An Unexpected Award

Whew! How time flies! A well-worn cliché but oh-so-true.

It seems like only yesterday that the whole world was scrambling to fix the Y2K bug. Instead, it’s been a good 9 years already!

It’s hard to believe more than 11 months have passed since I registered my own domain name, partly out of whim, partly to fulfill a long-time fantasy of writing as a career one day (who knows?), mostly as a creative and emotional outlet. I’ve written about bits and pieces that I’ve learned, observed, experienced, and enjoyed from my travels around the world. I’ve posted tonnes of pics of places and faces that I managed to capture with my trusty D40, not to mention countless pics of the centre of my universe, i.e. my children.  I’ve learned to creatively incorporate into my posts random phrases like ‘Plantronics Voyager 520’, ‘spring plungers‘, and ‘Ebac dehumidifiers’. I’ve made lots of friends along the way. And oh, I had fun!

Then came a most unexpected bonus — 221 posts later, I got an award!!! This blog has been judged as one of ‘The Top 10 Pinoy Expats/OFW Blog of the Year‘!

To my non-Filipino readers, ‘Pinoy’ is Filipino jargon for ‘Filipino’ (the female version is ‘Pinay’ but ‘Pinoy’ is used as a general term for both Filipino males and females); OFW stands for ‘overseas Filipino worker’. Technically, I fall under the ‘expat’ category. Or so I’ve been informed by Malaysian banks, who refuse to give me OFW rates whenever I send money home by TT.

Back to the subject of the award, when I was nominated earlier this year, I never expected to win, knowing that the criteria included web traffic, page rank, and votes from around the world, among other things. Given how new this blog is, I never thought I’d stand a chance.

It turned out I was so wrong, for this blog ended up in 7th place overall and 3rd place in Asia-Pacific region. The award doesn’t come with any monetary compensation but the recognition by itself is already priceless. Knowing that one’s work is being appreciated is more than ‘compensation’ enough.

At least I got one thing right — the blog that I thought would win right from the start indeed ended up as the winner — ‘Writing On Air‘, the blog of Mr. Jim Paredes, singer, song-writer, family man, an alumnus of my beloved alma mater, the Ateneo de Manila University. And I mean the Jim Paredes of Apo fame — the legendary Apolinario Mabini Hiking Society, which is actually a musical group, despite its odd monicker.

Some twenty-odd years ago, I was but a young, naive probinsyana (budak kampung; girl from the province) who could not believe my luck when I got to talk to Jim Paredes on one fateful night when my Atenean friends and I were lighting candles along Katipunan Avenue. It was during one of the numerous coup attempts against Cory Aquino, and the Ateneo community was showing full support for her government. One minute, I was bending down lighting candles, the next minute, I was shocked to find myself standing right next to him, by the roadside, as he pointed out, “Look! A motorcade!“. Dumb-struck, all I could manage was a lame “Where?”, but he was kind enough to respond “There!” and point out to a stuttering teenage stranger what he was referring to. That short incident naturally got special mention in my personal journal that night.

Fast forward to 2009 and I find my blog to have been considered to be in the same league as his. What an honour!

To all the people who made the awards possible, especially to Mr. and Mrs. Thoughtskoto, the organisers of the said award, my heartfelt thanks. To all the people who voted for me, I wish to thank you, as well. Most of all, I’d like to express my gratitude to all my regular readers — never mind if most of you lurk and prefer not to post any comments! ;)

To read more about The Top 10 Pinoy Expats/OFW Blog of the Year and to find out more information about the other winners, please click here.