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.
I knew it! Congratulations Mimi! Happy New Year to you!
congrats mimi! =) happy new year!
Ako rin, I was thinking Jim Paredes may bag the award. His posts are really well thought. Sadly there are some who think the selection was unfair just because they didn’t make it. Blahala sila, basta ako masaya. Congrats Mimi! : )
congrats Mimi. Meron lang akong ask, natapos na lang po ang contest di ko pa rin alam ang surname ninyo! :-)
See you again this years contest!
Hi Mimi, congrats! Happy New Year!
congratulations ate mimi! Cheers!!!
what a feat for your very young blog, and a very beautiful start for the new year. :)
gefeliciteerd!
I knew you’d land in the top ten. Congrats! And thank you for sharing your great photos, experiences, thoughts and travels with us, readers. :)
Congratulations!!! You deserve it. Very, very happy for you!
sorry for the long silence, everyone. i’ve been busy lately because my old laptop finally reached the end of its lifetime and i had to get a replacement (a macbook pro — yay!), then i had to recover my data from my old laptop, and move everything into my new one.
i’ll be busy next week, as well, as i’ll be traveling, so i’m not sure yet when the next post is going to be.
sheng: salamat. happy new year din sa yo. i hope you and your family are safe. i was shocked to read about a bombing incident in gensan at new year’s eve :(
steph: thanks. i love your pics. please post more often!
blogusvox: thanks & congrats to you, too. it’s impossible to please everyone. let’s leave it at that :)
mr & mrs thoughtskoto: thanks for organizing the whole thing. we’ll see if someone nominates this blog again ;)
juvy: thanks. just text me when you’re coming to KL again, ok?
odette: dank u!
josiet: i owe you and all the other followers of this blog my thanks, given that site traffic was one of the criteria.
avril: thanks for believing in me :)
Congratulation!!!!
You deserve it :)
Congratulations, Mimi!
I am so proud of you!
Blog on…
Coool! Congrats on the award, you definitely deserve it :) Looks like your year has started out brill!
You deserve it my dear! I was happy to find out that you are one of the finalists which I had to judge.
Now, the whole world knows about your blog already!
Mabuhay ka Soccsksargen Blogger! :)
ako din, panalo,unexpected…
congrats to all winners, see you next year and happy blogging.
welcome ko pala kayo sa Nice, France, starting from my blog.
hehhe
jeanny: thanks.
joana: you inspire me, too, dear friend!
sinta: thanks. and belated happy birthday to you!
bariles: daghang salamat! (i’ve yet to write a post about gensan though. but i intend to. one of these days.)
francescainfrance: congrats to you, too! and kudos to your new domain name :)
Congrats, Mimi!
Hi Mimi…great blog you got here…congratulations on the award. I’ve never been to Malaysia..perhaps someday!
Been living in New Zealand since 2002. Prior to that, well, I was living in Pinas! lol!
Found your blog through sinta’s!
Will come back again!
MrsG
Thanks Mrs G! Sometimes I wonder if it’s worth continuing blogging… then I get comments like yours :)
witsandnuts: salamat. from your blog, i could see you had a grand time back home!
mimi! congrats! well-deserved talaga! ;-)
maraming salamat, caryn. congrats to you, too! turns out it’s you, me and jim paredes who were ‘fighting’ for the top spot for asia-pacific ;)