The 10th Anniversary Retrospective: 2007

.:The 10th Anniversary Retrospective: 2007:.

Not pictured: blatant product placement in a soap opera.

2007. Wow. What a year, really. This was the year when I ended up being a teacher in Reedley International School, so needless to say, it was quite a wateshed of a year for me, because it was when I got back into the thick of teaching and the academe.

Yeah, I still had my pipe dreams of being a PhD or something. So sue me. Heh.

This was the year when love was in full bloom and I thought it would never end! Oh, how giddy I must have felt when this happened, and I thought that everything was just perfect. Then I wrote this, and all I could think was wow, she really is my once in a lifetime! 

And I guess she always will be. And it felt so right, because she couldn't help but say how much she loved me, too!

But I guess it's easy to say you love someone so much when you actually can't compare it just yet to the point where you truly, honestly did, eh? But that's a story for another day. Maybe in 2012, or when I do a retrospective in 2022.

The year was pretty amazing because this was when blog events started happening. We had a Blog Parteeh in 2007, and from there onwards, we never looked back, to the point that events left and right saturate the blogosphere nowadays. And I mean saturate: it brought out the best and the worst of the blogosphere, but whaddaheck, it was a natural progression of things, really. After meeting Sam Oh in 2006 and getting inspired to become a magician, I ended up hanging out with The Story Circle, who really became a huge part of my life for several years hence.

2007 was also the point where I was super crazy about Kim Chiu and Gerald Anderson, so "Sana Maulit Muli" was my favorite TV show of all time. It was pretty funny, and My Beloved just went along with it, no matter how much she rolled her eyes over the fact that I'm just super crazy over the Kimerald tandem. Yes, that's the actual tandem, and not just Kim Chiu. I was seriously a fan of the loveteam. It was also the time when I was a majorly active user in the Comic Book Resources forums, which I moved to when the Ragnarok craze killed the activity in the Otaku Boards.

Because of the fact that I hosted TOEI in 2006, though, I started becoming a presence in conventions because I tried to do my magic out there. Having said that, this was the point I met and became friends with Alodia, Ashley, Crissey, and Tricia. I would end up friends with Domz in the year after that. I don't know about you, but that was a pretty interesting time, because slowly, I was transitioning into really being a regular fixture in cons as a host.

You know what my favorite entry was, though? I think it's the one where I did the math. I still grin from ear to ear when I look at that entry. It felt even smarter than all those crazy Philosophy papers I wrote for Mr. Calasanz and everyone else.

That being said, huge things happened this year, such as being a speaker during iBlog 3. It was my first time speaking during iBlog, and it was definitely given rave reviews by everyone who watched, as it set the tone for my magic career for quite a while. That being said, not only was it a success, My Beloved was actually there.

On top of all that, I resigned from WAVE in 2007. Yeah. It was a huge leap for me to make, as I was in radio for a good three years. Still, moving to teach in Reedley was one of the best things I ever did in my life, and to this day, I still cherish that schoolyear I had with my kids from Reedley. The mere fact I'm still friends with several of my colleagues and students from Reedley, as opposed to me mostly remaining friends only with Camilo in Ateneo should demonstrate the contrast, really.

This was an awesome year for me. I was so happy. I was so in love. And I was so fearless, as I came to grow as a performer by leaps and bounds. 2008 was simply a continuation of all the blessings I've managed to accrue in 2007. It also showed with how I blogged, as the academic bug clearly bit me again, and I had ridiculously detailed posts without being so transcript heavy. It was a subtle evolution of my writing style that I think stands to this very day.

The 10th Anniversary Retrospective: 2005

.:The 10th Anniversary Retrospective: 2005:.

Suman for others!

First of all, I realized that I actually got to know Clair this year, mainly because this was the year that iBlog first happened, so I'm sorry about that error. Considering how I kept count of every conversation we had, this was highly unusual. Still, poring over hundreds of blog entries like what I'm doing on a regular basis to pull this retrospective off does kind of take its toll on me.

I was in the thick of my career, and the not-so-pleasant tailend of a relationship that showed how I woefully misunderstood what it means to love and to care about someone. It was supposedly a very happy thing when I got into my second relationship, but in reality? It was pretty much a travesty all around because I was flat out clueless what it took to make a relationship work. years from then, I look at myself now, and I realize my knowledge is still far from perfect, but I definitely saw so many thing I did wrong then that I wouldn't even consider doing now.

And I have a confession: a lot of my blog entries in 2005 really make me cringe today. I was very cavalier with privacy, and it may have been very embarrassing for the people I blogged about back then the way I wrote about them, no matter how positive I might have thought it was that I wrote about them. I still write a lot, and I still say a lot of crazy things, but one thing I feel just naturally changed over time was how my writing has been far less incriminating for other people I write about. I've gotten far less detailed and transcript-y, and this was actually a change for the better, I think.

I remember this year because it was the year where I worked for Channel 11 alongside doing radio, and I was ridiculously exhausted because of this setup. I can't imagine how my friend, DJ Aya of WOW 103.5, is doing the same thing nowadays, probably only worse. I was going through rather trying times, but overall? I was just so head over heels in love with Pomelo at this point that it seemed I was just gliding over everything that wasn't going so well in my life.

And yes, that included the first signs that showed me that the academic life wasn't really quite for me.

But one overall running theme during 2005 was suman. It happened mostly because of Dean Alfar's talk on creative blogging, and it sorta stuck for a pretty long while when a few of us who went to the talk decided to blog about suman on a weekly basis. I lasted pretty long doing that, actually.

It was the beginning of amazing things, to be honest. As I went ahead and got to know bloggers left and right due to iBlog, I also met the Sassy Lawyer, who pretty much recognized me because we've corresponded with each other in the past. And yes, iBlog was when I first met the (in)famous Mike Abundo.

2005 was a pivotal year because it was a year of huge changes: changes that would really dictate the pace in succeeding years, and 2006 was definitely going to be even more of the same.

But wow. I really cringed a lot going through my archives, so I'm thankful I managed to find this essay I wrote about the Digital Filipina issue. Amid all the jokes about the gay innuendo and amid all the cringe-worthy things I wrote about, I felt pretty good about the fact that I was writing with a very progressive slant more and more in 2005. I was starting to quote feminist/anti-ableist/anti-racist/pluralist material and echoing these sentiments even if in 2005, my notions on gender equality weren't as informed as they are nowadays.

It feels good to know that I came to my own personal journey against bigotry without any earth-shattering moment. That I quietly just realized how wrong bigotry was, and proceeded to work hard at educating myself over the years. Does that deserve any respect or adulation? Of course not. It's what all of us should be doing in the first place. I'm just glad I figured it out with minimal anguish.