While I was Hibernating from SocMed [Part 2 of 2]

For the first part of this blog series, click here.

During the entirety of this socmed hibernation, Divisoria is not very busy. Thanks to the ECQ and MECQ, less people come here to buy and sell stuffs. In fact, during the Holy Week, there were times Sta. Elena Street is empty, just like what you are seeing at the left. It is good, otherwise the people are exposing themselves to the coronavirus. 

Because of that, I had the best moments to just stare out the window, look at the sky and think. I need not to close my doors and windows; vendors and buyers are all absent. What a perfect time for me to reflect.

REFLECTION. My annual socmed hibernation always include the Holy Week for it is a period for me to be solemn and I have a good excuse to be away from too much immersion in social media, including the pesky Messenger.

On those Holy Week holidays, I read the Book of Job in the Bible. I always admired Job because even though God permitted the tragedies in his life: he lost all his children, his property and his wealth, he was also despised by his wife, but he still acknowledged the Lord and sought his peace. It was in this book where we read, 

"The LORD gave and the LORD has taken away; may the name of the LORD be praised." (Job 1:20 NIV)

and also this verse 

"Shall we accept good from God, and not trouble?" (Job 2:10 NIV).

I knew them by heart because I was through a lot of challenges since I was young. So these Bible verses really gave me comfort because despite I am in no position to ask Him why this is or why that is, I know that God is in control of everything. Moreover, I personally was going through so much mental stress at that moment, so when I revisit the Book of Job, my heart was moved once again.

I also happen to take a picture of one of the verses that reflected my heart's longing for God's tranquility. There He was telling me that He is a witness to whatever I was going through and I receive assurance that He listens to my plea and He will intercede for me. Thank You very much, O Lord. I do not deserve this grace but thank You!

BRINGING BACK WHAT ONCE WERE MINE. Due to my business at work, I was not able to continue what I was enjoying doing in the past: blogging and live webcasting. Sure I am not as famous as the other bloggers and, in today's internet bandwagon, vloggers, but I just do because I want to do them! I do not care about viewership and the number of likes, they are just some of my unique ways of expressing myself. It was a shame I stopped and wasted my time doing things I do not delight myself in. But now, I decided to bring them both back into my system and launch them as soon as I can. So I make use of this socmed hibernation to plan and layout the details.

Back in March 2012, I published my very first blog, it was then called joeunderprocess.blogspot.com but I changed it later to joeco0327.blogspot.com to reflect my username across all online sites where I am present. I even created a "back-up" blog because Google AdSense prevented me from mixing English and Filipino posts in one blog. If you were to visit the site, you will notice a drastic decrease in my frequency of posting since I started it until last year 2020. I felt sorry for the state of my blog.

In order to brush aside the old and usher in a new "branding," I thought of launching a new blog and yes this is the blog that I planned and created in the past weeks. I named it "JoeZone Layer." I like the name this time for it is personal and one-of-a-kind. Also I got creative with the names of the pages (see the sidebar on the left), in contrast to the previous blog. The Outer Layer is what peeple see from me, while the Inner Core is my story about how I think and the reasons for the behavior of my Outer Layer. Dusts and Ashes are just bits of how I feel during the day, it is sort of an open notebook. Meanwhile, Pieces of Crust contains the chronology of my blog posts.

My old blog is still available and I am not considering of pulling them out of the internet.

The other one that I want to return is the live webcasting. I started doing this March 2013 in Guangzhou, China when I was still in college. I had a steady daily schedule of just playing songs and waiting for the audience to join in and listen. I named the webcast "120 Degrees" and it was the only FIlipino music webcast in China. Why that name? I think it's good enough for me to compose another blog post to explain HEHE.

I first had 120 Degrees aired via freedocast.com (non-existent anymore) and transferred to justin.tv (now Twitch). I had to stop because I graduated from college and need to come back here and work. Moreover, at that time, Chinese internet can support high quality streaming, the internet in the Philippines is absolutely not even close to the minimum internet speed required. So I waited for the ever-slow Philippine internet to catch up.

Then in 2018, I returned with a modified brand name "120 Degrees Manila" to make distinction with the original, and also to really focus on the Manila audience. I had it on YouTube and it is still available to this day. There I had the live music webcast and introduced new post-production segments. But again because of my full-time work, I did not have the chance to go back.

So right now, I am doing the revival of 120 Degrees Manila (now stylized as 120° Manila), this time via Discord. I plan to launch the live music webcast by 21 May, but unlike the first incarnation, I will do the live webcast weekly, that is every Friday, again because I have a full-time job. I am considering an early morning slot (5:30-7:30AM) for that weekly webcast because I am very much a nocturnal person I need to train myself to wake up at a proper time. Aside from the weekly music webcast, the server is now providing snippets of Manila news and Manila weather updates, which have been running since first week of April. I gladly invite you to join in the 120° Manila server on Discord. 

All in all, I am glad that during this socmed break, I decided to seek self-improvement and was able to put them into action, I accomplished things that are bringing back my happiness I longed for in the past. I know my life will just get tougher and tougher in the years ahead, I just do not want to have another regret in life. I do not want to waste the chances of making myself a whole person again. These are the things other people cannot hinder me from doing so, that is why I just want to try this time, and if this would be the last, at least I did, right? 

So I am asking God, please help me. This year's socmed hibernation made me realize I am not as happy as I was. Too much frustrations, too much disappointments eating up my smiles away. Hopefully my strategy this year is good enough to bring my happiness back.