Question of the Day #1

 

Answer

Games in the Philippines are mainly PC. I tried to get my classmates into D&D but I overthought it so we didn't get a chance to play. But most games are either gambling related or on the computer. 

Video games are seen in a negative manner. Games in general are only for children. 

It's sad really. People don't see that games can be used outside of the entertainment for children. There are tournaments for PC games. They play League/Mobile Legends. Outside of that game I haven't seen many.

They do play game apps on their phones but outside of those cases that's all that exists in the gaming world. 

(For most of the population that doesn't have fast internet or is lacking in technology) 

Now in Manila, it's different. Think of Manila as New York for the Philippines. The only experience that I I had in Manila where a few nights because I stayed with my cousin due to paperwork not being correct so I couldn't leave the country.

There was someone who had a PS3 (?) I may be wrong about the console but they had a gaming console. The fact that they had a gaming console and that was the only console that I saw in the whole year living there should give some perspective on the lack of technology since I want a lot of places lol.

So outside of gambling card games there are no card games.

November 24th: Traditional Thanksgiving

I'm posting this with last week's video because this is still referenced to last week's video but it is still relevant for this weeks. 

Hello Everyone!

  This post will be about a 'Traditional' Thanksgiving. In the video I call it generic only because I couldn't figure out the word I was looking for but my brother-in-law who is also white said that I wasn't wrong. The way he put it... "At my parent's Thanksgiving I know exactly what we're going to have... with a few exceptions." Whereas, at my family Thanksgiving the dishes vary because to us, we're celebrating a holiday with a few themed items. For example, I wouldn't be surprised to see Pumpkin pie or Christmas cookies when I go meet up with my family in two weeks because we're celebrating both Thanksgiving and Christmas. Outside of that, it boils down to who's cooking and what's available.

  If you want to read more about Thanksgiving here's a link to an article from the history channel! Basically, Thanksgiving started as a holiday for the harvest but wasn't officially a holiday until later. However it was celebrated consistently each year!  Thanksgiving, to me, is a time to be thankful and to spend time with your family and/or friends.

  When I talked to my boyfriend and brother-in-law about their family traditions I learned that there's always a Thanksgiving football game. Apparently, the Dallas Cowboys always play on Thanksgiving. Due to this, Thanksgiving 'dinner' usually occurs around 3PM rather than 7-10PM because the Dallas Cowboys play at 7PMish. My boyfriend's family prepare for Black Friday which is a holiday that comes after Thanksgiving that has many sales to steal.

  Black Friday and Cyber Monday: On Black Friday is the first Friday after Thanksgiving. Many stores open early and release deals that push their sales. Black Friday isn't exactly a holiday, it's a day that many businesses decide to release deals at once and people then go shopping for anything and everything for a low price. This day is usually heavy in traffic and is very dangerous depending on when and where you go. There have been many cases of death and injury on this day because of the intensity of greed that people have. People are willing to do anything to save money or to get what they want.

  Cyber Monday is the online version of Black Friday. It occurs on the following Monday after Thanksgiving and consist of online deals that people can order and have shipped to wherever they please. An example could be an online purchase to a store within the city. They can then have the items shipped to the store and they can pick it up then. Or, they can ship it to their home or to whomever they are buying the item for.

  I suppose I can do another post over this section but for now I'll leave those at that. In my boyfriend's family, during Thanksgiving when they're sitting around the table and eating, they all take a moment to name one thing they're thankful for. My  brother-in-law's family doesn't do that but everyone has their own traditions!

  Now onto the food! My boyfriend and bother-in-law's family both had a similar list. My brother-in-law added like two items to what my boyfriend has listed so here are the dishes that they eat during Thanksgiving!

Turkey or Ham

Ham

Turkey

Stuffing/Dressing

A Stuffed Turkey

Stuffing - Dressing

What is it?

  Stuffing is bread soaked in broth and seasoning then rebaked.

Fun fact: Stuffing used to be stuffed inside the Turkey which is why it is called stuffing. However, both my brother-in-law and my boyfriend have told me that it's not the best way to cook it. Instead, the process is done separate which is what makes it Dressing. This item goes with the Turkey/Ham.

Mash Potatoes and Gravy (brown or white), Sweet Potato

Loaded Sweet Potato

*When I looked up 'loaded sweet potato' I got many different types of images. Apparently, people make their loaded sweet potatoes all different! In my boyfriend's family they use caramel, marshmallows, and cinnamon, and butter!

