I got featured on the Sunday Inquirer Magazine!
Wow, when my friend told me she was doing an article on bloggers, I thought she was compiling a list of responses from bloggers she interviewed… I had no idea that it was gonna end up as an article about myself as a blogger, haha… not that I mind, it’s actually a pleasant surprise 
For those who didn’t get or don’t have access to last weekend’s Sunday Inquirer, here’s the link to the online version:
http://showbizandstyle.inquirer.net/sim/sim/view/20081116-172496/The-Blogging-Life
And just in case the article gets nuked in the future, I’m posting the entire content here:
—————————————————————————
The Blogging Life
By Marlet D. Salazar
Philippine Daily Inquirer
First Posted 06:58:00 11/16/2008
MANILA, Philippines – From Pinoy Angst to Astigmachism: That’s how Roselito “Tolitz” Rosel’s blog has evolved—and so has his life. Rosel, 35, is one of the early netizens who discovered that writing your life and thoughts online, when blogging was still insipidly called “online journal,” can be entertaining as well as a good communication tool for readers.
A Filipino based in Los Angeles, California, he started blogging in 1999 with an online journal he called Pinoy Angst, which basically contains, well, his angst during his early life in the United States. He moved to the US in 1997, and has changed blog providers quite a number of times. He began with Blogger, moved to Wordpress, to Friendster, and finally he settled on Multiply. Rosel’s blog is wittily called Astigmachism, (www.astigmachism.com) a contraction of “Astig na, Macho Pa.”
Having taken up communication arts at De La Salle University-Dasmariñas, Rosel took a special interest in computers and taught himself web design. He is now a freelance web designer and a financial adviser. The time spent in front of the computer has enabled him to go online 24/7. He practically lives in a virtual world where most of his “close friends” are members of online communities, websites, and true-blue netizens.
“I have always actively participated in online bulletin boards, sharing my thoughts with other people,” he says. “While searching the Internet for a specific topic one day, I stumbled upon a couple of online journals. I found the idea very interesting, and being that I had a lot of things between my ears that I wanted to put into writing, I went ahead and started my own.”
Adjusting to a new life with no friends but only families to interact with had never been easy, and this was reflected in his posts. Later, he realized that relatives and friends back home are always curious to know about how and what he has been doing. “It’s a cheap and convenient way to keep in touch, so to speak,” he adds.
His posts can go from a two-paragraph note to a 15-paragraph narrative. For Rosel, writing a blog could take as short as five minutes or as long as five hours. “It really depends on the subject matter, but normally it would take me 30-45 minutes to write a blog entry.”
“For a long time it was random musings about everything ranging from music, movies, and games to politics, current events and even psychology. Sort of like an online diary of what I see and what’s going on inside my head,” he explains. In previous blogs, he detailed his growing up years with pictures from childhood to high school. He now posts his current pictures with family, friends, and bandmates. “My friends liked my blog,” he says. “They appreciated the dry humor in it, and enthusiastically respond to the issues I raised. It’s a great ego-feeder too.”
When he has free time on his hands, he posts once a day, just before midnight. On weekends he is able to post as often as five times a day. The interaction with readers reacting to what they’ve read or inviting a discussion on a specific topic makes blogs not just a fun way to communicate. Rosel realizes that he has somehow grown closer to friends that he left in the country. There is no specific sense of urgency, but it does create a healthier avenue for discussion. “It sometimes comes to a point where you forget that they are thousands of miles away, on a different continent, and in a different time zone. It’s surreal to say the least,” he says.
Through almost 10 years of maintaining an online journal, Rosel has witnessed the evolution of blogs. Blogs are now multipurpose tools of content dissemination, he explains. Gone are the days when blogs were used by people only to write about how their day had been. Hundreds of commercial blogs have sprouted, and even news sites now have blog editorials and blog columns. It has become an indispensable tool for publishing content and encouraging feedback.
A natural comic, Rosel usually injects humor in his blog. He believes that a blog with a sense of humor would be a good place to start. “A blog that actually asks questions that visitors can reply to would also motivate people to participate,” he says.
And Rosel intends to keep blogging forever. “As long as the Internet is still around, and as long as I still have thoughts I may want to share with my friends, family, and anyone else who gets lost on the Internet and stumbles into my little piece of cyberspace, I will continue to post blog entries and share my thoughts, my musings, and my personality to anyone who likes to take the time to listen to other people talk about themselves.”
—————————————————————————
Thanks to Marlet Salazar for the article, and for giving me this brief 15 kilobytes of fame, haha 
No Comments »
RSS feed for comments on this post.
TrackBack URL