Writearticlesgetpaid.com is not like any other pay-for-ghost writing article sites out there.

For starters, registration is purely based on invite, and being invited would require you to know someone who knows the site owner himself. Good thing for me, I have a friend who directly corresponds with the owner, and so I was given a shot at registration.

For my application, I had to submit four articles that were not related to each other, but all of them needed to be completed within just 45 minutes after being assigned. I remember writing about gift cards, reloadable store coupons, baby apparel, and men’s diaper bags.

After the assessment of all four articles, I received the go signal that I can already start the next day.

First, let me discuss the pros of writearticlesgetpaid.com:

The best thing about it is the fact that it never runs out of topics that you can write about. Although some of the topics that you have to write about are not everyday, basic subjects, such as the blood’s hematocrit, the Volkswagen Bora, or Halloween costumes — still, it is easy money because you just need to write about these diverse topics for so long as your article would reach 400 words.

Second, there is no limit for how many articles you can make in a day. Depending on your free time and how able your fingers are for prolonged periods of typing (and of course your brain for thinking), this website gives you the chance to accumulate more dollars with each article that you finish. If you are home-based and you want to optimize the opportunities vis-a-vis your established working periods, you can always plan to finish, say, four articles in the morning, four in the afternoon, and two in the evening. This way, you won’t get burned out easily, and you can still have time for your other activities.

Now, on the downside:

First and foremost, the pay is not as lucrative as the other sites that I have been to. All finished and approved articles are worth only one dollar each, with of course the 400-word minimum requirement. This means that if you stick with the 10 articles a day plan that I mentioned above as an example, your 4000 words a day will just translate to 10 dollars — including with it all the effort, data mining, and what-not that you have to undergo before the submission of each article. If you think that it’s worth it, then you can go ahead and give this site a try.

For another, since it’s a website that’s purely based on invites and the writer-to-publisher traffic is typically low in any given day, there is no web support that can help you troubleshoot your site concerns.

This is actually the reason why I stopped writing for them: because I experienced some technical glitches, and the system would not accept any article that I had finished. There was no site support that I was able to communicate with and no site maintenance tab for me to air my grievances.

So naturally, I was disheartened by this.

But — I thought back then, maybe this had to happen so I would be able to come across sites that paid more and had better deals. And true enough, I discovered after just two days that yes, this was the reason for why I had to leave writearticlesgetpaid.com.

Enter, the fourth and final website.

(to be continued…)

For today’s post, I initially thought of adding my 3rd installment of my cyber-employees review, but I decided instead to write about my most recent brush with fever — high fever mind you.

Since the Philippines is a tropical country and the rainy monsoons annually come rushing in, we regularly experience a spike in the incidence of dengue fever every year.

Dengue fever, which can be transmitted through a mosquito bite (yes, these little pesky things can lethally bite, too, grrr), is a recurring epidemic in the Philippines. This particular mosquito strain thrives in clean, uncontaminated stagnant water, and they are especially aggressive during late afternoons till early evenings.

I think it was over 13 years ago when I had my first brush with dengue. It was the worst fever that I had experienced, considering that I have spent the most part of my growing up years confined in a hospital because of my poor immune system in general and my constant susceptibility to communicable diseases in particular, and I had sworn off dengue after that.

Never again: I told myself after that painful ordeal.

Just last Saturday afternoon however, I sensed fever was underway because of my heavy and warm breathing, burning eyes, and muscle spasms. I shrugged it off. But when I retired for the night, I was literally shivering in my bed. Even when I was comfortably under my thick comforter and I had two shirts on,  I was literally gritting my teeth because the slightest contact of coldness in my skin seemed to drill its way into my very bones. I had high fever.

Sunday came and went, and it was still the same thing. My lips were cracking from heat, and my head constantly ached from constant throbbing and pounding. I felt scared — because those annoying buzzing mosquitoes were all I could think of as culprits.

So naturally, I went to the hospital, had my blood checked, and was very anxious the whole time. I was literally telling myself to snap out of fever, because another bout with dengue would be too much for me. I was much pleased, however, when I saw the results, because I was within the normal platelet range.

Whew.

