Twenty-Three Years After

 

Many people say high school is the most memorable juncture in their pedagogical endeavor.  Well for me, it’s not. I thought I enjoyed my college life most of all, probably because I was reticent and unsociable during high school—even had the hard time adopting the urban culture. In spite of that, I have kept some crazy and good memories of that chapter. Of course, during those years, I made friends and found my first love.

I’d heard from only a few and wondered what happened to most of my classmates back in high school over the years, until last year I got the invitation to a get-together. Without a doubt, I confirmed my attendance with deep excitement to see them after so many years. Just imagine everyone’s thrill and curiosity as to how we have changed after 23 long years.

Back when we were in high school at the university, we were a bunch of cute and charming, but happy-go-lucky teens, fretting about nothing but diversion, jaunts and only little about exams and school works. Moreover, we enjoyed Intramural, Foundation Day Celebration, Christmas Party, and other non-academic activities. Now, so many things have changed—physically, emotionally and financially.

So on the day of the reunion, I was surprised to see the older versions of the classmates I used to hang around 23 years ago. Receding hairlines, sizable physique, grown-up faces and inflated tummies are only few of the many changes that obviously manifested in us. Unquestionably, we have grown older in so many ways. Most of them already have their own families with grown-up children, and also very successful in their own chosen fields. But somehow, we still have that childish way of behaving. That day, we had fun and those who were not able to make it were envious of the excitement we shared. That’s how we are after 23 years.

The get-together reminded me of the realities in our existence—that we are transitory creation constantly changing with so many options at how we would want to become. As we grow old, we can look back at the choices and decisions we made in our lives. We can either laugh or frown at it; but one thing for sure, we will treasure every memory, because we still find life an amazing gift from God.

 

Photo Credit: Glizer

 

Photo Credit: Glizer

Photo Credit: Glizer

Photo Credit: Glizer

 

Check out and get a copy of my color book, A Walk Through Life at Xlibris.com. It is also available in Amazon, Barnes and Noble and other resellers worldwide.

 

Guest Blogging: Common Challenges of Bloggers

Guest blogging is now prominently claiming its place in the blogosphere. Writers and bloggers alike use this platform as a good marketing strategy to promote, advertise and sell a company product or service. It is also a better approach to sell themselves and improve their status in the blogging world. But before diving into the deep pool of guest blogging, you should know what’s going on in this exciting world if you would want to become a guest blogging champion.

What is guest blogging?

The heavier traffic your blog gets, the more opportunities will be thrown at you. Traffic could mean fame and glory, and money. But how to increase blog traffic is among the many challenges of bloggers. Guest blogging is an effective way to boost blog traffic. It can be done either you write a post for someone else’s blog or someone will write a post for your blog site. This will help expand your audience, thus creating positive impact on your blog’s traffic.

Guest Blog

A well-written, seamless and informative article is a requirement. Bloggers prefer timely, high-quality blogs posted on their sites, so well-proofed and solid articles are most likely to get accepted. A guest blogger’s good grasp of the English language, grammar and correct usage and the fundamentals of writing prove to be advantageous. But most of all, relevance is a significant criterion to consider when writing a guest article. It should leave something valuable to the readers—it could be a tip, insight and information.

Keywords

With Google’s incessant development, bloggers are now implementing stricter rules as well with regard to guest blogs. While keywords play a significant role in search engine optimization, a guest blogger should learn how to choose and use them on their articles. Keywords that would relate to money, drugs, loan, and casino are usually declined or rejected by bloggers. Reinvent your keywords and make it through.

The Links

For several crucial factors and reasons, many websites had been penalized by Google. Some site owners also lost their page ranking status and domain authorities. Thus, bloggers are also setting their own rules on links to avoid losing their sites. The guest bloggers’ challenge here is on how to use the links wisely for it to qualify to the blogger’s links guidelines. Usually, bloggers would only allow two quality backlinks, one in the body of the article and one in the byline.

Guest Blogging Opportunities

There are thousands of bloggers that allow guest posts on their sites, but not all of them are too lenient to accommodate a guest article. It’s not easy to find reliable blog sites, but it is more challenging to win a blogger’s approval to post an article. It would require enough time for research, pitching and follow ups to even find one.

The Bloggers

Most bloggers are picky. Some bloggers would kindly put a guest post up right away. There are bloggers who work in schedules. There are also those that demand payment, at different rates, for any guest posts. Frustrating ones are the non-responsive, but worst of them all are the plain swaggers.

Blogs come in themes, voice and audience and it is important that a guest blogger knows these beforehand to ensure that his guest post would fit, or be accepted. Though I don’t use this more often, pitching strategy can also be of help in getting affirmative response from a blogger.

Always work with creativity and technical details in mind. The best way to successful guest blogging is through quality, relevance and abiding the golden rules of blogging. It is always exciting and inspiring to see your articles live on different sites, so take the challenge!