The Experience of Success and Fun - Cebu Blog Camp 2010

What a blast.

Yesterday was a day more than a hundred people won't easily forget. Over at the CAP Art Center along Jones, the first ever Cebu Blog Camp was held, with participants ranging from seasoned, veteran bloggers to those enthusiast bloggers, and even those who have just been welcomed to the world that is the blogosphere we all love. Hey, even we were all amused as early as the introduction of participants when one of us told the audience he started his blog site just last Monday. That just showed that this event is taking out the 'elitist' notion attached to the 'blogger' title for some, and allowed us to take a back seat as we all were about to witness history in the making, the pioneer of what will be a big event in the years to come.(credits to Winston Almendras for the pic used on this post. He runs BatangYagit.com)


Much to the delight of the participants (and I will admit, more especially to me), there were a lot of freebies given away even as early as the registration booth. Over there, I met up with one of the primary organizers of the event, and the owner of Through the Focal Glass, Evanjohn. He's more popularly known in the blogosphere as the Photoblogger, and he did a very good job of mixing up humor and content into delivering a great talk about photoblogging and vblogging. Yes, there were a lot of topics throughout the whole event, and these weren't given just by anybody - all the resource speakers were the masters at their field, and with this I give a great kudos to the organizers for having organized such a pool of speakers for the different fields. Marketing, Blogging platforms, Google Adsense, niches, Community building, Branding, SEO - you name it, and it was there. Such was the nature and ambience of the whole event - a venue where beginners could start off in a big way, where adept bloggers could improve more on what they had already built up, and where the seasoned veterans learned more through sharing their experiences with the good number of bloggers present. In a great way, nobody could ever feel lost or left behind with the range of topics being given, and as such, I don't think anybody ever did.

It's always a great feeling to be able to meet the people behind the blogsites they maintain. This was a great event to be able to do so, and though I did not  get to talk personally to most of them, I was still awed by their speeches and the aura they bring when they're 'in real life'. Come to think of it, there were a lot of well-known bloggers over at that event, and to be in their presence just makes you feel more than blessed to have joined such a gathering.

I sadly don't have a digital camera, because if I did, this post would have been laden with a lot of pictures from the event. However, there were a lot who did bring their cameras, and perhaps I can get the chance to grab some of the pictures soon. Of course, that will be in another blog, so please do wait for them.

Before I forget though, allow me to give some recognition to the pink team, aptly named "Team Baboy" because of the color of the swine. We were able to win the first group activity, and yes, we won prizes for it too. Cheers to Team Baboy!

As a whole, I could really say that the day was great. As with everything, you go into something having a set of expectations. With this event, there were great expectations I had coming in - I was excited as hell to meet fellow bloggers and listen to talks on how to enrich everyone's blogging experience. What surprised me though, was that not only did the event meet the expectations, they left them behind to eat their dust and overtake them as great as any race car could. It was an experience that's really worth having, and right now I'm already looking forward to next year's blog camp. By then, it's going to be a lot bigger, and hopefully we'll have more of the same yet improved topics to listen to.

Congratulations to everyone that made this event a memory that will last a lifetime. :)

(side notes)
Whoever said that giveaways and prizes were scarce, were not present at CBC 2010. Here's a rundown of the things I got after the dust settled and the Cebu Blog Camp success was born:

• A Flashdrive, courtesy of 88DB.com
• A limited edition Microsoft Windows 7 shirt, courtesy of Ng Khai
• An orange Mozilla baller band, courtesy of Mozilla.org
• A Mozilla Firefox pin, courtesy of Mozilla.org
• A roll of Mozilla stickers, courtesy of Drake (check out his blog, wazupdrake )
• A new notepad, courtesy of Nokia
• An original DVD copy of Passionata, courtesy of the organizers
• An original CD of Classical Visayan music, courtesy of the organizers
• Free lunch, rather, two free lunches, courtesy of Jolibee
• Krispy Kreme donuts!

..and many more, would you believe? I loved the event, because honestly, who wouldn't?


