Last year, I said I was lost at iBlog 4. For this year, I was not lost – I was just a bit preoccupied.

You see, I’ve found a rather-perfect companion. So perfect, in fact, that I live an autistic life when I am with my companion. We shared good times, bad times, sunny days, rainy nights, bright halls and dark auditorium. We enjoyed daylight, but struggled in dark places.

OK, here’s me with my companion.

Anyway, after a year, nothing much has changed. While there were new faces at iBlog 5 (and many familiar faces^*), I did not get to know new bloggers. Again. I know I am a bit anti-social, but this is too much for my own good. Though this year, I found myself having two unofficial duties.

Not a few bloggers called me the “official” photographer, due to the number of pictures that I had uploaded (you can see the iBlog5 photoset on Ovi), and the fact that I was nonchalantly taking photos in front. Well, there was no official photographer. As I had said to a few, makapal lang mukha ko. (evil grin) Also, I was lazy to select photos upload, that is why I uploaded almost all of them. :-p

I was also made the pendot guy (Fritz’s term) by accident when the remote control thingie failed; this happened during the photoblogging session. So I was in front, taking pictures; then a vacant chair in front of a laptop invited me to sit down, not knowing that this laptop contained the presentation being used by the resource persons. So I made pendot-pendot the entire morning session.

After lunch, some friends invited me to Chocolate Kiss. Since some people swear on a stack of laptops that the said place is good, I took the opportunity to check it out. It was a good way off from Malcolm Hall, so we took the Ikot jeep, and got off at Ang Bahay ng Alumni. ChocKiss (as locals call it) is a small restaurant, and we had to wait for a table.

Freak weather – the rains decided to be partypoopers, forcing us to skip the “boring” part of iBlog5. Well, it meant extended laugh-a-minute time, with many jokes-at-the-expense-of-x-and-y thrown left and right. I was afraid for the Cebuano blogger who was with us. I hope he got home with his innocence untouched.

We walked back to Malcolm. I had decided to just take more pictures, observe the people, and went at the back. It was a different world out there, a perspective diverging from what’s happening in front. And on some points of someone’s presentation, I could not help but giggle a bit.

I was glad to have another iBlog shirt. I was actually I’d go empty-handed; I was never lucky at raffles and contests, and I still am. The shirt was black, this time.

The problem with having a camera is that most of the time, you are not in the picture. It happens most of the time. It happened this time around. This is the first time I was not in the group picture.

Speaking of pictures, take a look at Nina’s Flickr photoset. She takes better photos than I do. Sana sya na lang official photographer he he.

Skipped this year’s afterparty. I know my being anti-social will do me no good.

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Congratulations to the organizers of iBlog – UP ISP (led by JJ Disini) and Janette Toral.

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^* Familiar faces include:
– Aaron
– AJ
– Allan
– Benj
– Brian
– DJB
– Dhon Jason
– Eric
– Fritz
– Jayvee
– Jeric
– JP
– Juned
– Marc
– Mica
– Nina
– Poyt
– Winston