I realized then that I could not afford to get sick — primarily because I missed out on so many things on those days that I was just tucked beneath layers upon layers of blankets, with only my thoughts and bad dreams to keep me company. I missed out on work, I was not able to fully taste food (because them taste buds made everything taste like carton), and I was not getting restful sleep.

And now that I’m alive, alert, awake, and enthusiastic, I can’t be any happier. I really need to take care of my health more by eating green leafy vegetables (okay, I did not just say leafy), lessening my alcohol intake (which will positively impact other aspects of my life as well), and getting more sleep at night (Am I really conceding to old age here?).

Here’s to better health and lesser mosquito bites from those pesky little dengue-carriers. Cheers.

Freelancer.com is pretty much similar with oDesk in terms of the writing opportunities, as well as the compensation — the only difference is that it has simpler pages, and its website is not like oDesk’s complicated jungle maze.

However, I would have to tell you that there is really not much that I can share about it because after I made my application to around 20 different employers (yes, they offer more bids than oDesk.com), only one responded back.

But before I share the terms of that writing opportunity (head’s up: lambasting it), what I specifically liked about freelancer.com is that it has a grading scheme whereby employers can rate their employees after a project, and vice versa. Meaning, this in itself should guarantee that employers do not slavedrive their writers, and the writers do not ask for unrealistic compensation.

Much to my surprise however, THIS did not minimize the propensity for employer abuses — because the only employer who corresponded back with me was, simply put, exploitation personified. This was particularly mind-boggling because she has been rated by around a hundred writers, and she had an average approval rating of 5 stars out of five.

Here’s what happened:

First, she made me write a sample article. I passed, naturally. She then set the terms of the deal. First, I will write for her everyday, and we will be corresponding through Gmail Chat. I did not ask out the rest of the details because in her ad, she said that she would need her prospective writers to write 500-word articles.

So there I was, happily expecting to work for her, when out of the blue, she dropped the bomb.

First, she asked me: “How many articles can you write for me?”

I said, “How many words?”

She responded back, ” 300 or 500.”

I thought hard, and then said, “I can do 3 300-word articles in a day.” (But I was hesitant of course because that was too much for someone who was just feeling the waters of internet ghost writing).

Then she retorted, “Too small. I need 5 500 articles per day. Work is piling up.”

I thought, “Hold on, old lady. Even when I am just starting out, I can smell the stench of a sweatshop when I see one.”

I did not reply back. Nada. Zilch. Communication was severed.

And the worst part was, she only offered $50 for it all. No one, I believe, in his right frame of mind, will agree to such rotten terms.

Which is why after two days, I emailed her back, and told her, albeit politely, that I cannot realistically work for her. I explained that this work bulk was doable, but not only will I inevitably come up with bad articles, but more than that, I would be miserable for the next 30 days. Again, these were all said politely.

That was such a bad experience for me — which is why I left my freelancer.com account to die several days after that. The next day though, my friend asked me if I wanted to write for a website that he knows about. It was purely based on invite, the work was guaranteed everyday, and your earnings will depend on how many articles you get to finish everyday.

There was no pressure for an article quota, and so I thought: “This might finally be the website that I am looking for.”

Enter www.writearticlesgetpaid.com

(to be continued…)

When I was on an internet hiatus for three long days, I realized so many things about the internet, and how inextricably linked it has become to our lives. I used to think that the internet was just a useless appendage that people can live without — but after exhibiting withdrawal symptoms from my virtual exclusion from my cyber habitat, I have come to the conclusion that cyberdisconnect can also be a major pain in the arse.

For one thing, I have been counting on the internet to replenish my fast dwindling moolah (read:broke). Because one month ago I was an internet rookie (read:naive) and I devoured all writing opportunities that afforded me a few dollars, I think I may have been intellectually abused. For the record, I have only tried working for four websites, and here is my honest assessment of each of them:

First, is oDesk.com.

At first, I was so excited to finally be working for a cyber employer where all I would need is appropriate linking verbs, a logical sense that plural words require an s after them, and a few creative tricks up my sleeve. I signed up for it, populated my about me information, and then browsed for potential clients.

