” Morbid, I know, but I have actually thought about it a few times before, some of those times it even lead me to tears, thinking about the people I’m going to leave. There were many scenarios that I imagined. But for the purpose of this blog, let me share with you what I thought about my blog. Yes, I actually thought about my blog while thinking of death scenarios.

What will become of my blog? How will people know that I’m not alive anymore? Will the blog remain stagnant and eventually expire (as there will be no one to renew my account)? What happens to a blog when a blogger dies all of a sudden? Will the blog remain a temporary morbid reminder of more pleasant times? Have there been such instances?

I went home early today. It feels weird going home by 1PM. For the past weeks, I always get home at past six. I wasn’t feeling well anyway, so I didn’t stay in school to spend my idle time, like I’d normally do. I wanted to just walk away, and go home. I wanted to jog in the rain this afternoon, to release some of the baggage and for more drama effect–but alas, the shower I was hoping for didn’t come. So I did not jog. Maybe some other time. I’ll just content myself with spending my time online.

Nawala lang ako.

[Photo taken more than a year ago with my old (and now dysfunctional) digicam at the shoot of Ate Dianne & Ate Ranina’s Piring]