Tuesday, February 23, 2010

In the Middle of It All...My Entry to Yugatech's Giveaway Round #2

YugaTech is having a Round#2 of its Great Gadget Giveaway. This is our chance to get that MSI Wind U123H, the 10-inch netbook with built-in 3G powered by Globe Tattoo.

So what do we need to do? Simple.

Go to the most crowded place and have your picture taken holding the sign “Follow @abeolandres and @talk2globe on Twitter! “.

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Whew! This contest has been, by far, the most difficult I have ever joined. I say this because I had to be creative which, I think I’m not, and muster some much-needed guts to pull this through. Plus, I had to contend with a very apprehensive husband (who would be my photographer) and an embarrassed tweener.

I just knew I had to join this contest for the chance to win that MSI Wind U123H.

I was already planning for this contest days after learning about it. I mean, as a working mom, I know a lot of really crowded places. My initial plan was to visit a wet market on an early Saturday morning and hold my poster in the middle of the fish section where everybody else were busy haggling. But Saturdays came and went; I still did not have an entry. No poster, nothing. It was only last Saturday night (Feb. 20), in between putting my baby to sleep and helping my toddler with her assignment, that I was finally able to squeeze in my poster-making project. I got my eldest daughter’s cartolina and used my tot’s crayons and began making my poster. I first wrote the words in pencil, starting with the letter “Q” then the letters “U-I-C-K-L-Y-!, F-O-L-L-OW” and so on. Then, I traced them with a pentel pen and crayons. My hand was a bit shaky because while I was writing, I was also thinking of my color combination. Even with that, I still had to “multi-think”. I wanted to draw a bird (for the Twitter part) but I didn’t attempt anymore since I know myself very well. I can’t even draw a nice stick-person, what more a nice bird? Nonetheless, I was happy with the overall outcome. It may be a desperate attempt to be creative yet to me it was more of a labor of love.

The next day, we started out early with our usual Sunday routine and schedule. I thought SM Megamall would be the perfect place to execute my plan.

There I stood in front of a group of students (who I thought were having an excursion) and shoppers making their way inside the mall. I had to BEG my husband to take my picture in the middle of the crowd and he was way too embarrassed to click the camera in front of all those strangers. We even had to park our kids (ages 9, 3 and 8 months) in a shaded area before I could quickly do what I had to do. My eldest told me afterwards, “Mama, you’re nakakahiya. What are you going to win ba?” I felt bad upon hearing her comment but I still told her that I could win a laptop for doing that.

On our way to our next destination that day -- to a children’s party at Frontera Verde -- I wasn’t speaking to my husband and my eldest because I suddenly felt all alone in this journey, ahh err, rather contest. I was expecting them to cheer me on instead of being embarrassed for me. But anyway, that didn’t stop me (or to put it more bluntly, it showed how desperate I was!) from asking my husband again to take my photos in front of 200+ guests who attended the party. This time, my husband was the one who acted as my “director”, prompting a lot of our friends and relatives who were there, to read the poster and ask, later on, what was that all about.

Holding the poster I made complete with spilled iced-tea markings, in the middle of the function room where we attended a children’s party.

When we got home, I immediately uploaded the pictures. However, when I saw the other entries to this contest, I didn’t want to submit my photos anymore. I thought my entries would not stand a chance at all to bagging the MSI Wind. Yes, I wanted to back out from joining but my husband was the one who boosted my spirit and told me, “Babes, i-submit mo pa rin, you worked hard for it.” That made me smile. He very well made up for his negative reaction the first time he had to photograph me.

So folks, here I am writing about my so-called travails in coming out with an entry for this contest and hoping to, well, still win the grand prize.

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