But before that, let me just say that understanding the tabs, columns, rows, and clickable icons in there was a nightmare — I honestly thought it resembled a complicated medical form that was filled out by someone with a complicated rare disease that only affects none out of 10 ten people. IT WAS THAT BAD. All these quizzes had to be taken in order to gauge not just your knowledge of their complicated website, but also to test your English if it is writer-material or not.

I applied to around 10 employers (ten was the limit for new users); all to no avail. I was crushed, heartbroken, and devastated (a sample of my knowledge in synonyms, which could’ve come in handy when one of these people at least gave me a chance). I was about to give up, when this pleasant young lady from the US emailed me and asked me to submit a trial article for her. I wrote something about a website that sold custom-made peace t-shirts.

I passed just three hours after my article submission, and so a contract was entered into by both me and Regina, my employer. My new contract (and only contract, mind you) required me to submit a 400 to 600-word article per day, or two articles (if the need arises) for 30 days. The subjects covered a wide range of topics — from car insurance to Halloween costumes, to getting a nursing degree online.

It only took me three weeks to realize though that this contract was ill-suited for me. Here’s why:

First, the amount of effort that one places into it is not commensurably compensated by the payment. A 600-word article is not as easy as it may seem, and having to skim through countless internet pages just to have that glorious article on how to dress up your kid like Freddy Krueger for Halloween isn’t worth all the effort and time. I mean I have a fair idea that ghost writing entails much and you don’t have a say on your topics, but please, compensation is the only consolation to all these mindless writeups.

Second, there was no clear structure for when a job demand was in the offing. For this, I can’t say that I fault my employer entirely — because she pretty much distributed job orders when the demands from her clients piled up. It’s just that the system needed more fine-tuning; and if a clearer and more reliable system is put in place, then I think I would gladly give it another chance. (But I really wouldn’t because of the bad, bad pay.)

Third, the payment was done by bulk — meaning, no article was compensated for until the 30-day contract specifications were met. Which means that sadly for me, I was not able to receive payment for the 15 articles or so that I made. Just sad. But because I always choose to look at the brighter side of things, I am still thankful because it made me aware that employer abuses are things to look out for for one who seeks internet employment. At least, I thought when my contract died, I know what to expect from future internet writing jobs. Just as well, because these employer excesses became much more pronounced when I landed my second writing stint.

Enter, freelancer.com.

(to be continued…)

Guys, a word of caution: do not always believe what you read in your email, even when it comes from the most reliable person in your contact list.

The other night, my dad had a hard time accessing his Yahoo Mail account — and after several failed attempts to log in, he thought that Yahoo just had a maintenance issue.

Much to our surprise, the next morning (around 7:33), my sister-in-law and I received a message from my dad’s email address that was just inaccessible the other night. This was the exact message that we received, stupidly titled “Sad News”:

How are you doing today? Am sorry i didn’t inform you about my visit to Cyprus, actually am in Cyprus right now but unfortunately for me my phone and all my money got stolen at the hotel where i lodged due to a robbery incident that happened in the hotel.This has left me in a devastating state because am stranded right now and i need your help in order to leave here. The hotel telephone lines were disconnected during the robbery, so I have access to only emails. Please kindly lend me $2000 or any amount you can afford as early as possible so that i can make arrangements and return back, i will refund it immediately when i get back. Am so confused right now and don’t know what to do, i had contacted the embassy and they only cleared me of my traveling documents. Western union seems to be the safest and quickest option for now, Please get back to me so i will give you the Western Union details. Look forward to hearing from you.

Thanks for your concern.

First off, my dad is in the Philippines. I just had breakfast, lunch, and dinner with him for the past week. Second, Cyprus?!

We all thought his email was sabotaged and that his account was hacked by lost and forlorn souls who wanted to make an easy buck out of other people’s contact lists.

Be forewarned, everyone. Do not be too trusting, especially when an email message stinks of something foul and fishy — and may God bless the souls of these desperate, desperate fellows.

It is a holiday here in the Philippines, and this is because Ramadhan has been included in Philippine legal non-working holidays. If my memory serves me right, this was initiated by the previous administration in an effort to make Muslims feel less isolated from the majority of Filipinos who are largely Catholic.