Sweet Potato

Mashed Potatoes - White Gravy

Mashed Potatoes - Brown Gravy

Mashed Potatoes

Casseroles: Cream Corn, Green Bean, Broccoli Cheese

Creamed Corn Casserole

Green Bean Casserole

Broccoli Cheese Casserole

Cranberry Sauce

Cranberry Sauce

Squash

Squash

Bread Rolls

Bread Rolls

--

  I want to point out that even though these look DELICIOUS... As someone who can't eat dairy or glutton all I can eat is the turkey, ham, sweet potato (without butter), and the cranberry sauce. I suppose I can eat the squash if they make it without butter but I have yet to eat squash on Thanksgiving. 

  Thank you for tuning in! For those of you who are from the U.S I want to hear about your thanksgiving traditions in the comments below or in the video comments. If you're not from the U.S then I want to hear about any harvest holidays or festivals that you have in the comments below or in the video comments. 

Happy Thanksgiving Everyone!

Dj/Cho/Nar

Learning something? Keep up with me so that you don't miss a post, video, or pictures!

Keep up with me at the following:

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I began to vlog on October 2nd 2019! Whether you prefer to listen to my vlog, read my blog, or enjoying looking into both, I appreciate it!

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 This will send me an email with your questions you don’t have to leave a name. I will post the answer to the blog!

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 Wattpad

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Nov 21st, 2019: Filipino Thanksgiving

Hello All,

  This week I wanted to talk about Thanksgiving since it’s next week. This time I wanted to cover my experience in America and then I’ll write about Thanksgiving in the Philippines. My family celebrates Thanksgiving and Christmas together mainly because we’re spread out and we all have our different schedules so we’ve made Thanksgiving our ‘all holiday meet up day’. That way, even if you can’t make the celebration in San Angelo or Dallas or wherever we plan to go, everyone tries to make it to the Thanksgiving meet up (which as I’ve mentioned, I have yet to attend).Hello All!

  When my family celebrates in general, we have food and we usually drink. In the mornings of the celebration usually the women are cooking unless we’re using the grill, then my brother-in-law, dad, uncle(s), or aunt are the ones cooking on that. We have a variety of dishes but my family always includes at least one or two pizzas for my one uncle who doesn’t eat the food we make unless it’s steak.

  At first, when I started to bring my boyfriend around the family, my parents and my aunt freaked out and would make him a separate dish so that he wouldn’t have to eat the food that was made for ‘us’. My boyfriend, however, likes to eat crab and is willing to try the dishes as long as they’re not very intense smelling or have onions in them. I tell my family to skip the ‘what’s in it’ description and I also warn him about it because I want him to try it without thinking about it. I’ve learned that many people don’t eat certain foods because they think about it and they don’t try it. Basically, they’re judging it before they give it a chance and I told my boyfriend that he can’t be like that if we’re going to be together.

  I don’t mind if he doesn’t like the food after he tries it. Generally, I tell him to try it three times at separate occasions and if he doesn’t like it, then fine! However, he can’t simply look at it and say that he’s not going to eat it because of what’s in the food or what it looks like or how it smells so I’m glad that I got him to adjust to at least trying the foods.

  If we’re not using the grill or killing a goat or chicken or pig (whatever it may be) then my brother-in-law and my job is to run the errands. If my sister(s) or mom are missing an ingredient or we need ice or sodas one of us goes and gets those items. Other than that, in the morning, while the food is being made, me and my brother-in-law are usually watching T.V to pass the time.

  Now, if we’re using the grill then the situation is different! This also applies to when we have a goat, chicken, or pig to kill. Now that I don’t live with my parents I’m not usually around early enough for this process but when there is an animal to kill my dad, brother-in-law, and uncle(s) are the ones to kill it (Not butcher it. What we do is make the process quick. We respect the animal, we’re not heathens).

  Up to a week prior of the celebration we go and buy a goat, pig, or chicken off of a farmer and take care of it until it’s time for us to eat it. Next time we kill an animal I’ll take notes and post it for you all but at the moment I can’t quite remember the whole process besides that we take care of it and kill it quick. When we have a chicken we usually use the blood and let it drip into a pot of uncooked rice and let it set in there to flavor the rice. Not everyone eats it but I think it’s good once it’s cooked. This dish is called dinadaraan

  Normally, we buy a baby up to a young goat. We don’t usually go for the older goats and we don’t always get adults because it depends on the amount of people that are showing up. The dishes we tend to make are

Goat: sinigang* (IL), kaldareta(IL), pinapaitan(IL), and kilawin (IL)(lightly cooked)  

*Sinigang means sour soup and can be made with any meat including shrimp

Goat: Kaldereta

Goat: Pinapaitan

Pork: Kilawin

Chicken: tinola (Tag/IL), pinakbekan (Igorat), and dinadaraan/dinuguan(IL/Tag)

Chicken: Dinardaraan

Chicken: Pinikpikan

Pig: Lechon

Chicken: Tinola

Pig: sinigang ng baboy and lechon

The Image for Lechon messed with the coding of my post so I'll show you all a picture through my video instead.

