I can’t recall if I watched my first UAAP Cheerdance Competition live, or if my brain just thinks I did but I really watched it on TV. All I can remember is that in my first year of university, we were required by our P.E. classes to attend a number of UAAP games. Our school drums formed the beat to which we shouted our cheers as games were won and lost. That year, my alma mater placed third despite being the most unique in its approach — no canned music, just the drums.

Since then I’ve tried to make it a point to keep up with news on the yearly competition results since it’s the only high-profile one in the UAAP my school always seems to have a chance of winning. (Yes, kulelat kami sa basketball.)

So I’m super happy about this year’s results. It’s our eighth win, and second three-in-a-row. U-nibersidad ng Pilipinas!

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Given the recent enactment of the Anti-Cybercrime Law (which threatens Internet freedom), I was kind of expecting some takedown notices on content posted online. But I didn’t expect that a two-year-old reblog of mine on Tumblr would warrant this kind of action:

Anti-Cybercrime Law in action?

If you’re interested in reading the supposedly libelous post, it was a reblog from another person’s Tumblr, to which I just added my own commentary, which was “Hmm. Should I hit him with my bachelor’s degree in Political Science cum laude, or my master’s degree in Media Studies – Journalism? Maybe I should just make fun of his use of quotation marks.” I was reacting to someone else’s comment on a post he made on Facebook. In no way was I the source of any comment that could be construed as libel.

So, lawyers and media practitioners out there, what are my options? I have three days daw.

UPDATE 10:04 p.m.:

UPDATE 10:30 p.m.:

UPDATE 11:31 p.m.:
I’ve screencapped the Tumblr reblog instead of linking to it from here and blotted out names and faces. The guy probably thinks it’s hurting his hireability. It really would have been better if he had asked me nicely to remove the post. However, I’m not a spiteful person; what he did was two years ago and on reviewing the original post, kinawawa sya. So I removed it from public view because I felt sorry for him, which is more than what he deserves for threatening me with legal action. But that doesn’t mean the original post doesn’t exist elsewhere and isn’t still searchable.

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I’ve been many things to many people over the past few years. When I was a kid, I was the Girl with Glasses. When I graduated and entered university, I was the Girl Two Years Younger Than Everyone Else (I was accelerated, and entered UP at 15 years old).

Then I got on the internet, and it was here that I first found some semblance of control of my identity because everything required I select some sort of handle or nickname (before we started calling them “usernames”). One of the first internet rules I learned was to use a different name from my own. For a teen still finding her own voice, this was golden because I felt I could be anything online. I created a home page on Geocities and my username was “Barbie-q” or some kind of iteration on that.

It wasn’t long before I found people online and in real life with whom I shared similar interests. Back then, I was into anime and because of this subscribed to the Pinoy Otaku Mailing List. Living in that world of fantasy, I soon created and inhabited a persona I called “Doctor Megumi” after the character Takani Megumi from the anime Rurouni Kenshin. I even attempted some fanfiction under that pen name. *shudder*

As more people started using the internet and social networking sites like Friendster, Myspace, and then Facebook and Twitter grew in popularity, establishing an online identity under your real name became the new norm (although anonymous usernames still stuck around). I had also begun keeping a personal blog under my real name in hopes of creating a portfolio good enough as a jump-off point for finding writing work.

Then I started writing about fitness and active lifestyle, which started pointing me in the direction I’ve been going ever since in both the magazine articles I’ve written, and the television appearances I’ve had. Some people still recognize me from my ShopTV Live guesting demonstrating products like this. *shudder*

But never has anything grown to define me as much as my latest identity “Kikay Runner”. It started when I wrote a few blog entries about starting to run and join races. One of my friends said I was the next Bull Runner, referring to an already-established running blogger. I demurred, saying, “Hindi naman. Kikay Runner lang.” I didn’t think anything of it back then; the term was just a brain fart.

But when I split off my running-related posts into its own blog and called it Kikay Runner, it really took off. It was easy to remember and juxtaposed mental images of a feminine woman in a hardcore sport. And I guess I’ve grown to become that name, too — even as I invested in trademarking it for fear that TV networks would use it on one of their young stars to capitalize on the growing popularity of running.

These days when people call out to me I can tell when I got to know them. I’m “Noelle” to most long-time buddies from the blogging world, “Megumi-chan” to my anime friends, and “Kikay” to my acquaintances in the running community. And some people who know me by “Kikay” now don’t even know my real name. But that’s all right. My name is Noelle… but I’m Kikay, too.

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I recently joined the Apple herd by getting an iPod Touch. While my BlackBerry is great for social media use, its battery runs out too quickly when I use it to keep my hands from being idle. So these days I use my iPod for games, which it is great for.

Another thing it’s great for? Instagram. While iOS and Android devices have Instagram apps, developers simply haven’t seen the need to make one for BlackBerry. So while my iPod doesn’t really take great photos (it’s got low-resolution cameras front and back), it’s wonderful just being able to snap, edit, and upload photos and share my photographic point-of-view.

