As a college student, I am active with extra-curricular activities. In fact, I am willing to sacrifice my academic standing for the organization I am a part of. My college life was pretty colorful. I became a member of the school dance troupe in first year and got the opportunity to learn and appreciate the basics of jazz. On my sophomore year, I met a number of responsible students who acted as leaders in their respective departments.

Luckily, I became an officer in a department dominated by Engineering students. I also worked part-time as an encoder for the school’s newly-implemented enrollment system and took side On-the-Job Training there. It’s fun to work with people who are idealistic yet they know how to enjoy life.

I already maintained my personal blog back then and would write about my daily life. I would rant about school, my classmates, my addiction to Philippine and Korean telenovelas, celebrities, Pinoy Big Brother (nyahaha) and my family specifically my brother Carlo. I discovered that it is possible for me to earn extra income from my blog through sponsored reviews and text links in 2007.

Last week, I got the opportunity to once again visit my alma mater. This time, as one of the resource speakers for the 2011 Conference on IT Concepts: A Slice of the Web Today. Just like my previous speaking engagements, I shared my piece on the Basics of Blogging or Blogging 101. This one is quite special since I shared how I started blogging in the place where I really started to blog! 😛

I didn’t have my own computer back then. What I’d do is i’d go to the Internet Laboratory at the school’s Main Library and hope that there are vacant workstations. If the place is full, I will go straight to my grandfather’s office hoping he’s not using the computer with internet connection. If all else fails, I’d go to the main IT Laboratory and use my charm for the bosses to allow me use the computer. When all my strategies fail, I’d go out and spend hours at a nearby internet shop and pay LOL. All for the love of internet and blogging!

As a student, I maintained my personal blog and freely wrote whatever I want. I’ve gone through a number of trouble because of it (didn’t know that search engines and keywords can cause a lot of headache!) and even made my friendships with close friends complicated because of it. I don’t regret what I did in the past though because all these learning experiences molded me into the blogger that I am now.

I now a number of niche blogs – Missing Carlo was my advocacy blog as a sibling to a special child, Project52Weeks is my video blog for 2010 and Senyorita, my travel blog which is my favorite as of the moment 😀 I do have more blogs but i’d rather not disclose them here.

Back in college, we proposed that we conduct a Blogging seminar for the students. Blogging is not yet taken seriously during those days so we didn’t pushed through with the project. I’m glad that I owned a digital camera back then and took a number of pictures. Some of my college friends work in the university too. It simply felt like college again for me!

It is a dream come true for me to go back in my alma mater one day and impart something that I’ve learned after school. I simply can’t believed it happened too soon. It is also nice to see familiar faces at the venue – the people who truly knows you and believed in what you can do. I appreciate my former teachers and collegues although deep inside, I wished Kuya Stephen was there to take pictures of me while I speak onstage. I bet he’ll be happy to see me. I consider him as my number one supporter in school since he witnessed me grow from a twelve year old Yahoo Groups addict to the lakwatsera that i am now.

The program started a bit late that’s why I decided to present my talk in the fastest way possible. Did I tell you that this seminar almost didn’t make it? I’m glad that the College of Information and Computing Studies exerted much effort to make this event possible. Also, thanks to my blogger friends Hannah Villasis of Flaircandy.com who shared some insights on Social Media and Marketing and of course, Fitz Villafuerte of FitzVillafuerte.com to give us a more concrete understanding on how search engines work and its uses. Sir Gerald Bataoil, MIT also gave a fun talk on Vigilant Internet Surfing and Netiquette. Last but not the least, Don Trivino for the bonggang company 😀

The seminar was attended mostly by Basic and Advanced Computer students from various courses. Some CICS students were able to attend too and met some of them. It’s nice to see some friends who did contribute a lot to my growth as a person. If you wanna know why I am child-like yet responsible (?!), just interview them. Pare-pareho kami haha 😛

At the end of the seminar, we decided to give away some prizes to students who will ask questions. Some of the questions asked include the following:

What is your first blog post all about?

What are the risks of blogging?

Is it possible to make money online?

For the answers… uhm, secret! Hehe 😛

I would like to introduce some of my closest friends way back in college (’till now!)

Here’s Mr. Elizalde Berba – one of the ideal students of L-NU-CSIT Department years ago. We became good friends when I started my On-The-Job Training at school. He’d teach me some of the technical stuff and one time, I narrated a story about a female college student who told me her boyfriend. After telling all the good things about ideal boyfriends, we eneded the conversation with him revealing that he is the mystery boyfriend. FAIL!

Now I present  Mr. Edmon Generalao 😀 He was my classmate in one of my summer classes and he was with Iser and Dexter. Although he is a Computer Engineering student, we managed to be good friends and later on as co-officer at the ECSSA (Engineering and Computer Science Student Association). He is also a constant pigar-pigar buddy!

Mr. Gaudencio Callanta Jr. opened up my senses on Student Leadership. Thanks to the USG officers under his term for being a good influence to me. I can say that my college life is pretty rewarding because of them. Salamat 😀

I present my Mocha buddy Mr. Jaypee Tanguilig (hanggang ngayon, obviously). He is one of my closest classmate in college and we share the same interest in Entertainment and the Internet. He is also a certified lakwatsero and I am looking forward to going on an out of town trip with him soon (Antong Falls!)

With Sir Carlo Camposagrado – I first met him in my part-time job as Encoder for the school new system then later on, he became my instructor in some subjects. We managed to be good friends 😀

I would like to take this opportunity to thank Lyceum-Northwestern University especially Mr. Jaypee Tanguilig and Mrs. Carrie Bravo for taking good care of us! Also to my former instructors Sir Nimrad, Sir Mark, Sir Carlo, Sir Nimrod and Sir Ray. Thanks also to my former Kuyas that are now professionals like Elizalde Berba, Gaudencio Callanta Jr. and Edmon Generalao. Thanks also to Kreme Seen of Plato Wraps for the yummy dinner (bumalik ulit kami the next day hehe), Sir Nanoy Duque and the rest of the CICS students for the Dawel River Cruise, Simon Vistro and Josh Uy for the company on our sidetrip to Lingayen and to Lolo Peping for being my awesome Lolo forever! 😀

To the students of Lyceum-Northwestern University, just take these words by heart – Teamwork and Hard work WILL WORK! 😛 😛 😛

*** More blog entries about this special trip with Hannah, Fitz and Don will be posted soon at my travel blog, Senyorita.net 😀

Thanks to Edmon Generalao for the awesome pics!