Pork Dish Sinigang na baboy

We also have cassava cake or bibingka and lumpia.

Lumpia

Cassava Cake

Bibingka

Alcohol wise we tend to drink whiskey, rum, scotch, rye, gin, and beer.

The Beer selection usually consist of Corona and Dos Equis. Sometimes, there’s a craft beer of some sort.

  Now that you all have read/seen what my family does for Thanksgiving, the next post will consist of what my boyfriend’s family makes as well as their traditions. I also asked my brother-in-law for some help because he is also white and he added a few bits of information to what they do. I’ll make sure to take pictures of the food they make this year and share the recipes (as well as share the same info from my thanksgiving party).

  I also want to point out that most of the dishes are Ilocano dishes as well as an Igorat dish that Ilocano speaking people know as that word. 

  Generally, my family celebrates this way for every holiday. Our main focus is to meet up, have a good time, have good food, and drink, then deal with the hangover the next morning. If you’re Filipino and want to share what foods you eat on Thanksgiving please do! Also, if you can, please share the recipe with me as well so I can post the picture and the info!

Thank you for tuning in with me this week, tune in a few days to read about the generic Thanksgiving my boyfriend’s family and my brother-in-law’s family have. See you soon!

DJ/Cho/Nar

   

October 10, 2019

October 10, 2019

  Magandang Umaga sa inyo! (Good day, everyone)

  Today I talked about a common misconception that Filipinos have when it comes to understanding what ‘American’ means. In the Philippines, everyone’s race, nationality, and language are the same. Their race is Filipino, their nationality is Filipino, and in general all languages are ‘Filipino’. While in America, people’s nationality can differ depending on their situation. There are Americans, Canadians, and even Mexicans. Some, are duel citizens where they can be, say, American-Filipino.

  In America, people categorize themselves by their race and the state they’re from rather than the nationality or the language they speak. No one says that they’re ‘Spanish’ because they speak Spanish. Most say that they’re Mexican or Latino or Hispanic but many don’t declare that they are Spanish. More commonly, people who speak Spanish say that they can speak the language.\

  How exactly does one describe themselves then as an American? My personal description is that I’m a Filipino who’s from West Texas. Unless a person goes out of state, there’s no reason to mention that you’re from the state that you’re currently in. If anything, people say ‘I’m from here’ which usually indicates that they hometown is the location that the two people are currently having the conversation in. I would say that I’m from West Texas because there are five sections of Texas since it is big enough. The parts of Texas are: North, South, East, West, and Central. Each of these sections are separated because they have different biomes or different trees, plants, animals, and such.

  An outside example would be if someone was from New York and they moved to Texas. They would then say, “I’m from New York.” Most of them won’t mention which city specifically because they don’t expect people from another state to know which city they’re from unless it’s one of the popular locations like New York City or Boston. They’re say their race, we’re going to go with Black for this example. I wanted to say Black because not everyone who is that race will describe themselves as ‘Black’. It all depends on the context. The safest way to describe someone who is ‘black’ is to listen to who they describe themselves and go with that description for that person. Some may say that they’re African-American which is also not a wrong description. (I could probably do a whole article over this but I’m going to leave those two examples for now. If anyone has any questions, leave them in the comment section of either the vlog or the blog post.

  Whereas, in the Philippines people will describe themselves by province or go even father and add a specific location to help indicate where they are from.  I’ll use myself as an example again. I’m Igorat/Ilocano. My family descends from the Kankanae tribe. My mother’s side is from Paltoc, San Emilio, Ilocos Sur and  my father’s side is from Labayug, Sison, Pangasinan. Some people from the city area (like say Vigan City or Candon City) don’t like the word ‘Igorat’ or use it as a vulgar term to describe people who are illiterate or snobby because people who are indigenous tend to have more land.

  The fact is, people who are indigenous have lineage to land that was claimed before the Spanish arrived and because of that, the family was able to keep the land over time. It only means that their ancestors protected what was important to them, not that they’re snobby or rich. A misconception that I’ve run into is that people who are Igorat or Indigenous are considered snobby because of the amount of land they have (this converts to how much money they would have to buy the land). But, if the land was bought or claimed for cheap or nothing at all in the past and was well protected over the years then the land would not have been bought for an expensive price to begin with. It could be sold for a higher price if it lasted generations but most Filipinos are protective of their birthright and would not sell off their land that they’ve had in the family for generations.

