Before The Week Begins...

.:Exhilarated:.

It’s a new chapter in my life, and I’m happy to be along for the ride. And true, the change of scenery yields a bit of uncertainty for me at the moment, yet in spite of that, I’m very optimistic about what lies ahead.

It’s a perfect storm and surprisingly, the year of change I expected 2011 to be. I’m not complaining at all.

That being said, there’s just so much to say and so much to do at this point that I’m a bit overwhelmed. My blogging in the past few weeks has been honestly stilted, and I couldn’t be bothered enough to write articles for the POC or the Filipino Freethinkers in quite a while, probably because I’m just far more focused on handling the things that need to be handled in my life offline. With most of the things slowly settling down, you can probably expect me to normalize sooner rather than later.

I’ve also been thinking about what to do with this blog, as I’m fast approaching ten years of blogging with, quite honestly, very minimal fanfare. I recognize I’m far from the most well-read blog on the internet, but I’d like to think that over the past decade, I’ve definitely come up  with some good insights and some entries worth reading and sharing. It’s with this realization that I consider doing a very simple contest sometime between September to October to mark the 10^th year of this blog, and give back to the readers I’ve had over the years who appreciate the things I do in my own little corner of cyberspace.

Yes, all five of you!

.:iBlog 8, Coming Right Up!:.

Well, it seems I’m going to be part of the panel discussion for iBlog 8 on the second day.  As the years have gone by, I have never missed a year of iBlog, but what makes this one pretty interesting is that this is only my second time at being a speaker for the forum, and I decided to touch on comedy writing for the not-naturally-funny as my topic, which is every bit as uncharted territory as my previous talk five years ago, when I covered creative thinking and problem awareness for the blog setting.

Throughout the years, iBlog has had its share of ups and downs, from definite highlights to controversies that have given the whole thing so much spice for the past eight years. I am definitely happy and honoured to have been witness to most of them, and will do my utmost best to continue being so.

Having said that, I went with a benign topic this year because despite the fact that I actually am very qualified to discuss a more touchy subject such as blogger ethics, I decided to not court controversy and instead contribute to good vibes because picking on unqualified people who talk about ethics while promptly breaking the very same rules they set is just way too easy (And way too fun, but I digress.). It’s also an interesting point to note that while the last three years, I felt obliged to protect my former company by holding my tongue when it came to matters like that, this time around, there is no need for me to protect anyone any longer, so if the situation ever came up while on my time, you can be sure I won’t be the one to mince words on the topic.