(more side notes)
If you were following this blog for the past few weeks and noticed that I didn't have any new posts except the one required by the CBC organizers, I apologize. I was going through a tough time, with confusions popping up here and there. That was mainly the cause of my decision to forego blogging until after CBC 2010, after I cleared up a few things with regards to my relationships to some people, among other things. But here I am, and I'll be back to posting regularly as the days wear on and as school season looms over the horizon. Hope this long post made up for the absence. I'll be more than glad to catch up on you guys, so please leave a comment if you would. Thanks!


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i couldn't take my eyes off you.

Here We Go! Cebu Blog Camp 2010

-Blogging, Expressions and Opportunities-

May 22, 2010 is going to be a big day for a lot of people. Different events are going to be held simultaneously, in different places in and around the country. Whether this be a formal suit-required event or a get-together island hopping day, we all are surely going to be engrossed in the activities wherever we may be.

For a lot of these people, this Saturday WILL be a big day. With the theme set at "Blogging, Expressions and Opportunities", the first ever Cebu Blog Camp 2010 is going to be held at the CAP Art Center, right in the heart of the Queen City of the South. It's going to be a venue not only for meeting fellow bloggers offline, but also present the chance to boost each other's passion for blogging online.

People really get excited by a big event such as this - and you can't spare me from that. I'm way excited as hell too.

The Cebu Blog Camp 2010

is co-presented by

Gold Sponsors

Sponsor and Media Partner

Bronze Sponsors

Geiser Maclang Marketing Communications, Inc.

Custom Wordpress Theme by Padd Solutions

South Florida Party Planner Magazine
Weddings, Quinceanera, Sweet Sixteen and Events Magazine

Winston Delawar Photography, a Premiere South Florida Wedding Photographer

Black Friday Deals by Jehzlau Concepts

Jupiter Suites – Free Internet and Breakfast Hotel in Makati

Media and Institution Partners

Mozilla

RCTV 36 – Official Online and TV Media Partner

Cebu Daily News – Official Print Media Partner

Blog4Reviews

Donors

Jaypee Habaradas of JaypeeOnline.net

Cebu Blog Camp 2010 is an event organized by a group of Cebu Bloggers.

One Used-Up Story

I hate making hasty generalizations. I hate having to conclude on something I don't have the full facts about. And I hate this predicament I'm in right now. Seriously.

There are just some days when you can't seem to determine whether it was a generally good day, or just plain bad. Today might have qualified as such, simply because of the fact that I still can't seem to find the words to describe the feeling I got when one of my good friends told me a little story, a story that's got the possibility of determining a lot of things that I hoped for. Yes, this 'hope' issue isn't just a distant jest at a cigarette anymore - it's grown way past that. Only this time, I'm looking for a way - no, I'm pleading - that things won't turn out this way so suddenly. The possibilities are still at their endless array, but my confidence is dwindling away faster than the F1 cars racing in Spain right now. And yes, you know how fast those cars go.

I really want to put some sort of a realization, some sort of a message here. But it seems that words do escape me sometimes. But damn...I just wish they didn't. Not now.

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this gets harder everyday.

Just Beat It

No, this isn't referring to a dead man's song that was recently covered by John Mayer and a band whose name currently escapes me. If anything, no part of music and it's industry is being referred to the title at all. You see, for all that's happened for the past few days, there's one thing I've come to realize that I should have a long time ago - I'm beat.

What would you do when you look into a mirror and find yourself having eyebags as big as your eyes? For me, always being the fun-loving self that I am, I simply laughed and smiled at myself, thinking that "hey, how many people get to have something like this?" and proceeded to go on with what was supposed to be done. In truth, being a hibernating caveman can be fulfilling at times - there's a sense of family-oriented chivalry that gets satisfied with being one. And besides, I owe them this time after having been so far away from them, both physically and figuratively, for the past year that I was attending to other matters, both in school and outside of it. Heck, it can even lead to an addiction and a sense of longing once you find yourself not tending to the daily chores around the house and helping out with the store everytime nobody else can. It truly can be something I'm used to, and this time I ain't complaining. It's been a really productive break so far, and with all I'm seeing, I feel it will only get better.