  As an example of someone who isn’t Indigenous, let’s say that someone is from Candon City. Their mother is from Candon and their father is from Bantay. Both families have Spanish last names (Let’s go with Garcia). They wouldn’t say that they come from a Spanish background. Instead, they would indicate which language they speak the best. Whereas, my cousins would say Itneg (the language of the municipality), someone from Candon or Bantay may say Tagalog/Filipino or Ilocano.

  More people in the Philippines tend to describe themselves with their language (since it is regional) rather than saying that they’re ‘Filipino’. If someone were from Pangasinan they wouldn’t say they’re Pangasinan, they’d say that they’re Pangalatot (or a language that is spoken over in that province) where as someone from Ilocos Sur or Norte would say ‘I’m Ilocano’. There have been fights over whether the term ‘Iloco or Ilocano’ is correct and I’m not going to fight people over something they feel so strongly about. It doesn’t matter to me whether someone is Iloco or Ilocano as long as they’re not a bad person. In my personal description I’m not considered Ilocano, I’m considered ‘Itneg’ since it’s the language of my family. However, is more than one type of Ilocano language as well as more than one Itneg language so even if I were to say that I’m ‘Itneg’ it wouldn’t meant that I can understand someone who speaks a variation of the language.

  I hope this helps clear up some confusion in either of my audiences. Let me know what you think and if you have any questions that you want me to cover! Thank you for tuning in this week and I’ll see you all next week! Also, I made a chart to help compare last week’s conversation. I hope it helps both my audiences understand each other better.

  Click here to read the original post about what I missed while I was in the Philippines!

  Click here to view the chart that compares the toilets of the two countries!

See you next week!

DJ/Cho/Nar

Keep up with me at the following:

Youtube

I began to vlog on October 2nd 2019! Whether you prefer to listen to my vlog, read my blog, or enjoying looking into both, I appreciate it!

Ask Questions Here

 This will send me an email with your questions you don’t have to leave a name. I will post the answer to the blog!

 Facebook

      This is mainly for communication so go ahead, add me. Message me every once in a while so that I remember who you are. Otherwise, I'll delete you at the end of the year when I clear through my facebook lol.

 Instagram

       I follow anyone who follows me! This is mainly pictures of where I go!

 Wattpad

       Writing has always been a passion of mine. Interested in reading what's on my mind? Read up on a more emotional perspective of my life here!

October 2nd, 2019

This week's vlog

  Hello everyone!

  This week in my vlog I focused on my American audience. This post will take the details that I mentioned in the vlog and expand on it! In this week’s video I talked about the three things that I missed the most while I was in the Philippines.

  Of course, I missed my friends, family, and my puppy while I was gone but there were certain items and concepts that stuck out. Those items were toilet seats and air conditioning while the concept was the time it took to get anywhere. Being in the Philippines opened up a new perspective in life that I didn’t think I would see. Since being home, there are little concepts that stand out to me about either the states or the Philippines.

  In the past three months of me being home I’ve seen the lifestyle that I live in the states is adjusted to my needs in the states. Here, I go to work and I plan for my bills. I pick a friend or two to go see on my off days and I schedule what else I need to do on those off days. Before work I’m usually sleeping if not I’m cleaning or fixing the house up and after work I either go to sleep right away or go on a few errands with my boyfriend.

  Here, I schedule myself because I have to and I need in order to meet a certain time constraint that I mentally prepare for myself. I know how long it takes to get to work, I know how long it takes for me to get ready to go to work. My hours at work are set. I know my off days. I know that I need a certain amount of sleep and that I need to eat at a certain time of day or at least around a certain time of day.

  While I was in the Philippines time wasn’t constricted. To my surprise, for people who have to wait around for vehicle for hours, the people were very impatient. It amused people that when I had to wait for hours at a time that I would have a book in my hand or I would be writing. When I was in school I would plan to do my school work first then I would figure out what I would do after that.

  This concept of scheduling wasn’t a part of the culture in that country which angered a few Americans that I ran into. There was a white American that would go to the bus stop every weekend that I would go and if the bus wasn’t there within ten to fifteen minutes, he would be angry. Which, in an American mind set, I do understand that. However, when a person lives in a country for a certain amount of years (which is what I gathered from his rants) than that person shouldn’t expect the country to adjust to him. Rather, the person should adjust to the country.

  Only a few students that I went to school with scheduled a study time for themselves. I had an issue with setting a study schedule because I couldn’t study the same way as the students were taught. In their culture, it is custom to sit in front of a paper and memorize notes for an hour. Which can work for some but I know that I needed to find another way to remember what was being taught during class.

