Espaniero.com
I think you would agree with me that the Spanish language is making a come back in the Philippine society today. I am one of those people who decided to learn Spanish as a third language. However I have noticed that it is very difficult to be conversational in Spanish when you don’t have anybody to talk to.
I know many of us Pinoy Spanish learners encounter this problem. And so I have created an Online Spanish Conversation Group named ESPANIERO.
Right now ESPANIERO has only a few members. I am asking for your support in thriving this website and making it the number one destination of Pinoys learning the Spanish language.
Please support ESPANIERO by logging in at http://www.espaniero.com and registering your own account. After registering, please post some topics or reply to existing ones to make the Espaniero Spanish conversation group an active one.
Muchas Gracias y vaya con Dios.
http://www.espaniero.com
10 Tips on How To Start Your Own Blog Contest
Contests are cool and netizens are eager to join them.
Top bloggers like John Chow practically broke barriers with it (with his “evil” blog contests) and raised to the top of the Technorati charts (creating some issues with Google and adsense though).
That aside, there’s just something irresistible with FREE stuff on the Internet. Starting an online blog contest with the right attitude (and steps) will mean rewards for your blog.
God and Suicide
In our Lit class, we read Emily Dickinson’s poem Because I Could Not Stop for Death. One of the insights that struck me in the discussion came from my Chinese classmate, Robin, who works at the Confucius Institute.
He said that one of the contrasts he noticed as he started working in the Philippines is that suicide is not so rampant in our country as it is in his. He mentioned that just last summer 10 people from his university killed themselves. Each of those deaths are not related to each other. But he did say that sometimes there are chain suicides: a boy kills himself – the mother gets depressed and kills herself – the father gets upset and kills himself – the grandma is devastated and the unfortunate cycle goes on.
As he wondered why this is so, he came up with one hypothesis:
Join in the pursuit of a strong republic
Philippines is blessed with so many languages. It is about time to rekindle the importance of languages which symbolize the unique culture of the country. We may have over 170 languages, where almost all of them belong to Austronesian languages but we are still united with our common and official languages, English and Filipino.
This month is a National Language Month. Previously, President Sergio Osmeña issued Proclamation No. 35 on March 26, 1946 designating the period, March 27 to April 2 of each year as the National Language Week. President Ramon Magsaysay issued Proclamation no. 186 on September 23, 1955 declaring August 13 to 19 of every year as the National Language Week. The end of the week coincided with the birth anniversary of President Manuel Quezon as the Father of our National Language. Former President Corazon Aquino issued Proclamation No. 19 reiterating the proclamation of the National Language Week on August 13 to 19 of every year. Former President Fidel V. Ramos decided to issue Proclamation No. 1041 on January 15, 1997 to give importance to our national language where he declared the whole month of August of every year as our National Language Month.
This month is your opportunity to share your knowledge, your writing ability to Pinoyblogosphere and to the whole world ready to read your message on the importance of this celebration. Let us remember this celebration with your good thoughts. Join the Wika2007 Blog Writing Contest with the theme, “Maraming Wika, Matatag na Bansa”
Entrepreneurs and Yuppies, Don’t Miss This
Listen to the Audio Clip here. For details of the event, go here. To register, click the banner or go here. Read more
How to back up your blog – Introduction
If you have read my previous on why you should back up your blog, then perhaps now you are wondering how do you back up your blog. This post does not have the technical details yet but this will serve as an introduction.
There are two types of back up you can do for your blog.
- Back up the contents of your blog
This pertains to your blog posts, categories, labels and pages. This could be anything that you have written for your blog. For most people, this is the more important of the two types since this is the life of your blog. Usually you can find the contents of your blog stored in a database. - Back up the template/plug-ins/files
This pertains to your templates, plug-in or simply the folder where your blog is stored. If these files gets lost, your blog will be physically unavailable. You know of the 404 not found error right? That is what you will get if these files gets lost.
