ronibats.com

by Annalyn S. Jusay
Published in Manila Bulletin, TechNews, Page D4
19 December 2005

For Blog-O-Rama this week, we are fortunate to talk to Ronnie Baticulon, more popularly known by his blogging nick “Ronibats.” If blogging in the Philippines looks bright, credit it to brilliant young minds like Ronnie who’s capable enough to design his unique, user-friendly website while regulary posting his thoughts as a harassed medical student. The entries are oozing with humor and irony. We hasten to add that Ronibats.com is more than an extraordinary weblog but a complete website showing the many facets of its author’s gifted mind. More in the following interview:

Please tell us something about yourself.
I am Ronnie Enriquez Baticulon, a 21-year-old third year medical student at the University of the Philippines – Philippine General Hospital (UP-PGH). They call me roni_bats in the Filipino web community, and www.ronibats.com is my personal site. The eldest of five children, I got into UP College of Medicine’s seven-year program called INTARMED in 2001; this is my fifth year in UP-PGH and I expect to become Dok Ronnie in 2008. Since 2003, I have also been a Phi and a columnist of Peyups.com, the on-line community of the University of the Philippines.

Please share with us some details about when you started it and why.
I began submitting articles for on-line posting at Peyups.com in 2002. Later that year, I applied to become a regular columnist, and thanks to Kuya Karl and Ate Mimi (the site administrators), Lightning Crashes was born in April 2003. Every second and fourth Monday of the month, I would write an article for the site. I wrote Filipino and English articles, fiction and non-fiction, whether related to my medical school experiences or not. However, I did not allow myself to write “just about anything.” Each article had to have meaning; otherwise, I would not submit the article at all.

I guess it worked. Through my column, I was able to interact with Filipinos from all over the country and from around the world. My classmates who read my column and other people’s comments on my articles would often joke that I had a “virtual fan club.” It was, and continues to be, a rewarding experience – to receive messages from people you have never even met, stating how you’ve just made them smile or laugh their hearts out, when all you did was do what you had always wanted to do. Write.

Eventually however, I felt the need to write without having to worry about style and strict grammar rules. I had to write more, with less pressure, and my twice monthly column in Peyups.com would not suffice. The solution? I got a weblog in late 2003. Blogging was a fad in Peyups.com at that time. I got my first blog in Blog-city, transferred to Blogdrive after a few months, and moved once more to Blogger after a year. Three years after becoming a member of Peyups.com, I decided to buy my own domain and webspace. I studied web design and layout, and www.ronibats.com was officially on-line in April 2005.

Other details such as your host and the blogging system you’re using.
My website actually has three blogs in it: a weblog (http://ronibats.com/weblog/), where I write about being a medical student; a writings blog (http://ronibats.com/lightningcrashes/), where I post my Peyups.com articles; and a shelf blog (http://ronibats.com/shelf/), where I review the books I read. I use Word Press (wordpress.org) in all three because I like designing my own template. Word Press has extensive documentation and an ignoramus-friendly forum, so I could play around with the scripts, codes and extensions (blog add-ons) without having to worry about accidentally obliterating three years of writing. I bought my domain name and web space from www.hostingph.com.

What do you consider as the highlight of your blogging life in the past year? How was it?
This year, I joined the 8th Philippine Web Awards, and www.ronibats.com became a finalist in the Best Personal Site category. I lost, but to have become one of the five finalists in the category with the most number of entries and to have my work recognized together with works of professional graphic artists and web designers in my first year of joining the competition were achievement enough.

Does your writing come naturally? Where do you get inspiration for your blog posts?
Thinking before writing is difficult. Writing before thinking is not. When I write articles, I do the former. When I blog, I do the latter. I get ideas when my mind is idle: while riding a bus home, while ironing five sets of uniforms, while washing the dishes, while moving my bowels, while waiting to fall asleep. My mind is a vacuum. Once I get rid of Med and my extra-curricular activities, ideas come rushing in. It takes time, though.