As for my self though, I remember chatting with a friend of mine just recently that it's hard to feel burned out when you do something you enjoy doing, regardless of how much effort and time you've put into it. Which is quite true for a lot of reasons, both scientifically and philosophically. Maybe it has to deal more with emotion rather than the universe of thought itself, but don't you find it a bit great when you do something you think is enjoyable, and as time passes by without any notice, you end up feeling tired but deep inside you know you're happy. It's a feeling I'm sure most of you have felt at least once in your life, especially when you've gone through the adventurous stage of secondary school - it's one of those special emotions that you wish you could have at least once every day of your life. It's a stage of fulfillment, of emotion, of positivity. Something that you can really feel, something you know is real. And this time, you don't have to make anyone else feel it for you - because in this world, words aren't needed in the emotions of genuine feeling.

You always seem to love the things that make you smile. Some have even learned to just smile and be passively rewarded by it. For others, their smiles are hiding deep behind their grim faces and fiery tempers. You see, it's not rare to see people in masks. The issue of genuity may have already come to the point that even we can't agree upon a universal meaning for that word. The huge amount of people has easily lead to a problem that's quite ironic. You're supposed to better your chances of finding genuine people the greater the population, but in the case of our world, it's different. It's actually quite the opposite, and it's led to something that's beginning to go out of control. We surely don't want to wait until that becomes the world standard, but unless we all put down our masks and put people into our trust-list, our world will eventually destroy itself in deception and self-interest.

As with everything though, there will always be something positive to look forward to. Whether it be as big as the National Elections in a few days, or as trivial as finding out your shampoo container was already empty three minutes into your shower, the truth remains that the world will always go according to how you want it to. But the secret to this is simple - there is no secret, and there shouldn't be any kept. Be real. Be genuine. And slowly, people will come to appreciate that. Eventually, people will do the same.

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wishing i could sit beside you on a bus.

Nerd in the Pink

There was a time in my life where I used to think there wasn't any difference between geeks and nerds. This thought didn't last long though, as I figured that they're two deep words that stand for even deeper representations. As you may have assumed, geeks and nerds are the ones who are cast as social misfits - those that can't seem to blend into the society well enough to be accepted by it. And it is also because of this reason that perhaps, only they have the chance of pushing past the bandwagon of society and into something only a few could experience.

There seems to be an irony in life that seems to keep on popping up every now and then. More often than not, the story goes like this - Person # (let's try using special characters this time, alphanumeric can get boring) starts off with a normal life, with normal routines, and normal, all-part-of-life experiences. Then something happens. It may be  thought, or a realization only a few have had. # then decides to pursue a certain ideal wherein he's confident that it'll have a great outcome. But because of that simple act of pursuing that thought, he gets perceived differently by society. As time goes by, he doesn't go back against his initial decision, but so does societal perception. To give labels is one way of the general mass to be able to easily identify something and comprehend what it stands for - in this case, # gets labeled as an outcast. Call it a geek, a nerd, a lone wolf, or a hero, but the truth remains that he has put himself on a level that's not the usual.

You might be wondering why I've put those last four nouns in the same category, as they seem to be a bit off of each other. The reason for that is simply because they have a common characteristic - they all chose a different path than what more than 95% of their society went with. In a figurative world, they'd be the ones that chose to becomes leaders of their own destinies and masters of their own fates. Though this may sound real cliche, the fact still remains that it is undeniable - the people who fit in that category are the few who had the initiative to stand out, the few who said to themselves "I want better." 

To everyone who read this post until this part, please allow yourselves some time for me. Do take some time off, and see for yourself that geeks and nerds aren't low-class people. See for yourself that lone wolves are just misunderstood, and that yes, they do need people too. See for yourselves that a hero, though hailed quite positively, started out as just "one of us", but eventually took a different path.

You see, it's always a good feeling to be able to have society accept you into their fold. But maybe, just maybe, being different would be even better.

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life....should get a life.

Metaphysical Gravity

Science was never the type to delve into things outside the realm of the five basic human senses. Except for a part of The Lost Symbol where Noetic Science was tackled to a point, science never gives any mind to matters of the soul, matters of thought, and matters of the heart. So why then can those two words written in the title bar of this post coexist, yet alone be put side by side and still contain some meaning? I won't say there's a clear-cut answer to that - however, it never hurts to try.

