Warning: this is a long post. Promise.

I just finished writing my honoring letter to my friend who’ll be celebrating her birthday tomorrow. Making an honoring in writing was hard, but it was a rare opportunity. For one, I wouldn’t have time to tell her in person all the good things about her that the pen could do in just one sitting. Secondly, sometimes the heart should hear some affirmations which are better delivered through the power of our fingers. As I was writing the letter, I was reminiscing the fun moments we have had for the past seven years I’ve known her. I knew that at that moment of drafting the letter, I was starting to miss her and my other friends I have grown older with in my spiritual journey because I am soon leaving the country. But as I write this post now, I know that I shall be hearing from them virtually because of the power of the Internet, of blogging, in particular. So that brings me to this topic ~ journeying the road less travelled ~ blogging.

(Although my eyes feel so heavy because of lack of sleep last night, I think I still have the energy to do some updating on my blog regarding the iBlog3!)

Flashback

I was late this morning, but I don’t regret it. The lost times for the event this morning were devoted to cooking for my dear family. I woke up late so I was able to cook late. It was already 7 a.m when I woke up. My dad and youngest sibling Impin were already awake, and I guess they were pretty hungry then this morning so I immediately cooked our breakfast. Not that I’m a good cook. I am not and I feel guilty about it. But the breakfast went well for I knew that I gave my best shot! *winks*

This blog is about the iBlog3 I attended this morning. Day1 of the event!

I arrived at the UP School of Economics at 10:30 a.m. and the participants were then having their snacks! Presto! Upon entering the building, my stomach was growling even if I had just eaten my breakfast.

I registered, got my seminar kit, my meal stubs, and presented one snack stub at the booth. “Was it last 2001 when I enrolled at the economics program at the UP?” I was having memory lapses then for I could no longer remember how the building looks like. Actually I was feeling a bit nostalgic about it. Well, that’s a different entry, I suppose.

While entering the auditorium, I was telling myself, “uhuh, I feel so all alone in this event!” At that time, I was looking for sasha, but I knew that she was attending the afternoon session. I managed to sit infront so as to listen carefully at the speakers, and also to take some pics. But guess what, I forgot to adjust my DSLR cam so the pics weren’t looking great. Gasp! Anyhow, I hope I could still go back tomorrow for Day2 of iBlog3.

So while seated, my mind was wandering at the many faces inside the auditorium. I was thinking, why didn’t I bother linking with lots of Filipino bloggers out there! I was feeling so lost, so all alone in the physical version of the blogosphere, this airconditioned auditorium at the econ school! But reality bit me. I was too shy to make the move for who’s fingertalks then as compared to those bloggers out there? I mean the speakers out there. I knew that they are the speakers because I could see their pictures in their blogs indicating that they’re indeed the owners of the blogs.

THUS…

Two lessons were formed into my mind:

1) put a picture and an “about me” in your blog so that when people visit your blog, and see you in person, they would easily recognize you; and,

2) try to bloghop, make a comment, an intelligent one, so that the blogger you visited would remember you at blogging events.

While these two lessons were forming in my little mind, I heard someone calling the name of sasha. “Sasha”…she’s my online friend who featured me in one of her entries. I immediately turned my head and looked at the direction from where the voice was coming from. It was at my back - a row apart. I glanced at her ID without her looking at me. I managed to caught a glimpse of what was written there although the letters were too small. sasha.akoni.info was the URL displayed in her ID. So Sasha’s here in the morning! I asked her with an unsure look, “sasha?” to which she replied with acknowledging eyes as if saying “yes?”.

“I’m fingertalks,” I replied meekly, fearing how would others hear the name that I told her. FINGERTALKS. What’s that on earth? Oh sure, I love fingertalks, next to myself, third from my family, and fourth from God. Sasha gladly seated beside me and we chatted as if we have known each other for quite a long time. Then came lunch time, Sasha introduced me to her friends Cai and Louis. So I thought then, “oh, my blogging network has increased at iBlog3!” We were then seated in one row during the afternoon session. We had some pics taken during the afternoon break.

The topics were all interesting on Day1, and I learned a lot. In the morning session, I particularly liked how Marcelle Fabie presented his topic on Unlocking your Creative Blogging Potential. I was amazed by the magic he performed there such as the fork bending and breaking! I forgot to try it out when I reached home this evening….

Means to unlock our creativity:

1. Introspective questioning
2. Morning pages: force of will
3. Seeing something and identifying it as something else
4. Culmination

After lunch, Sasha and I ate fishball in the nearby store when we bought bottled water.

In the afternoon session, I particularly liked Dean Alfar’s presentation on Literary Blogging Experience, Observations, and Trends. I felt empowered to harness my creative writing after that lively presentation.

Later during the afternoon session, we left some minutes earlier to catch up regarding our “lives”. It’s our first eye ball or meet up so the three of us chatted for another hour in front of the sunken garden. We talked about lots of things under the sun. Wow, it felt like we have known each other for ages!

I got these freebies (online games) from iBlog3.

Four Free Online Games (Supreme Destiny, O2Jam, Dance Battle, Pet System)

DAY2 TOPICS

The following will be the topics at Day2, iBlog3:

@Blogging for Newbies

* Blogging success story of

* Photoblogging success story

* Phil. politics and the blogosphere

@Blogging Trends Track (podcasting, videocasting growth trends, blogging/Web marketing trends…)
@Blogging and Journalism Track (blogging and journalism…and a lot more)

@Professional Blogging Track (blogging for one’s career, increasing blog popularity…)

I hope to attend the afternoon’s session.

BTW

I was wondering about the title of this post. When I began writing this entry, I just posted first the title with no such idea what the content would be or if such content would be related to the title. Oftentimes, I would write the body first before writing the title. But this time, those words “…The Road Less Travelled” were forming into my mind. SO I put these words on the title field. While I was nearing the end of my post after the topics for Day2 session, the question regarding the title popped up.

Is blogging the road less travelled, yet the one which would make all the difference?

Well, I wouldn’t want to delve deeper into this topic now, maybe I could reserve this at a latter time for I already feel so sleepy. It’s morning again, Philippines, so I am leaving with you this poem of Robert Frost, 1920.

The Road Less Travelled

Two roads diverged in a yellow wood,
And sorry I could not travel both
And be one traveler, long I stood
And looked down one as far as I could
To where it bent in the undergrowth;

Then took the other, as just as fair,
And having perhaps the better claim,
Because it was grassy and wanted wear;
Though as for that the passing there
Had worn them really about the same,

And both that morning equally lay
In leaves no step had trodden black.
Oh, I kept the first for another day!
Yet knowing how way leads on to way,
I doubted if I should ever come back.

I shall be telling this with a sigh
Somewhere ages and ages hence:
Two roads diverged in a wood, and I -
I took the one less traveled by,
And that has made all the difference.

So I took the one less traveled ~ BLOGGING~

And that has made all the difference…

So long, my online friends!

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