Socialgo.com: No Longer A Free Webhosting Site

Socialgo.com once hosted the two websites I made for my high school students. I liked it because of the many features that it offered to its users, specifically my students.

About a month ago, I prepared a Powerpoint presentation for a group of Education students where I talked about the advantages of integrating technology with classroom activities. I was able to access the two sites and to take several screenshots of their pages.


As of this writing, however, the VSULHS Literary Minds and the VSULHS Budding Writers can no longer be accessed. They completely disappeared from the world wide web. I checked Socialgo.com's home page and I didn't find the familiar "Login" button. Instead, there's that "pricing and sign-up" button: that means we have to pay before we can avail of Socialgo.com's services.


For classroom teachers who want to build websites for their students, you may try team blogging at Blogger.com or at Wordpress.com. It's not easy setting up a team blog especially when your students are not tech savvy, but this is the only option that I can think of at this time. Why Blogger.com and Wordpress.com? Both sites allow publishing without any fees; hence, you need not worry about the possibility that your posts might suddenly disappear without any trace.

Waray Words -- Edru and Yatot

Edru. I love the sound of this Waray word especially when the rolling of the letter R is exaggerated.

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Not everyone can afford to get near an edru. Only the rich can have that luxury of traveling and of going somewhere. When one boards an edru, it entails money on the part of the traveler. What is an edru? It's the Waray word for AIRPLANE.

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Edru involves flying; yatot, crawling. While the rich can afford to fly, one crawls when he/she is as poor as a rat. Well, figuratively. What is yatot? That's RAT in Waray.

Two Waray Words -- Ohataw and Ipo

Ohataw is a food container. It's a concave vessel whose shape is round. In some parts of Samar and Leyte, it is called yahong. Ohataw is a soup bowl.

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Ipo is another Waray word for misay/misai. It is also called iding, iring, misay, or uding by other Waray speakers. All these five nouns are Waray terms for cat.

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I know my mother tongue very well, yet I haven't come across any Waray word for kitten. Whether it's a cat or a kitten, it's always called ipo. To refer to a kitten, Waray speakers -- especially those from Northern Samar -- usually call it anak sa ipo (a cat's offspring).

This Site Has A New URL

I immediately bought my own domain name after I discovered that the two sites I made for my students could no longer be accessed. Well, that's the major drawback of using free webhosting sites.

Technically, this blog is only a day old and that means I have to start all over again in order for me to regain its original rankings. My Page Rank of 1/10 (it's not much, but I had to wait for several months before this site got ranked by Google) is now back to N/A. All the backlinks are gone and there's no data available for www.warayblogger.com at Alexa.com.


The good thing about not having the "blogspot" in a blog's URL is that, it's shorter and it can easily be remembered. That and my blog's security -- meaning, it won't be deleted without any warning -- are enough to keep me going. And to make me continue blogging. Oh, I also have my own email address at warayblogger.com. Yes, that's right, www.warayblogger.com is now officially mine.

Waray Tutorial -- What is Iroy?

Knowing that Cebuano-speakers think of "iroy" as a swear word, I am not and will never be comfortable using the word in front of a Cebuano-speaker. To use the phrase, "an im' iroy" is rude. It is, in this case, a swear word. This side of iroy, is what most of my Cebuano-speaking friends know.

To refer to our mothers, we lovingly say: "Siya an ako nanay" (She is my mother). I would be offended if a friend suddenly asks me, "Hain an im iroy?" (Where is your mother?). Nanay and iroy are synonymous, but we use them in different ways and in different occasions. In ordinary conversation, we refer to our mothers as nanay, not iroy. The latter suggests disrespect for the person (mother).

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It’s interesting to note that we use the same word (iroy) when we want to be dramatic or when we are emphatic, particularly when delivering a siday or lowa (poetry). Kanta Para Sa Akon Iroy ( ASong for my Mother) and Mga Rayandayan San Akon Iroy (My Mother's Wealth) are acceptable because they can pass as titles for a literary work. The Philippines is not our nanay nga tuna. We always refer to it as iroy nga tuna (motherland) as in “An iroy nga tuna matam-is pagpuy-an.” ("How sweet it is to live in our motherland!). The same word is used in reference to Mary as in, "Santa Maria, Iroy sa Diyos"  ("Holy Mary, Mother of God") and in, "Maghimaya ka Rayna, Iroy san Kaluoy" ("Hail Holy Queen, Mother of Mercy").

Nanay is conversational and informal; hence, we use it in everyday language and in ordinary discourse. Iroy, on the other hand, is formal. While it is true that “iroy” is a swear word, it is also the literary term for mother.

Would you like to know how to pronounce the words nanay and iroy correctly? I made a video for you. I also provided subtitles.