  When I was over there and not studying or doing school work, I was on my Wattpad and writing. It reminded me of my senior year in high school when I spent more time in my creative mind set than anything else. Today, I still have at least two journals that I need to type of from the time that I was writing almost every day.

  Being in the states has brought my attention to how the speed of time seems faster than it does in the Philippines. There, no one is in a hurry to get anywhere, and if they are, there’s still a limitation to their version of a ‘rush’. Filipinos don’t skip meals if they’re late. They think, well, they’re already late so might as well eat since they’re late. They don’t think ‘I should eat before I go to where I need to go’. This is where the concept ‘Filipino Time’ comes from.

  To the people who have met a Filipino, they know that Filipinos don’t show to up to a party or to an event until at least, a half an hour late. Which, is why the tactic around that is to tell the Filipinos to show up two hours early so that by the time they decide to show up, they’re on time instead of late. I’ve also notice that the culture of Filipinos is different in the states than it is in the country itself.

  There, families are close and sit around the table and talk to each other about their day. They push the essence of a family and responsibilities. While in the U.S many Asian families (not only Filipinos) tend to abuse the concept of family and focus on academics and/or work. It’s more important to make money so that the family in the Asian country is in a better living condition rather than focus on having a healthy family at home and across the sea.

  For a future video, I’ll touch up on this concept of culture but I also want to provide pictures of a Filipino building and the toilet that I mentioned. Down below is a picture of a traditional American toilet verses a Filipino toilet. I suppose I could do a separate continuation of this post since I’m sure how the toilet seat works.

                         Source

     Source

  I’ll be sure to add the link below if I do decide to write them out for you. For those of you who have kept up with me since 2018, thank you! And to those of you who are newer, I’m still thankful. Tune in next week to watch my next vlog and to read more about it through the blog!

Click here to look at the chart comparing the two toilet seats and customs

  Thank you, and see y’all soon!

Nar/Cho/Dj

Keep up with me at the following:

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I began to vlog on October 2nd 2019! Whether you prefer to listen to my vlog, read my blog, or enjoying looking into both, I appreciate it!

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 This will send me an email with your questions you don’t have to leave a name. I will post the answer to the blog!

 Facebook

      This is mainly for communication so go ahead, add me. Message me every once in a while so that I remember who you are. Otherwise, I'll delete you at the end of the year when I clear through my facebook lol.

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       I follow anyone who follows me! This is mainly pictures of where I go!

 Wattpad

 

September 2019 Announcement

September 2019 

  Hello Everyone! 

  For my stay in the United States I will be attempting to upload videos instead of writing out post. I will try to make time to write post but my goal is to upload a five minute video every week talking about the culture of the Philippines and the culture of being in the United States. This is a personal vlog (similar to what I was doing with my written post). The only difference is I will try to touch up on my video making skills. Please subscribe to my channel for more uploads, I'm planning on uploading a video every Tuesday CST starting this coming week!

  It's good to be back in the states. I can't wait to share my experience with both my Philippines audience as well as my American Audience (as well as those of you around the globe who have found interest in my blog. I'm am grateful to you all and I hope that all of you continue to follow my blog and also watch my vlog :))

See you all next week!

DJ/Cho/Nar

January 28th, 2019

Hey guys!

  Let me tell you about my first mentally aware week of school! School started on the fourteenth but that doesn’t mean I was mentally aware of what was going on around me. I started class on January eighteenth and then it was the weekend. (I went home to San Emilio too!) So, I’m excited to update you all now that I’m not exhausted!

  I’m going to start with my classes. This year I basically have four history classes. It makes the homework slightly easier and it makes it more interesting for me. Now I have more motivation to look up the history of the country. I also like the instructors I have this year.

  Here are my classes this year:

MWF

• Readings in Philippine History
• Good Manners and Right Conduct
•  Technology of Teaching
•  Facilitating Learner Centered (the enrolment form didn’t have the full title lol)

T

•  Fitness and Exercise

TTH

•  The Contemporary World
•  Filipino (the title was changed apparently plus the title’s in Filipino so we’re going to leave it at Filipino lol)
•  Science, Technology, and Society

  Which classes are my history classes? Readings in Philippine History, Good Manners and Right Conduct (it’s about society and the history of it lol), The Contemporary World (History of the world today), and Science, Technology, and Society. That’s about the Science and Technology of the Philippines and how it effects society.

  I had mentioned that I was going to post my assignments to my blog and I think that I should get to that. There’s a lot of documents on Filipino history but most of them are scattered and they may or may not be reliable so I want to have a page that has what I’ve collected from this year!

