The photo above was taken not at the official Bloggers’ Kapihan held at Philippine Science High School yesterday, but at the unofficial one after the event, where I reconnected with the owners of Yugatech (or Abe Olandres, one of the speakers) and The Journal of the Jester-in-Exile, and made new connections with the bloggers who write at Temporary Madness, AWBHoldings.com, and Chickenmafia.com. If you want to match the faces with the blogs, the links actually correspond to the faces from left to right =)
I also ran into Manolo Quezon (speaker), Jove Francisco (journalist) and Noel Feria (LIS student). These were the people I already knew personally. Those I met for the first time were: Victor Villanueva (aka Bikoy, speaker), Noemi Dado (participant), and the organizers Mong Palatino, Ederic Eder and Martin Perez. Among the sponsors, it was Kenneth Yu whom I found most interesting, especially after he forgot to mention—at a blogging event—that
Philippine Genre Stories has a blog =)
Well, now that I've taken care of the obligatory link love, what did I think of the event itself? Here goes:
It was an opportunity to feel, once again, that I am truly part of the Pinoy blogosphere, which I merely observed—when I could—from across an ocean for more than a year.
It also reminded me that I need to get back to Yan ang Pinay, which has been renamed "Yan ang Filipina," and participate in the "Filipina" Writing Project and Filipina Images.
But the most interesting thing for me was to interact once again with bloggers who have encountered the same problems and difficulties I've had as a blogger, and who do not think blogging is merely a fad, or worse, a useless exercise.
I should add, though, that most of the audience was composed of high school students. Appropriately enough, the first speaker was Bikoy, who started blogging as a student and is, in fact, still a student. His emphasis on writing for an audience other than classmates and friends, and going beyond what-I-did-today stories, reminded me that I've never been a typical blogger. From the very beginning, this blog has had an agenda. I even thought I could get away with writing in the third person.
Manolo was very quotable: "Everything is political, and it all begins with sex" and "You're either a voyeur or an exhibitionist." He was talking about blogging, of course. Abe, on the other hand, cannot be quoted because much of what he said during and after the event was "off the record." This, incidentally, was not unusual among the bloggers I talked to at the event. It seems that there are a lot of bloggers' stories, especially about Pinoy blogosphere controversies, that don't make it online anymore. Hmmm... maybe that's why they came up with Bloggers’ Kapihan, so that stories-that-cannot-be-told about bloggers-who-must-not-be-named can be discussed freely =)
It also reminded me that I need to get back to Yan ang Pinay, which has been renamed "Yan ang Filipina," and participate in the "Filipina" Writing Project and Filipina Images.
But the most interesting thing for me was to interact once again with bloggers who have encountered the same problems and difficulties I've had as a blogger, and who do not think blogging is merely a fad, or worse, a useless exercise.
I should add, though, that most of the audience was composed of high school students. Appropriately enough, the first speaker was Bikoy, who started blogging as a student and is, in fact, still a student. His emphasis on writing for an audience other than classmates and friends, and going beyond what-I-did-today stories, reminded me that I've never been a typical blogger. From the very beginning, this blog has had an agenda. I even thought I could get away with writing in the third person.
Manolo was very quotable: "Everything is political, and it all begins with sex" and "You're either a voyeur or an exhibitionist." He was talking about blogging, of course. Abe, on the other hand, cannot be quoted because much of what he said during and after the event was "off the record." This, incidentally, was not unusual among the bloggers I talked to at the event. It seems that there are a lot of bloggers' stories, especially about Pinoy blogosphere controversies, that don't make it online anymore. Hmmm... maybe that's why they came up with Bloggers’ Kapihan, so that stories-that-cannot-be-told about bloggers-who-must-not-be-named can be discussed freely =)
