Janina Writes Here: Dear iBlog10: (Channel Tom Cruise and Say) You... Complete... Me...

The PHBS: Likes, Andrei, Raim, and Ate Grace Nicolas at #iBlog10 <3 b="">

I took a leave of absence on April 4, which meant that when I get back to work, a tower of paperwork would await be on my desk. The probability of it being several towers is quite high. I woke up at 4AM and dragged myself to the shower. I left the house at 5:30AM to make sure that I don't kill myself in the morning MRT rush. As I made my way to UP Diliman, my head was filled with bittersweet memory of the place. In between reminiscing I nodded off, exhausted at having to wake up so early when I slept quite late the night before.

Why the sacrifice you say? One word: iBlog 10.

Last year, I also attended iBlog with the Philippine Health Bloggers Society. Here's a bit of a throwback:

From L-R: Raim, Hussein, Yours Truly, Drei, and Erick.

This year, I was only able to attend Day 1 because April 5 is my mom's birthday. But Day 1 was more than enough to convince me that the sacrifice was quite worth it.

Let me tell you why: Like my blog (Codswallop) I am also a niche-less writer. As a freelancer, I've experienced penning down everything from marketing paraphernalia to website content offering different services to articles about improving one's English. I've written business proposals, letters for lobbying a certain ideology, press releases, text blast for marketing, poetry, short horror, literotica, love stories, and even Facebook posts for advertising purposes. I've also written a lot for advocacy, which is obvious in this blog. That's a whole lot of Codswallop.

Which is why attending iBlog 10's Day 1 was perfect for me. Sure, I fell asleep a couple of times (damn exhaustion), but being able to hear all of the speakers talk and - le gasp - covering almost ALL the areas I work on as a writer and blogger is just so amazing.

Here's how Day 1 went:

In the first talk, two familiar faces took to the stage: Carlo Ople, who was one of the moderator the TG Guingona's Cybercrime Law forum I attended a couple of years ago, and Mom Blogger aka Ms. Naomi Lardizabal Dado, who I during an interview with Risa Hontiveroz. In their talk abour Bloggers as New Media Personalities, they shared their experience as they transition from bloggers to online bringers of news.

Mom Blogger, in particular, shared with us how she started blogging as a form of healing when her son died. She also shared her transition from blogging about her personal life to informing people about certain products and lastly, her work at Blogwatch, in which she focused on educating netizens regarding the Philippine politics and other social issues.

Carlo Ople was one of my personal favorites, especially when he showed us an online venture he worked on called "Bury the Past Project". Apparently the Philippines is Sex Scandal Capital of the World, and with some savvy SEO tricks, BPP pushes down sex scandal sites down three to four pages. Cool. Here's a picture of Mr. Ople and all his coolness, giving us (relatively) young bloggers advice:

Sir, yes sir! :)

The next couple of talks centered on the building online communities and digital marketing - which was why my cool boss, John Lalic, should have been there. We both would have picked up something cool.

In Building Communities Through Blogging, the Azrael Coladilla talked about spreading one's blog's network by involving new contributors who share the same interests, whereas Jinoe Gavan shared his experience in not only starting Takbo.ph, he also talked about the challenges and rewards of maintaining it. Vince Golanco, founder of When in Manila shared how he started the website and, although rather hesitant, allowed contributors to add to content, thus creating one of the most popular blogs in the Philippines today. He also talked about the perks of belonging to community blogs, which suddenly made me want to try my luck. I wonder if they publish codswallop-y stuff?

Of course, since this was iBlog, free food was served for lunch and the PHBS people and I took our grilled chicken and C2 across Malcolm Hall to enjoy UP Diliman' sprawling greenery. We also had ice cream before going back to the hall for the afternoon talks.

The next topic was really interesting for me, because it zeroed in on Digital Marketing. The panel was made up of Ate Grace Bondand Nicolas, Jonel Uy, and Fitz Villafuerte. Real interesting stuff and I suddenly wish my boss was there. Being the eager-beaver-Hermione-Granger that I was, of course I asked questions.

At this point, I have to apologize. Not only did I zonked out (I swear, I'm narcoleptic), I also had to step out because of an emergency at work. Calls, cusses, and giving my teachers some virtual (platonic) love for handling the situation the best they could were in order. When I came back, I had missed the entire talk on Interner Marketing and Advertising (which was done by Jeoff Solas, Manniz Borromeo Pabalan, and Brad Geiser)

Their talk was followed by something much closer to my heart: Blogging as Activism. Delivered by Tonyo Cruz and Francis Acero, the cruz of the talk was heart shattering and simple to the point that it almost (literally) drove me to tears:

Aye!

Day 1 of iBlog 10 ended with a bang (well, with a raffle, but that's kind of the same, really) and exhausted as I was, the event was worth. I would definitely go back next year!

Oh wait, did I mention that I happen to win an iBlog shirt from the raffle? Which made ALL the other PHBS members temporarily hate my guts. Which is fine. The Red Queen in Alice in Wonderland, played by the wonderful Helena Bonham Carter, did say "It is better to have a shirt than to be loved" or something along those lines.


PHBS members deserted me in the middle of taking this photo, because that white thing I'm holding - that's an iBlog10 shirt, friends and neighbors!