  I’ll be sure to tag my history friends. I know a lot of you come to this blog to read over what I’m doing so I don’t want to only post historical stuff but I do think what I’m going to learn this year is valuable and in that sense, I want to share it with all of you.

  This year I also have two tutors and one Filipino teacher. I need to write the notes I have from last year into the journal that I dedicated to the notes (since they’re all scattered and scribbles lol). I’m going to try and go out to eat once a month and show you all the places I have tried in Vigan. Again, these are all plans but I have a lot of pictures and I haven’t put a post to them.

  There’s a fifteen page document that my class had to read and my teacher wanted us to summarize it into 500 words max and after that she wanted us to summarize it into three sentences. Her point of the exercise is that the way that the students were taught were strictly to memorize but not to understand content. Personally, I liked the exercise. But then again, I read the whole thing thinking that I had to do it on my own and later I found out that I was part of group and we all could have split the content but that’s okay. I like reading anyway.

  An issue I was having when I got here a week ago is that I went straight from Texas to Japan. After Japan I went to Manila and from the plane in Manila I went on a bus to Vigan. I don’t know how many hours passed but I had to go from Austin, Texas to Dallas, Texas. After that I went from Dallas all the way to Japan. After I waited about two hours in Japan I went to Manila and from there I arrived in Manila. I left on January thirteenth and arrived in the Philippines at ten in the afternoon on the thirteenth. It took another right hours from Manila to get to Vigan City and it was rough.

  The first thing I noticed when I got back was that the soda tasted weird. Back home in Texas I drank a lot of soda and alcohol. (Thanks Manong) Lol. I’ll talk more about my Texas adventure later but because of that I got used to a lot more sugar and carbonation being in soda. Here in the Philippines the soda has a more natural sugar in it and it also doesn’t have the additives we do in Texas and that’s why it tasted weird whenever I got back.

  When I got to Vigan I had to enrol. I arrived at ten in the morning on the fourteenth. My Uncle followed me everywhere and it was funny because by the second time we walked back to my dorm he was like, “Ay, Nar. I can’t.” *heavy breathing* “I’ll wait at the apartement”. Lol. I love my uncle he’s too funny.

  I don’t have much more time to write this and whenever the timer says I need to save my documents I’ll go ahead and post what I’ve written. I want everyone to know that even though I did go home I didn’t announce it for the fact that I didn’t want to see you all. It’s because time is limited and I had to plan strategically. But rest assured. I’ll be back soon and this time I’ll be able to hang out with a lot of you!

    Well, as I wrote that I realized that my time is up. I’ll be sure to have more to tell you next week! Keep in touch everyone! Miss you all and if you’re in the Philippines. I’m sorry if I haven’t spoken with you since I got back. There has been a lot of time adjustment going on so please! Don’t be afraid to message me or say hello. I try to be as friendly as possible!

Till next time, DJ/Cho/Nar

Keep up with me with the following:

Ask Questions Here

 This will send me an email with your questions you don’t have to leave a name. I will post the answer to the blog!

 Facebook

      This is mainly for communication so go ahead, add me. Message me every once in a while so that I remember who you are. Otherwise, I'll delete you at the end of the year when I clear through my facebook lol.

 Instagram

       I follow anyone who follows me! This is mainly pictures of where I go!

 Wattpad

 If I don’t write a post here there’s probably a chance that I have written something on my Wattpad because there I post poems! They are shorter reads with more meaning. I am currently working on two poetry books but the more important one that ties into this travel blog is called ‘A Barrier Meant To Be Broken’. Below are the last five poems I wrote on there as of this post being queued.

A Barrier Meant To Be Broken
1.Leaving
2.Too Bright 
3.Calculating 
4.In This Country 
5. A Silent Understanding 

January 21, 2019: Social Media

Naimbag na aldaw sa lahat! (Good day everyone) [Ilocano/English]

  For those of you who are new to Forward Flight, I started this blog on April 25th, 2018. This blog is a personal journal that records my thoughts and experiences of my travels in the Philippines. I created this as a way to keep in touch with those in Texas because back in 2010 when I visited for two months or so, it was hard for me to get a hold of my family and friends. In 2015 when I visited again for a short time, communication was easier but not as easy as it is now.

  Fun fact, the Philippines is the second most known country to use social media! The first is Singapore. During school, I had to sit through a seminar about journalism and media. They had gone over this fact with us but to prove my point here is a website that covers it. Smartinsights.com Philippines (Slides 106 - 142)

  Based on the weibsite, (Slide 39 of 153) an average Filipino spends 9 hours and 29 minutes on the internet while in the U.S an average person spends 6 hours and 30 minutes on the internet daily. I found this interesting but as I was sitting through the seminar I could voice my opinion on the matter and in my personal life, I didn’t start to use social media as much as I do until I started to go to school in the Philippines.

