A Teaser. . .and a Call

Watch for the 5 Part series of Manoy's Memoirs that will run starting tomorrow, Monday to Friday here at Life After Steel. It is guaranteed to tug at your heart, bring memories and perhaps make you pick up the pen and start writing.

Speaking of writing, Life After Steel is open for any article that is of interest to former NSC employees. As previously mentioned, articles need not be essay material or in perfect English. We all have stories to tell and that is all we are interested in.

Need inspiration? Manoy's Memoirs is definitely a starting point. How about - Where are you now?; How NSC led you to your new place; Anything about your new place; Iligan after NSC; A new career; NSC Memories; Old or new pictures with a short description.

Ah. . ."The possibilities are endless".

A Little Bit of Plugging

I received an early Christmas present yesterday.
Rey Adel took a short break from his usually thought-provoking and factual posts in The Grey Chronicles to write about Life After Steel. This is unsolicited, unpaid advertising guys, thus I can't help myself but link it here.
Thanks Rey for this great article!

Celebrating Christmas

With all these talks about economic gloom, worldwide recession, and job lay-offs, the idea of skipping Christmas this year does cross my mind. But Christmas has to be celebrated, no matter how simple, how restrained, or how unsure we are of the future. For Christmas is a celebration of life, of family, of friendship. And no matter where we are, there is always a gathering of NSC friends somewhere in our calendar.
Who are the NSC friends you are getting together with this season?

Pictures taken during NSC's Munting Pasko in 1991.

The JBL Scrapbook

This is a copy of the scrapbook/binder created for JBL when he visited Toronto in 2004. Excuse the amateurish work, it was the thought that counts. Obviously this is no longer current and an update is in order. This is posted in line with the purpose of "parking" all things NSC in one place.

Steel Counting

From the statistics I receive, this blog has an audience.
The figures are nothing to shout about, only that it is interesting. We have readers from far away Africa, Australia, UK, Saudi Arabia. Wow! We NSC folks have really invaded the world. I even wonder who is in Jakarta? In the US, we have readers in Maryland, North Dakota, Illinois, North Carolina, Florida, Texas, Michigan, California. In Canada, I see viewers from Alberta and British Columbia. Of course, fellow NSC colleagues from our beloved Philippines and Ontario (our second home) are keeping track too.
This just proves that the NSC community is still interested in where the others are. Despite the passing of years, diverse paths some of us have taken, and the silence some have chosen, there is still a bond that keeps us together.
I hope your contributions keep coming. While on the subject of articles, I have received e-mails and phone calls from would be contributors who says they are still drafting. Dude, let me remind you that this is not an essay writing contest. Write as you speak, write from the heart, write just for the fun of it, then click send.
To all of you, thanks a lot for dropping by. May we keep the blogging mills rolling.

Maybe

It got me into thinking, after posing the question on my first blog, posting my message on the yahoo groups and sending e-mails to a few friends, my former NSC colleagues did not respond.

Is it because...

1) They are busy?

2) They still have not heard about my blog?
3) Writing about themselves does not interest them?
4) Writing simply does not fascinate them?
Yes, life really is getting hectic and I could not argue. Writing takes time. Writing about ourselves takes even longer time. Maybe I have not reached out far enough, maybe my opening question was not interesting enough, maybe I did not ask the right person.

There must be a lot more reasons for not responding, a lot of maybes, but I am not giving up.
Writing is my leisure, my purpose is still to reconnect, and even if my only feat was to organize all my links about NSC, then I am okay.