Category Archives: Lifestyle

Update: I wrote this post on April 11, 2008 because there were  mean comments supposedly written by my husband, my daughter or myself. Yes, someone assumed the name of my husband, or my daughter. The mean spirited bloggers and commenters have been around since the internet started. I want to share what it was like in 2008 when facebook was not yet that big as it is today . There are now 50 million facebook users in the Philippines.

I just read nasty comments attacking a friend of mine. That blog is not a healthy place. Once you go against the negative mentality of the community, you are attacked. Unhealthy people gravitate towards negative energy. That same negative energy attracts more negative energy at such exponential rate, than positive attracts positive. Where there is negative energy in abundance, a gang is created. Once formed, they support each other to target anyone who are not within their frame of mind.

Group meanness is even more fun because of the team spirit.

Do you think these mean-spirited last long in the blogosphere? (By definition, mean-spirited means Having or characterized by a malicious or petty spirit.) Unless they have nothing better to do, have lots of energy and motivation behind them, the mean spirits tend to fizzle out one day. Most mean-spirited folks get the thrill of hurting people by posting nasty comments and the occasional mean blog post. I’ve had my share of being called “demonic” names. I tried to settle amicably with this person but instead my email was posted on their blog leaving out a teensy significant detail why my daughter got mixed up in her tirades towards me. I thought by now it’s been settled but six months has elapsed and what do I discover? My monicker is being used in blog comments trying to make it appear that I posted “nasty” comments. How malicious and petty! Move on, shall we?

Let’s not bother why these people act the way they do. I just know that Hurt people hurt people.

So how do you respond to the mean-spirited blogger or commenter? Lorelle lists down tips on how to deal with these mean spirits in her entry, Mean Spirited Comments and Blogging

There are two choices when faced with a mean-spirited blogger: Respond or Not Respond. Both have risks.

Whichever choice you decide, do not move on your first impulse.

There’s something else you need to consider before you make a decision. Many hateful bloggers want your reaction. If they get a strong enough reaction, you might blog about them. Some trolls use inflammatory comments to attract attention to themselves and their blog. I think of this as the ““Howard Stern Effect”. The more outrageous people are, the more curious people are about them. If you feel their actions are just a device to get your attention and the attention of others, for good or bad reasons, put that into the formula before you decide which way you want to respond.

To my dear friend. There is no place to hide from nasty people in the blogosphere. Bloggers address varied opinions and wisdom to the world but negative responses are bound to happen from such entries. I told you that bloggers agree to disagree in a healthy manner. These come in the form of criticisms, but others come out mean-spirited, malicious and petty. I know you are discouraged now to blog. It’s quite disheartening to think about the dark side of blogging, but if you intend to be a serious blogger, you need a thick skin to last a lifetime of blogging.

See my thick skin?

As Lorelle said “Don’t let them beat you down. Stay focused and clear headed. If you purposely inspire negative reactions, then run with it. Enjoy getting what you asked for. If you don’t and get smacked, think it through, respond with care, and keep on blogging.”

Remember there are more people who care about you than that mean spirited community. You don’t want to be mixing with them.

Have you been the target of mean-spirited bloggers? What did you do about it?

This is the best piece of advice I could ever give to those who want to travel the world, or much closer to our hearts, the ASEAN: Getting lost is not a bad thing at all.

Lost in ASEAN
By Chet Lloyd G. Montoro

For those who enjoy travelling and going to new places, it may be a common thing to not know exactly where you’re going. Sometimes, you come to a point where the internet fails you and your handy maps don’t exactly help. Getting lost in your own country or city is fairly easy, but getting lost in a different country is a new matter altogether. It, then, leads us to a question – what happens next?

In my experience, there has always been a thin line between excitement and panic. Getting lost forces us to engage ourselves in conversations – mind you – these are not small-talk. Instead, we try to look as nice as we can, so as to allow strangers to feel delighted all the while helping us out. Also, this prevents others from thinking that we’re about to do something nasty!