  When I first got to the Philippines in April, I was still in vacation mode. So, I paid more attention to nature and I enjoyed a good book while relaxing at the house. I remember my first day of school and how nervous I was. I didn’t want to speak because I knew that the other students were not as fluent in English as I was and I didn’t understand almost any Ilocano, Filipino, or Itneg. I later found out there was also Gay lingo that I needed to be familiar with as well as a dialect difference. The Ilocano my family spoke in San Emilio was not the same as the version spoken in Vigan City. Most words were the same but some words I knew did not line up with the words that the people around me knew.

  Originally, I would use Facebook to get a laugh out of my day and I still do but since so many people use Facebook in the Philippines and Facebook is cheaper to use than sending text messages, I prefer to use Facebook messenger to message my classmates and call them as well.

  When I lived in Texas, I didn’t add people unless I had physically met them or they had my sister added to their Facebook (which meant that they were family). Now, I have to add people because that’s the source of communication. Most Filipinos have more than one Facebook, which is what I had to resort to.

  I have literally never had to be in so many group chats. Back home if my friends added me to a group chat I would eventually leave because there was no purpose unless we were planning an event and even then, we’d stop talking on it after we were done planning the event. Now, I’m in a group chat for anything and everything. I try my best to clear the group chats because I don’t like having so many open.

  Individual messages are awful too. I enjoy having conversations with everyone but due to my anxiety, it’s not easy for me to keep the conversation going. Before I started to go to school in the Philippines I would purposely stop responding to all my messages on messenger if I had five or more unopened messages. It was overwhelming. Now, I have ten or so messages unanswered or buried due to me not seeing a notification or me muting a group chat.

  It truly is frustrating being in as many group chats that I’m in but most of the time the Ilocano is spelled different ways and even then, I can’t fully understand Ilocano so I can’t understand what people are saying in the group chats. Then, whenever they announce something someone gets upset with me because I didn’t see the announcement. I always have to remind them that it’s not that I didn’t see the announcement, it’s that I didn’t understand it because of the language barrier we have.


  What I am glad about is that people are willing to work with me. Many of the group members will try and explain what they can or direct me to someone who can help. I hope to be able to help them in the future with any of the English questions the may have. I have a friend who usually corrects my English instead of my Ilocano which I find is funny. It confuses my classmates whenever I mess up in English. What they don’t realize is that when a person learns or tries to learn another language, or languages in my case, they use different parts of their brain so it’s hard to keep up with different memory cards.

  Earlier I wanted to talk about more than one website and how the Philippines is active in social media more than the U.S but now that I think about it, that may not be true. I may not have used as much social media but I’m only a small portion of the population in the United States. There are a lot of statistics on that website that I linked up above so click on it and check it out!

  I want to cover more but I also like to keep these short so that I can spread them out and not bore you guys to death. If you’re checking in with me from the U.S, thanks and I miss you guys! If you’re checking in from the Philippines, please! Message me some time. I need to practice my Filipino and Ilocano. If you want to try and learn English you have to help me learn Ilocano or Filipino. Fair?

  I hope to hear from any of you soon! I try to keep up with my messenger. If I don’t answer you within a week please tag me in a post and say that you messaged me or message me again to bring your message to the top.

Thanks for listening! Talk to you next week!

DJ/Cho/Nar

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Keep up with me with the following:

Ask Questions Here

 This will send me an email with your questions you don’t have to leave a name. I will post the answer to the blog!

 Facebook

      This is mainly for communication so go ahead, add me. Message me every once in a while so that I remember who you are. Otherwise, I'll delete you at the end of the year when I clear through my facebook lol.

 Instagram

       I follow anyone who follows me! This is mainly pictures of where I go!

 Wattpad

 If I don’t write a post here there’s probably a chance that I have written something on my Wattpad because there I post poems! They are shorter reads with more meaning. I am currently working on two poetry books but the more important one that ties into this travel blog is called ‘A Barrier Meant To Be Broken’. Below are the last five poems I wrote on there as of this post being queued.

A Barrier Meant To Be Broken

Stranger

Broken As A Reminder

A Broken Family

Who I Strive To Be

History

January 14th, 2019: Maligayang Bagong Taon! - Happy New Year

Magandang Araw sa lahat! (Good day everyone!) [Filipino/English]

 I know that I haven’t been keeping you all updated. A lot of things have happened since November 26th which was the last post that I queued. So I want to try and do what I can for you all this year. Of course, around this time everyone begins their New Year’s Resolutions and such. Lately, I have been living the moments in front of me instead of recording them and as a person with a travel blog I know that I’m slacking.