So what can you back up?
A Waste of My Honest 60 Pesos
Me and my family went out to bond and after we ate lunch we decided to watch a movie. I was quite intrigued at my classmates talking about how scary Ouija is. To be honest ladies, it freaking sucked. Well, we do all know how GMA and its kapuso theme sucks. Production sucked, props sucked, make-up sucked, originality sucked, special effects was mediocre. Their acting SUCKED, iza sucked, jolina sucked, and juday without a doubt definitely sucked too. The only good acting I saw was from ruby (not sure of the name), she was the fat yaya who died in the SUV. Well that part sucked too.
Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows
This being late, I promise to write something short and sweet. It took me close to two weeks to finish Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows. In those two weeks, I also managed to build my website from scratch so bite me!
Reading the book helped me reinforce the lingering notion I have of JK Rowling’s literary style. One, that her punctuation marks are all over the place. Two, that she could not, for the life of her, write an effective fight sequence. With those out of my chest, everyone could admit that Rowling more than compensated this flaw by narrating the most intricately woven and interesting of plots. So intricate, in fact, that she had to close HP6 with a whole lot of loose ends, sending her cramming to mend each of them in the final chapters of HP7. Interestingly, she still managed to come up with odd surprises[...]
[...]Somebody I work with asked me, “Know what? I’ve been wondering. How come the [...] managed to survive when I could have sworn it had burned?” I answered nonchalantly with an air of sophistication and authority, “Magic!“[...]
Internal Conflicts
Weeks have passed and yet the news about the beheaded marines and the government’s plans to avenge the brave soldiers still fill the Pinoys’ senses with grim and terror. Let’s face it: no one wants to acknowledge the harsh realities of war and no one wants to accept the truth that war in Mindanao is inevitable.
First of all, the burning question that everyone wants to be answered is this: HOW IN THE WORLD WERE THE MARINES AMBUSHED, GIVEN THAT THE GOVERNMENT FORCES WERE SUPPOSED TO BE GREATER IN NUMBER AND BETTER EQUIPPED?
Answer:
The following boo-boos were committed by the AFP itself: (1) The ammunitions provided to the soldiers were defective and (2) the government troops were not able to receive assistance from air pilots because of the bad radio frequency. So far, this is what I know.
As what Isagani Cruz said today in his column for Inquirer:
“Perhaps the public doesn’t care why the soldiers died, and only, that they did – and that the rebels must pay. However, the public ought to care that the soldiers, who died bravely, also died senselessly: and that more soldiers’ lives will be squandered if the military doesn’t get a grip on the causes of the massacre in the first place.”
For years, the AFP (and the PNP) has tarnished its reputation by being corrupt, leashed dogs (to the bad elements including PGMA) and big liars. But let me clear that not all members or working for these (two) institution/s is/are bad doers: SOME BUT NOT ALL. It would be too much to say MAJORITY, right? It’ll take away what tiny speck of integrity and trust we have for it.
In the Constitution, the AFP is the “protector of the people and the State. Its goal is to secure the sovereignty of the State and the integrity of the national territory.” Clearly, this is a paradox to what is happening now because it has linked itself to great acts of mayhem, such as the walang kamatayang extrajudicial “unexplained” killings and lately, Jonas Burgos’ abduction. And let’s not forget the cheating event that transpired in 2004 with Garci and yours truly, the pseudo president of this country. This and a lot more evil plots would qualify them to be taken in as terrorists as defined by the new HSA of 2007. No one can deny that due to these incidents, the AFP has caused “a condition of widespread and extraordinary fear and panic among the populace.” I took out the “in order to coerce the government to give in to an unlawful demand” because the AFP have or is coercing with the government.
In my head, if the AFP is our supposed protector against the malevolent, then the war in Mindanao is, again, between the LESS EVIL vs. EVIL. This is the reason, I think, why the war and our country can never be at peace.
