I hate you.

I do not want to hear you anymore.

People who do not know how to listen should be sentenced to die.

Please shut up.

Did I just frustrate you? Or disrupt with what you are doing? I hope not because that was not really the plan. I stumbled upon “trolling” and I was wondering if I will be an effective one.

Initially, I thought trolling is all about those trolls we have when we were still young. Frankly speaking, i do not like how the dolls look. It partly scares me and triggers an idea that it will do something bad to me at midnight. Relating how trolls look like to me, trolling means subjecting someone to frustration or a negative feeling. Since it aims to raise negative feelings, the idea of it is not really good.

Checking on your Facebook newsfeed, you may see some of your friends’ posts showing hatred to someone you do not know (or maybe yes). Sometimes you may also see words of insult which look inappropriate. Indeed, these posts are inappropriate. (I hope you can see some because I see a lot of it from my friends.)

These posts may be considered a form of cyberbullying since it aims to disrupt any online environment. Even if you are not the target of these posts, people who see these words will be disrupted and will be subjected to react in no time.

When I experienced this from some of my friends, I realized how powerful social networking sites can be not just for the good, old times with your friends but for the badass days with your frenemies as well. It may be an avenue for ranting but this should not be the case in the long run. Those rants should not be posted for the world to see, if I may say.

Trolling, as I have mentioned, just not aims to disrupt online discussions but to elicit response from the people involved as well. Since people are vulnerable to reacting to posts especially those which seem a bit off, the troller will take its role as a reacting machine constantly sending offensive posts or messages.

This undermines the role of the online environment as an avenue for strengthening ties among people. However, because we have the freedom to do what we want to and because anonymity in the Internet offers so much, we could just do nothing much about it.

All we can do is to be the most responsible users we can be of the technology we have. Weakening trolling entails patience since we are vulnerable to reacting to something in an instant. Reacting just for the sake of reacting should be minimized to avoid eliciting unnecessary and irrelevant responses from people we know and people we do not know.

Although playing with a person posting non-sense things online may be fun, it will eventually be no fun because it will be all non-sense. Entertaining trolling is another. These people will keep on posting such things when they know that people will be disrupted by their posts and these will further reinforce their actions.

Playing with trolls may be fun when we were still young. But playing with trolls (or trolling) is no fun. It reflects how we are as a person and our thinking towards other people. Eventually, it will also lead us to how we will be in the future.

We started to build our ideals when we were kids. Most of us, I assumed, wanted to be teachers, nurses and doctors. Growing up with my mom and grandmother who both know how to sew clothes, I was partly influenced to be a designer (although I admit I first wanted to be a doctor) and make people’s clothes. I even dreamed of becoming a model until I realized I am stuck with this height. This dream career was hyped up when I entered high school. I gained friends who dress really well and whose sense of fashion I really adore.

This dream of mine did not crash into ashes as I grew older. One of my professors in college and even colleagues would even compliment my sense of fashion. More so, at that point in time, I knew I would not land on that career. Not sooner than I wanted.

“Nothing is impossible when you want to achieve something” holds true to my case. Since we are in a technological age where everything seems impossible, I found ways to practice my passion in fashion.

Websites like http://looklet.com/ and http://lookbook.nu/ provided avenues for wanna-be fashion designers and models to strut off their style without the existence of those paparazzi and catwalk. These sites encouraged people like me to  expose their creativity and meet people with the same preferences.

Social networking sites also provide for this need. There exist such applications like Sorority Girl and Coco Girl which, although a bit childish, allows users to design the clothes of their avatars.

For some people like me, these applications and websites are not just mere games but avenues to vent out fashion prowess. For some, it may be an avenue just to show off all those non-sense things. Whatever it is that people think, this just shows that we are in the age where everything can be one-click away. Knowing how these tools can help us depends on our ability to discern and interpret.

It is a matter of choices and decisions.

And luckily, my passion for passion goes on!

When one dreams, anything is possible. Reality bites whenever I realize that I was not able to fulfill one of my dreams, my frustration of being a ramp model.

However, I didn't let myself stop from that. I read articles about fashion and beauty. I always make sure that I read to equip myself with the right knowledge. I try to apply things that I read. It's funny that I even learned how to apply basic makeup from Youtube tutorials. Tips about fashion? I read it too.

And given this height, who would have thought that I could still do something about this frustration? What I love most is the chance to model for some of my friends' online shops. Yes! I feel like a model whenever I do that. I join go sees whenever I can. The recent one I joined was for Cotton On when they were about to open here in the Philippines. My cute face ( as Laureen Uy commented) wasn't enough though. I also joined Belle de Jour's fashion show before for the petite section.

When I was in college, one of the most memorable frustrations-turned-aspirations moments was for the test shots I had for the batch graduation photos. I was fortunate to be one of the models of our batch. Here I share with you some of the results of it. 

I still remember one of the owners of these photo studios saying that I can't be a ramp model but I can be a commercial model. That looked like a compliment for me!

So if there's anyone out there who have the same experience as mine, don't let yourself feel bad. There's still a lot you can do to flaunt that beauty!

Say hello to the 23 year old me!