Meet Verns, our hip and cool Pinay blogger. She hails from La Castellana, Negros Occidental and is a graduate of the University of St. La Salle, Bacolod City in 2002 with a degree in Marketing Management. Currently, she works as a Sales and Marketing Officer of a company in Manila.
Verns blogs with honesty, passion, and what can only be described as “raw energy,” her vivacity exuding from every post she writes on her online niche. This seems to be one of the primary reasons why online readers and other bloggers are drawn to her site. And if the highly active forums in her blog are any proof, it can be argued that her blog has indeed become one of the most popular and highly visited sites in the Filipino blogosphere. Verns can also be found frequently in other Pinoy blogger’s sites, leaving comments which are distinctly “Verns” – vivid, vibrant, and very witty.
The author-creator of Mylife-shlife gives us a glimpse into her online and offline personas through an exclusive interview for Philippines Today Online.
Read on.
When and why did you start blogging?
Actually I was nagged into it, hehe, kidding 🙂 My sister-in-law Jenee of My So-Called Life and my cousin Tonette encouraged me to blog. It was the first time I learned about blogging. But at first I really didn’t want to do it because I was thinking that I won’t be able to post regularly anyway because of the nature of my work then. But well, apparently my sister-in-law and my cousin have this power over me so I finally said yes to them. My first entry was dated July 2, 2005.
How long do you think you will keep on blogging?
Honestly I don’t know. Probably as long as there’s internet, hahaha and oh, as long as my fingers are functioning perfectly.
Why did you choose the title “My Life-shlife” for your blog?
I wanted to have a clever title like blogger Ipanema’s Under the Canopy, a catchy one like Sngl’s Inside the Mind of a Single Guy, a mysterious one like Niko’s Anino ni Abaniko…however I couldn’t come up with something unique. Trust me, I changed title so many times. In the end I told myself to just go back to the basic. So I asked myself: What will I write in this blog? My answer is: I’ll write about bits and pieces of my life. And how do I look at life? Well, aside from my belief that life is precious and must be preserved, I look at life as something that can be crappy at times but also fun depending on how you look at it or how you live it. Hence “my life-shlife”…just my way of saying that the happenings in our lives shouldn’t really be taken that seriously because if you do, you’ll just die of heartache or emotional stress :).
So are you happy with this title so far? Or are you planning to change it again?
My title is really simple but it describes my blog perfectly. I am happy with My Life-Shlife.
What benefits do you derive from blogging?
I wish I can convert all my entries into cash then maybe I can resign from my regular job and then just blog the whole day. 🙂 Seriously – a lot of bloggers would agree with me in saying that blogging is a very good therapy. You don’t need to pay a shrink to listen to your rants, sentiments, etc. hehe. Just pour it in your entries and if you’re lucky, kind people (like everybody in my blogroll) will visit your blog, read your post and share their own experiences. Most of the time you get sound advice from these people and that is really great. Also like I mentioned in one of my entries…I met a lot of blogfriends in the blogosphere. They are blogfriends but friends nonetheless.
Do you find anything disadvantageous about blogging?
My friend Toe of KurokuroAtbp and I always joke that work gets in the way of our blogging. 🙂 Every morning, when I arrive in the office, the first thing I do is open my blog, answer the comments and visit everyone’s blog in my sidebar. I always see to it that I visit all of them because that’s my way of thanking them for also taking the time to read my entries. But it can be time consuming you know. But I believe that bloggers are very good in multi-tasking! However, I read in some blogs that their eyesight is affected due to prolonged exposure to the monitor. I guess that’s another disadvantage but I think that only happens to those blog-junkies out there, hahahaha.
What were the highlights of your blogging activities in the past year?
Last year? Well, I went through a personal crisis. So I guess that’s it. I talked about it often that time – then I just stopped after a while and posted positive entries instead.
Do you have any specific plans or goals for your blog? If so, would you like to share them with our readers?
Honestly, none. All I want is to have a personalized template but I don’t have my own domain so I guess that won’t happen hehe 🙂 and also, I’m really dumb when it comes to techie stuff so you know…whatever template is ready, that’s what I use.
What is the most passionate subject that you have blogged about?
I believe that passion should always be present in a blogger’s entry. In my case, I’m more passionate when I talk about my childhood or my family especially my niece Gabby. But I guess my entry about my first bike ride that I entitled My First Real Scar is my favorite. It talked about how my brother teased me that if I get wounded from learning to ride a bike, the wound would never heal. The gullible in me believed him, however, I still tried to ride the bike. I did fall and did cut my ankle. I was pretty scared because there was so much blood and that equated to my father getting upset over it. When my brother saw me, I was expecting him to tease me some more but instead he said not to worry about Papa and that the wound would heal soon. He also said that it was pretty admirable for me to learn to ride a bike the first time I tried because indeed after I cut my ankle, I learned how to.
Do you have any words of advice to aspring bloggers?
Blogging is fun, but personally I just don’t blog for fun’s sake. Aside from enjoyment I get to learn new things from reading blogs in the blogosphere. I was able to go to other places because of it. Also, I believe that I was able to improve my writing skills and my vocabulary (which is actually limited, but thanks to blogging I learned new words hehe). So for those who want to try it out, well what are you waiting for? There is so much in store for you guys. When you finally decide to try blogging, just be true in your posts. Readers like to read entries that are honest. Be unique, and of course be responsible because your entries are open to the world wide web.
Anything in particular you would like to convey to our PT readers?
Well, I would like to thank PT for the opportunity. It’s an honor to be featured in your website and I really appreciate it. For the readers…trust in life, and oh, keep on visiting this site because honestly, there are really good and informative stuffs here.
Visit her blog at http://vernsandverns.wordpress.com.