Check these Instagrams out after only a month of having the app on my iPod:

[instagram url=http://instagr.am/p/NSEkw_M-2E/ size=small addlink=yes][instagram url=http://instagr.am/p/Naj_wrM-10/ size=small addlink=yes][instagram url=http://instagr.am/p/Nlb_XJM-5q/ size=small addlink=yes][instagram url=http://instagr.am/p/N96gyAM-11/ size=small addlink=yes][instagram url=http://instagr.am/p/N967GJM-2R/ size=small addlink=yes][instagram url=http://instagr.am/p/OQj-aZM-1F/ size=small addlink=yes]

If a picture is worth a thousand words, I’m even more talkative than even my Twitter tweet count indicates. Ü

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If only all crashes were as romantic as the Dave Matthews song. But as all my previous car crashes go, the recent one kind of takes the cake. It’s the first time I’ve been rear-ended with damage — and there was a lot.

Let me backtrack a little. Two weeks ago, my parents bought a secondhand Honda Jazz for me to replace the Kia Sportage I’ve been driving for four years. That Sportage, which I named Tweety because of the character painted on its rear tire covering, was such a hardy little vehicle. It had a front bull bar and a rear tire so it never sustained any damage even after I backed up or bumped into anything (sometimes my fault, sometimes not, hehe).

The Jazz, which I obviously named Jazzmine, was so pretty as I drove it around during the first week I had it. It was also faster because of its gasoline engine (Tweety had a diesel engine) and could maneuver more easily in traffic or small parking spaces.

One week, almost to the day I got Jazzmine, I was driving home from a presscon on Roxas Boulevard when an SUV rammed my rear because the driver hadn’t been paying attention when I stopped to give way to a wayward jeepney. The impact not only dented the rear door and bumper, but also broke the window glass rendering Jazzmine unusable (unless I wanted to tool around with plastic wrap as a window).

The other driver’s insurance is paying for repairs, but this means that Jazzmine is at shop until those repairs are done. The other car? Just a slightly misaligned front bumper. Hay nako.

Thankfully, old faithful Tweety is still around. I really love that car.

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Everyone has their ups and downs. Part of what makes people human and not robots is the level and complexity of emotions. You’ve got to give people space to feel and express their emotions.

I used to have that space, here in this blog. My friend Ade calls it my Blue Period, where my posts would express my melancholy, but people could relate more to them and me. I was also pretty prolific during that time, posting twice a week.

Back then you didn’t have to fit into a niche. You could just have a personal blog about anything and everything and nothing — and people would read and respond and be touched by what you write.

Life gets in the way. More people start reading your blog, including your family and friends. Suddenly, you can’t talk about how certain conversations and situations made you feel because someone else’s feelings can get hurt because they surmise you’re talking about them. So you end up talking about the more superficial, innocuous things in your life, like fashion or events or travel or food, and you let the journal part of your blog slide into oblivion.

It’s gotten that way too, with Twitter. You tweet to vent minor frustrations, random witty or tongue-in-cheek observations, and strong opinions and reactions. And then more people start following and they don’t like what they see. They expect that this media and blogging personality should be full of pep and positivity — a perfectly manicured facade. That isn’t realistic.

Give me some space where I can feel blue. Then maybe in real life when you meet me you’ll find out I’m a happy person after all — because I’ve vented it all online.

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I’ve been subscribed to Globe’s BlackBerry Max service for the past few months, and I’m so happy I have it. I don’t need to bring my laptop on vacation, and I don’t have to hunt down a WiFi connection just to check my email or do a simple Google search. (And can I say the ability to access Google Maps has been a boon for this frequent traveler?) This is aside from my Twitter addiction, of course…

There’s been only one thing I hadn’t done: video streaming. My monthly subscription notice says I should be able to view videos from Youtube at no additional charge, but the videos don’t load.

Thanks to my friend Winston, I learned that all I need to do is tweak a setting on my BlackBerry.

1. Go to Options > Device > Advanced System Settings > TCP IP. This sets the options for internet connections.
2. Make sure the check box for “APN Settings Enabled” is selected.
3. In the APN field, type “internet.globe.com.ph” (without the quotes, of course).
4. Press the Escape button (the curved arrow). When the phone asks you whether to Save, Discard, or Cancel changes made, select “Save”.

Voila! Now you can watch streaming videos. The phone will notify you that you might incur additional data charges when you try to watch a Youtube video, but the notification is automated and you can safely ignore it. Streaming video charges are covered under Globe BlackBerry Max’s all-in unlimited data service. And at P599/30 days, it’s the most affordable unlimited data plan for BlackBerry in the country.

By the way, to make my first experience using streaming video via BBMax truly unforgettable, the first video I watched was Chris Hemsworth on Australia’s Dancing With the Stars.

Noelle De Guzman is a Globe Mobile Data Services Brand Ambassador.

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