From then on, Ramadhan has been consistently made part of the legal holidays, and if you ask me, I think it has served its purpose well — because not only does this show that the government respects the religious practices of Muslims who constitute a large part of Mindanao’s population, but it can moreover afford our Muslim brothers the chance to commemorate this meaningful annual tradition.

However, in the US right now, a ruckus has ensued following the pronouncement of several local church leaders that they intend to burn copies of Quran on the first day of Ramadhan. This, according to these bizarrely esoteric people, is the best revenge after the 9/11 attacks that claimed thousands of American lives.

Even nincompoops can see that clearly, the premises established to justify this massive burning ceremony are suspended in an airy-fairy context that digresses significantly from the real merits of the issue at hand. First and most glaring is the fact that one needs to make a distinction between radical and moderate Muslims. Anyone can see that moderate Muslims just want to meditate during Ramadhan, free of harassment, and without the need to see the thick, black smoke, mixed with spite, from burnt Quran copies.

The least that these church leaders can do is to assume a much more transcendental role and stop the religious polarization that’s already existing as they speak. Of course, it does not help that this religious bigotry has to happen when a similar religious-based upheaval, the Downtown Mosque controversy in Manhattan, is dividing Manhattan residents. If you ask me though, there is no need for this differentiation, because again, radicalism as opposed to moderatism has to be established before any of these outcries become legitimate and justified. Sigh.

For a supposedly politically mature country, this sure is a surprise — but anyway, before this transforms into a bloody spitfest, allow me to just say that: In the spirit of religious diversity and universal solidarity, I join all our Muslim brothers as they prepare for and celebrate Ramadhan.

Recently, a friend gave me a rare book and I have been having the best time reading it. “The Art of Worldly Wisdom” by Baltasar Gracian was first published in 1637, and Gracian beautifully weaved maxims then that can still be applicable to practically everyone now — it’s scope includes how character can be built, intelligence, wisdom (yes, there’s a distinction between both), wit, cunning, sarcasm, business affairs, social roles, and life anecdotes in general.

Although the writing style has an Old English treatment feel to it, it is still a pretty captivating read because it resonates so much with practically all those who want to reassess their lives and life dealings so far — all with the end goal of seeking improvement in the long run.

One maxim that I particularly liked is this:

“Be slow and sure — because to last an eternity requires an eternity of preparation.”

The first time I read this, my mind went ‘whoza’ — it struck a chord that was fairly familiar; and the more I thought about it, the more I became convinced that this maxim was especially aimed at me. I remember my recent tragedy where, after having gone through the rigours of applying for my dream job, and after having successfully hurdled through all the initial recruitment obstacles, I failed after a congenital heart condition was discovered in my medical exams.

I was crushed — but perhaps this maxim is telling my heart that there are other opportunities for me that require a lifetime to prepare for, but they are also built to last an eternity. Applying for that job did not require much studying, hard work, focus, and determination (although trying to look good and appearing to be constantly congenial is taxing as it is), so going by that maxim, if it was given to me, it also could have easily been taken away from me.

So for now, I will stick to my plan B, which is my new plan A, and I wish too that I can still have the heart to  sustain myself in the new life path that I have chosen to tread.

because i know i owe it to myself (again), i am writing this piece.

it has exactly been two days after cebu was engulfed with the sinulog festival, five months since i blurbed a diary entry, and seven months after i took a plunge and readied myself for another heartache that will inevitably test my already fragile emotions, but my questions have not only lingered to haunt me,  they have even morphed into bigger questions that deal with my existential angst, my tragedy, and my despair.

i am literally and figuratively spent, used, and burnt by the festivities that i embraced wholeheartedly; and as i write today, i know i am still reeling from the euphoria of the religious event-turned-paganistic practice.

these days, it has become my habit to look for answers to questions that will never be answered, and self-actualizations that are not bound to happen within this lifetime — the absurdity, the vagueness, and the intangibility of this despair has been amplified, and will naturally commence with my submission of the inevitable defeat.

for in these troubling times, there is only one thing that i have grown to accept: that for each time my smile is bathed by the brightest of days, the foreboding of the darkest of nights constantly threatens to derail my short-lived sporadic streaks of happiness.

i think i’m lost, and there is no passage from the abyss.

the promise of the brightest sunshine continues, to this day, to be an elusive promise for me.