How does a medical student like you find time to blog? Your online/blogging habits? What advice can you give other bloggers on time management?
There are two computer stations in UP-PGH where I get to surf (and thus, blog) for free. There are also WiFi hotspots in the college and in the hospital; if a friend happens to bring his or her laptop and I get to borrow it for 30 minutes, then I get to blog. I also frequent internet shops in the UP-PGH area, most of the time past midnight.

I usually blog twice a week: a weekend post at home and a midweek post in Manila. Some of my posts are not time-dependent. I antedate these posts so that even though I may not be able to access the internet during the week, I would still have a midweek post. Don’t ask me for advice on time management; I am a nocturnal person with a Type A personality, which is why cramming works for me. I seriously doubt it would for you.

Do you abide by a certain blogging philosophy?
As my college Asian history professor would say, “Never argue from the viewpoint of ignorance.”

What do you think are the qualities of a good blogger.
Just as long as you write regularly, then you are a good blogger.

What do you think is the role of “design” in a blog? Can you tell us more about the design of your blog as well as the software/plug-ins/add-ons you’re using?
Every web page consists of two things: content and design. What people see first is design; what they are looking for is content. Hence, I do not believe in compromising web page loading time for a graphic-and-animation-heavy layout. A blog is meant to get your message across; if you want to dazzle your site visitors, create a portfolio instead.

I hardcode all of my web pages in XHTML and I layout everything using CSS. It’s the neat way of doing things, and it serves as an outlet for my obsessive-compulsive personality. I had to study PHP to be able to manipulate my Word Press blogs (if you do not wish to customize your template, there is no need to learn PHP). I draw all my graphics in Adobe Illustrator, I’m still learning Adobe Photoshop, and I have very little experience with Flash animations.

What about the choice of language ~ some people blog in English or in Tagalog only but some people like you appear to be comfortable in both languages.
95% of the time, I blog in Filipino. It is, after all, a very beautiful language. I do not feel the need to entertain foreigners in my blog. When I’m really pissed off, I usually blog in English. It is my way of inhibiting the impulse to fill the page with Filipino curses. As much as possible though, I avoid mixing languages. I may sometimes write, “Nagloloko ang monitor ng aking computer,” but I will never post, “My friend was naghihintay na kasi outside so I had to go na.” As soon as I read a sentence similar to the latter in another person’s blog, my mouse pointer instinctively moves to the close button in the upper right hand corner.

Do you have favorite blog posts? Any memorable feedback from your readers?
If I were to recommend three articles that I think you should read first, they would be “Palimos ng Kulangot,” “Gusto Kong Maging Doktor Dahil” and “Sa ChowKing.”

I have a folder in my mailbox devoted entirely to e-mails from the contact form in my website. I always take the time to reply to each of them (after all, the sender took the time to visit my site and e-mail me!). Messages range from the usual “Hello! Nice site!” to medical questions. I smile widest when reading e-mails from aspiring medical students who write that I have inspired them to reach for that MD dream. *wink*

What blogging trends do you see in the future? Do you think blogging is here to stay?
I am sure blogging is here to stay. Physician bloggers in the United States have already theorized that blogging would soon be the most commonly used method of sharing clinical cases among doctors and other health professionals.

Future plans for your blog(s).
I am coming up with a downloadable e-Book of my first 35 articles in Peyups.com. For layout and proofreading, I asked help from Sky and Noreen, two of the people who edit the Philippine blog anthology Warm Bodies. We are in the last few stages of the e-Book (entitled “ang kunwaring libro ni ronibats”) and I hope to post it for free download at my website either late December or early next year. I am also coming up with ronibats.com version 2 by summer 2006. I already have ideas about the sophomore theme and content, and I hope to join the Philippine Webby’s again come August.

(Thank you Miss Ajay for featuring ronibats.com and for the very kind introduction - roni_bats)