Versatile Vera :)

verabear Tags/Memes 5 Comments

Thank you so much to versatile mom and blogger, Ivy of Spinning Lovely Days for hitting me up with this blog award:

Me, a versatile blogger? Well, it’s really more of a scatter-brained blogger. How else can you explain incoherent posts jammed with sometimes unrelated topics? Hehe. But versatile is what we all want to be I guess. Throw me into any situation and I should be able to adapt, blend and in, and even maybe shine. 🙂 To keep an interesting blog (even when it’s really just a personal journal like what Where the Moon Shines is), one must also be versatile. I hope I really have been able to show that by writing on a variety of topics. It also means being taking notes and photos of things I fancy so I can remember to post about them at a later time (something I haven’t been able to do properly, because as I mentioned earlier, I’m a scatter-brain!). Or researching on topics so I can talk about them without looking stupid, like what do I really have to know in order to post about rating cigars? I mean, that one’s bound to be extra difficult because I don’t smoke cigars. I don’t smoke.

Now, as a recipient of this award, I should share seven (7) things about myself. This is no easy feat, I have to think about 7 things that I possibly have not mentioned in my years of blogging. Let’s see…

1. I attended a writing workshop held at the Cultural Center of the Philippines in the summer before sixth grade. I loved all two days of that workshop (or did we actually spend four days there?). The first part was a poetry writing workshop, and the second, was on story-writing. It was awesome being around creative minds. For awhile I was intimidated because they all seemed a lot better than I was, but no one was bragging really. And there was no competition. I only wish I could find a copy of whatever it was I wrote during that time.
2. Attending the workshop was my teacher’s idea. I mentioned her in my teacher’s day remembrance post. Our school paper adviser. She told me about the workshop before the school year ended but I never turned in any of the stuff I wrote. One has to qualify for the workshop, see. So one summer afternoon, while I was out at the SambaLikhaan with friends (playing!), someone came to tell me I had to go home because my teacher was there. Uh oh. She asked for my sample work. I rushed up to my room, rewrote a few poems onto clean bond paper and handed in the application form. I don’t think I got to thank her for coming over and making sure I would get into that workshop. Thank you Ma’am!
3. In sixth grade, I wanted to quit the school paper as my club. Okay, not really quit, but I wanted to join the glee club that year instead. I like writing, but I liked singing too. And I can’t be in both clubs since each student could only be in one. So I told the adviser, and she completely disagreed with me. She talked me through the decision, and she told me she was leaving the country. She’d wanted me to stick it out because she was leaving. In short, she made me feel that I was important for the paper. Hay.
4. To get into the paper, students are invited to join a writing workshop with real journalist as resource person. There we learned about writing for a paper and all that. At the end of it all, we’d turn in some work, and the resource person and advisers would deliberate on who makes it into the editorial team. Rumor has it that on my first year in the club, fourth grade, I would have been given an associate ed post but those posts are reserved for 5th and 6th graders. I was editor-in-chief on my last year. The training we had for the grade school paper was something I missed for the high school paper that I was part of only on my senior year. To be honest, we were all at a loss when we joined in. None of us seniors had been part of the paper before then. And there was no writing workshop. It was as if we were all just supposed to know what to do, automatically. I hope it’s not like that for them anymore.
5. Hmm what else should I share? I’m running out of ideas… Ah! I moved to a different school for high school. My dad and I went around to a number of schools near our area, most of which are exclusive for girls, Catholic schools. I remember being shocked at the tuition fee rates everywhere we went. Though I wasn’t asked to consider the cost at all, I think it still influenced my eventual choice.
6. I was supposed to move to a  science high school for sophomore year. I took the entrance exam, and passed. There were only 8 slots for that year. This is a special school and my brother attended it on his freshman year. I wanted to go there, there’s pride and getting in. But just a few days before school was supposed to start, I chickened out. So though I had begun to tell my classmates that I wasn’t going to see them that year, I surprised them by showing up on the first day of school. My mom, who was on a trip when I changed my mind, came home and wasn’t happy about it (she got over it easily though). My brother said that I should have pushed through with it, I’d get a better chance at getting into UP or Ateneo when time came. My rebound was that he didn’t even stay there for long. That was his mistake, he said.
7. For college, I was accepted at all the schools I applied for (even if I didn’t move to the science high:)). Of course, there was no question about choosing UP above the others. But then a few days before registration, I almost chickened out again. None of my friends and classmates were going to UP. I was going to be on my own. My bestfriend was going to Mapua and I seriously considered just going there instead. Tuition wasn’t a question, my parents took out a college plan for me. My mom was supportive when I told her about my doubts. In the end, I just couldn’t picture myself as an engineer. Could you imagine me being an electronics and communications engineer? Well I couldn’t. Haha.

Whew. Are you still with me? Give yourself a pat on the back if you’re still reading 🙂

So of course I’m going to pass on this award to other Versatile bloggers; before I do, here’s a reminder of the rules 🙂

* Be sure to thank and link back to the person who gave you the award.

* Share 7 things about yourself.

* Pass the award to other bloggers who you think deserve it.

* Be sure to let the bloggers know you chose them to receive the award.

So without further ado, I hereby name the following as Versatile Bloggers!

– Bambie, from My Thoughts, My Heart, My Turf.

– Zoan, of Zowanderer

– Gee, of Georly.Com fame 🙂

Do checkout their blogs and see for yourself why I think they are versatile bloggers. Oh and let them know I gave them the award too, I’d only have time to go ’round to their blogs tomorrow. 🙂