I do not claim to know anything about Noetic Science - the best part I know about it is when I tried opening it's Wikipedia page, and after reading the first few lines I accidentally pushed the Ctrl button while I was pressing the 'W' key (fyi, that accident was done on purpose). So there, don't expect me to blab about things too geeky to be cool and too nerdy to be anything academic. The reason why I am trying to fuse a philosophical adjective to a scientific subject matter would be simple - as you might have known me, I always love the duality of things.

Doesn't it always occur to you that somehow, the better things in life are never given? And when you choose to lay back and let everything else do whatever it wants, there's a fifty-fifty chance of getting a positive or a negative outcome? I'm not saying that you should get a job that you'd have a hard time at in order for you to get what you want - even that aspect is two-sided, because the best jobs are those you will enjoy doing while not minding whatever stress it may give you.

Now let's delve into the gravitational aspect of things. While it is a fact that here on earth, gravity brings us together. And while being together with someone, especially someone special to you, might take you places where only birds could fly to, we can never deny the fact that gravity is also the main reason why people get tired after walking up a long staircase. You see, gravity has this way of pulling us down simply because the earth, with it's huge mass, attracts us to it, and not because on a horizontal scale we are falling into the depths of nothingness.

How about the metaphysical aspect of things? Would you believe that there is a connection between that supposed attraction of physical mass and the mere thoughts of people and how they perceive things? I wish I knew the real answers to those questions, because it seems all we have will be just speculations. Perhaps in death, we'd get a free pass to have knowledge on every little thing that life is. Or perhaps in death, we'd get nothing, nothing at all. Yet, by having this knowledge, it will hopefully allow us not to be depressed at how things in this life go, but rather give us an appreciation that indeed, there is more to life than the realm of our five senses.

It's always been great to have some advantages at your disposal - having the freedom to do whatever you want with it will never get boring. However, as I realized today, there are some things that seem to be out-of-place, some constant itchy feeling that something is missing. Chances are big that indeed, I miss someone. We never know though - this might just be an adolescent kid speaking.

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holding back is never an option.

False Cigarettes

Just to make things clear, let me point something out - I don't smoke.

If you were thinking that the title above was a distant jest at trying to point out the concept of false 'hopes', then remind me to congratulate you next time we meet. You are right, it is my way of trying to hide what this post stands for - or rather, for what it doesn't.

The past few months where I have been breathing oxygen and exhaling carbon dioxide are - at best - a blur. Things have come and gone so fast you'd think a superhero with a red suit and little yellow wings attached to his head was around and alive. For all that my life was a few months back, you wouldn't be able to believe I was like that if we got acquainted just a few days ago. Events, happenings, times, moments, activities, works, decisions - put them all together into one cramped box and label them 'the past few months of my life', because that's how it's been. Except for the fact that I still go by the name given to me one stormy day, everything else has been touched in one way or another.

A few years back, there was this one line that I could never forget, and it is that same line that's running through my thoughts as I maul the keyboard with what's left of my fingertips. "In everything you do, you either win, or you learn" - yes, that's right. You never lose. You never did, and you never will. In a way, all that it is, is just a matter of perspective on your side. How you approach something will more often than not be the deciding factor of how you will come out of it. Having pointed this out, I hope you would have come to realize that indeed, things can go as positive as much as you want it to be, or as opposite as you do. There are just some times that one similar happening can happen to two different individuals - yet one can see it as a blessing, and the other as the worst thing that could have happened.

You might say that I am once again exploring the bowels of duality - (I might be) - yet we don't have to dwell on that aspect in order to fully comprehend things we see everyday. Come to think of it, the term of "false hopes" can even be considered a great irony - the first word being something deceptive and negative, and the second being a word and symbol of all the good that has come and will continue to come. The reason I am pointing this out because for the past few months, there was an aspect that I was confused at. I wanted to believe in something so hopeful, yet at the same time I didn't want to be disappointed in the end. As it turned out, I decided to stay on the safe side of that thought, of that concept, of that hope. Today, I will be giving myself a tap on the back, for it seems that this time - I chose well.

I could be named a fool for ever believing in the hope that something so great like that could happen to me in such sort a time. It doesn't matter though - this ain't a first.

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the best way to change your past is to look at it differently.