That small moment where we realize we have to step-up our game and to converse gets me excited. When I got lost in Melaka, Malaysia, I realized that my English won’t be of any help. I arrived there at night and everyone in the bus was worried because I didn’t have a place to stay. My lucky stars sent me two German angels, though, who offered to bring me to their hostel: I know what you’re thinking, and it wasn’t like that! They only offered to bring me to the concierge of the said hostel and to ask if there were still any vacancies. Going through the Chinese New Year in Chinatown in Melaka pushed me to use non-verbal cues and my own version of sign language to simply get my message across. Fortunately, I learned that a nice smile breaks barriers and allows for a much relaxed atmosphere. It is this very tool I used to ease the hassle and pain of explaining myself to locals.

This is not always the case, though. Sometimes, locals know how to speak English well and I found out that even when they speak English, it doesn’t guarantee you won’t get lost. Learning from this previous experience, I further pushed my luck to its limits when I got lost in Genting Highlands. Little did I know, I needed to pre-book my bus ride home. Try to picture a small guy – that’s me – seated on the nearest seat beside the bus ticket counter and finding out that the next bus will leave in four days. This is the panic I was telling you about a while ago. When faced with such a situation, we don’t scream. Instead, we let internal panic to take over.

As I am the type who wouldn’t really cry in front of a crowd, I sat silently beside the ticket counter and focused on the big fail I had just witnessed. After almost an hour, my lucky stars have granted me further luck when two Indians approached me and asked if I wanted to split a cab. These two guys spoke English well enough to get me teary eyed with their offer. In my head, I was already plotting to talk to the Pork Floss vendor near me so I could get back to the city center. Thankfully, I never really had to do that. At the end of our ride back, I gained two new friends and a concise walkthrough of Indian culture. You see, it’s not about who you are or where you’re from or what you do; but it’s entirely about your capacity to adjust and to communicate.

Most of us would resort to asking questions when we get lost. However, I do not belong to this category. During a recent trip to Singapore, I made it to a point that I had with me three physical maps, my Google maps, and instructions I got from blogs. You might think I didn’t get lost, but I did! I thought that since a number of Singaporeans speak English, I’d find it easy to get to my destination. Alas, accents get in the way. The first cab ride my family and I took was with an Uncle who spoke fluent English with a fluent accent. It took us ten minutes to get to the place where he dropped us off, but it wasn’t exactly where we needed to go to. To cut the story short, we walked and followed the maps as we were afraid that the next cab experience would be the same. My brother and I were laughing it off, but my parents were already frustrated. This is why stopping for a while and really pondering on the next steps really matters.

Now, this is a common thing I noticed in all of my travels across the ASEAN – locals are willing to help. While spreading my big map in front of my face, a handful of Singaporeans approached me and offered a hand. I respectfully refused them thrice, but they never really left. Naturally, as a Pinoy traveller with delikadesa and with parents who are tired of walking endlessly, I finally agreed to receive help. This is the part where I share with you the concept of humility and acceptance – being humble enough to shut our ego and acceptance that we cannot refer to blogs as the Word; they are only but a guide. Moreover, we bring out our mobile devices too much and try our best to source our best friend, Google, for the right answers that we sometimes forget that the best answers come from the locals themselves. In fact, the most genuine of experiences root from the very information a local could give.

This is the best piece of advice I could ever give to those who want to travel the world, or much closer to our hearts, the ASEAN: Getting lost is not a bad thing at all. This allows us to stick to the basics and infuse panic with a hint of excitement. We should muster up the courage to talk to locals – hoping that at the end of the day, we may have a stranger turned into a friend. In the midst of buildings or sceneries foreign to our minds, we may find ourselves physically lost but we will arrive at that point where we find places and locals unknowingly growing on us.

(Submitted for the #MyAseanStory blog writing project )