‘why are you still single?’

then the look of pity cushioned by a gesture of concern.

‘what’s wrong?’

clyde (deep inside): first level of rebuttal, putang ina ka.

second level, i don’t need your pity, and you can pepper someone else with your concern –

because on the third level of rebuttal, i am perfectly happy with my current state, and no amount of pitiful gestures can make me feel miserable because i know myself, i know what i currently need, and i am not desperate.

gets?

one thing that i like about being in dumaguete is that everyone looks out for everyone. concern is everywhere, and i literally mean everywhere: it’s in school, in church, in family, and in all other social circles that are really just intertwined with each other. but this supportive social base is unfortunately, also the reason why we have to entertain the annoying snootiness of those who are convinced that they have the right to intrude just because they are part of any of your social circles.

first level of rebuttal: why is it so discomforting for these people when one’s status message says single?

let me substantiate this claim.

being in a relationship, mind you, is not something as trivial as choosing who your top friends in facebook will be, or deciding what’s going to be your pulutan for cali-tan (cali and tanduay, try it, it’s love). relationships are complex — almost as complex as love (if ever it exists), and so leeway should be given to those who:

a. have been burned before

b. are still unsure of the right person or,

c. just don’t feel like being in a relationship.

because personally, i believe that no one can really predict the path of our emotions. i remember, with fondness now but with contempt when it happened, how it took me two years to forget a surreal conversation that i had with a complete stranger in a bus ride in manila 5-ish years ago, whereas a relationship that lasted for seven months was nowhere near bothering me a week after it ended.

this, for me, shows the extent of its unpredictability, its complexity notwithstanding.

society, in all honesty, is actually very imposing with its standards of what is a happy life and conversely, what constitutes its miserable half. but these standards are almost always arrived at consensually, even if this concession is not really absolute and is thus, questionable still.

this is probably the reason why society thinks this way:

happiness = relationship.

and moreover, this is why those who are subsumed under this line of thinking feel helpless, hapless, and desperate when they are without a partner — they instantly feel that their temporary demise is a foreboding of things to come: a life that is sad and empty — that they will inevitably be alone and miserable. which is why they look for relationships even when it is clearly for the wrong reasons. they try to fill the void by feigning affection towards those who are presumably as desperate as them.

first level of clarification: you are not as unsell-able as you think you are — you just need to wait for the right moment and the right person. (but this has to be tempered by how you assess yourself physically, just kidding)

second level of clarification: screw societal pressure — they don’t get to fix your heart once it gets broken by a relationship that was not supposed to happen to begin with.

‘why are you still single?’

there’s that pity again. there’s that futile attempt at hiding their concern.

and here is my rebuttal again:

putang ina ka.

‘is it something that happens as we grow older or do we have problems because as older people, we tend to overanalyze things?’

jeneil asked as silence, for once, descended on our group that night.

her question kept us quiet for a little longer — because it got us thinking: as older people, are we messed up because we have aged considerably? or are we the very reasons why we live directionless lives as of the moment, exactly eight years after high school graduation?

of course, we were the perfect mix of people to answer that question — we had in our group a registered nurse who did not know what to do with her career path what with the retrogression in the US and all, we had someone who just broke off her engagement with her erstwhile fiance, still, there was one who did not know what his life meant as of the moment and where it was leading to, and then there was me, a college junkie who just finished formal schooling after over eight years (thank god it was only seven years and a sem, yehey).

we fell silent because we tried to look for a sensible answer to her sensible question.

then edon quipped: ‘are we really miserable?’

everyone erupted in laughter — not because the answer was an obvious no, but because we all knew that in our own unguarded moments together, especially with the presence of spirits around, we crumbled in the presence of each other — admitting human frailty in the company of friends who did not judge nor took pity because they themselves felt and understood how it was to be broken.

‘how could it have come to this?’

all of us looked in different directions — but there was a subdued concession among all that what kept us together, and what will keep us together in the years to come was the comfort of our friendship and the future rounds of tagay in between heartfelt laughters and sporadic emotional outbursts.

we had become the friday night drinking club — and we knew, in that solitary moment of silence and bliss, that we will be each other’s lifesavers in the days, and drinking nights, to come.