 The first update that I’d like to announce is that I now have a public facebook that you all can add! Being in the Philippines has forced me to use Social Media a lot more and it isn’t exactly my favorite thing to do but for those of you who would like to conversate with me or would like to keep up with updates through Facebook (that are not on my personal already), you can add me! (I’ll probably clear out my friend list once a year depending on if a person has talked to me or not I don’t know. I do know that Facebook limits you to 5000 friends and to be honest… if I ever hit that talk to that many people a day I’ll probably not want to talk to another person in my physical life ever again. So, if you’re interested click here to add me! I don’t mind making friends or meeting new people. The more the merrier right?

 For now, I want to talk about the most recent and then I’ll backtrack for you all. I have many pictures that need to be posted so I’ll be sure to set those up. This year I would like to keep up with this blog and explore the Philippines more! I’m thinking to go to one new place every week. It depends.

 Basit Basit (Ilocano/Ilokano) Kunti Kunti (Filipino/Tagalog) what these words translate to is ‘little by little’ and I want that to be my motto for this year. Every small step counts and I want you all to see these small steps in written form. I do appreciate those of you who continued to look over my blog despite my disappearance. I will admit, sometimes it’s better to live life instead of record it but this past month I have been complimented on the fact that I have many stories and this is true. I like to share my experiences. I do what I can to make people smile and I like to hear people laugh.

 If I was learning one language and one language only I could focus but the fact is, I have missed out on a lot of culture and I need to learn at least three languages. If you are new, let me inform you that these three languages are Ilocano, Filipino, and Itneg. Now, there are connotations of these languages so I would like to clear some confusion.

 When I speak of Ilocano, most likely I will spell it with a ‘K’ and not a ‘C’ because originally the alphabet that the Philippines uses does not include the letter C. My tutor told me that the letter C is considered a ‘borrowed letter’.

 Below is a refresher on the letters of the English Alphabet versus the alphabet of the Philippines.

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English:

A B C D E F G H I J K L M N O P Q R S T U V W X Y Z (27)

Alpabeto (Alphabet of the Philippines)

A B K D E G H I L M N NG O P R S T U W Y  (20)

Borrow letters that occur in modern spelling in any language in the Philippines.

C F J Q V X Z

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 The whole of this blog is to keep you guys updated on what I’m doing and how I feel about what’s going on around me. Outside of trying to keep up with this blog better, I do hope that I can learn more Ilocano than anything else this year. I say that because it is the language I use the most next to English and I hope to be able to share more of it with you as time goes by.

 Current upcoming events are…

 Second Semester of college begins on January 14th!

 This will be posted on January 14th so I’ll be sure to tell you about the first day back in school!

 Check back every Monday at noon (central time) for updates!

 To be honest I think that’s the only updates that I really have. I’ll be sure to update everyone about Christmas soon but as I have said in the past I don’t like to make these super long. What I do want to do is go back to my original post and write replies to them. I like to think about them as a way to update what has happened so far!

 I would like to do this also to help organize my post! I try my best to organize. It’s hard especially with things that aren’t physically there but I’ll be sure to have a Mass Post key somewhere to help people refer to little things that I mention like the borrowed letters up above! I’ll also do this to help me not repeat myself a thousand times.

 When I first started this blog a lot of people were messaging me and it made me really happy to hear from you all. So don’t be afraid to send me messages or ask me how I am. Although, you have to remember that my Facebook Messenger is more of my connection to everyone in the Philippines and not just in the U.S so if you’re from either place. Please! Message me again if I don’t answer within a week. I do my best to answer everyone but I can fall behind.

 As a reminder here are all the ways to keep up with me or contact me!

 Ask Questions Here

This will send me an email with your questions you don’t have to leave a name. I will post the answer to the blog!

 Facebook

This is mainly for communication so go ahead, add me. Message me every once in a while so that I remember who you are. Otherwise, I'll delete you at the end of the year when I clear through my facebook lol.

 Instagram

I follow anyone who follows me! This is mainly pictures of where I go!

 Wattpad

If I don’t write a post here there’s probably a chance that I have written something on my Wattpad because there I post poems! They are shorter reads with more meaning. I am currently working on two poetry books but the more important one that ties into this travel blog is called ‘A Barrier Meant To Be Broken’. Below are the last five poems I wrote on there as of this post being queued.

A Barrier Meant To Be Broken

Stranger

Broken As A Reminder

A Broken Family

Who I Strive To Be 

History