No really, I’m making this as a form of motivation so that I can have some form of goal

Okay let’s start with my little wants (yep, these are pretty affordable).

1. Bluetooth headset
2. Skullcandy headset (or any form of really nice sounds headset)
3. Canon 550D (yesh, I realize that the 7D is just not within my reach)
4. Sigma or Canon Lens f/2.8 70-200mm
5. Teleconverter X2.0
6. Macro reverse thingy, you know, like what maki used
7. UWA
8. Unlimited internet service every month
9. A micro four thirds camera (and my camera madness just doesn’t stop now does it )
10. A year’s subscription to HWM (it’s just too bad this can only be done in Manila T_T)

and there you have it. To those people who love me, please to start saving up.

So now, to release my inner frustrations I shall make a short story with a similar feel of what the Grimm Brothers did.

Title: Johedry and his Identity

There was a couple who had no child. The father was a respected Alchemist and the mother a clever woman who knew how to do things in a more… well, clever way.

They were both happy and successful but woe to the woman as she had no child. So she prayed to the heavens that she may have a child saying, “I mind not what he is or what he looks like so long as he be given to me.”

An enchantress who was moved by the woman’s prayer, decided to grant her wish but with a catch. The child to be born was not to have an identity. He was nothing anything ever seen in creation. He wasn’t ugly or handsome, he just was, well, we can’t really give him a description. To make it simple, he was everyone. When someone looked at him, he was everyone and nobody at the same time.

They named the child Johedry. He grew up to have the cleverness of his mother and the intelligence of his father. Yet despite these characteristics, he had no identity to distinguish him.

Over the years he grew unhappy and frustrated with his lack of identity. So he asked permission from his parents to go forth and seek his fortune elsewhere.

“Mother, father. You have given me the best comforts of life and the important education that I must retain to survive the great world! Pray that you allow me to seek my identity and seek my fortune elsewhere.”

His mother replied,“My dear child, you have given a mother the best gift of all: a loving son. And although I am saddened with the thought of you leaving you dear parents, it is best you sought your identity lest you be nobody and everybody at the same time. Now that would be a terrible thing wouldn’t it? Now give me your hands and so I may give thee my blessings. ”

And so Johedry received his parents’ blessings and went off to seek his identity.

When he was walking along a narrow path he came across an old woman with a velvet shawl stuck in a rose thorn bush. He quickly helped the old woman get off from the bush and she thanked him profusely.

She suddenly transformed into a beautiful enchantress who answered the prayer of the mother and she said, “My dear Johedry, product of my magic, you indeed have grown worthy of an identity but I fear it is beyond my powers to give you such. However, I can show you the way to having your own identity.”

“Pray you tell me oh beautiful enchantress where I may seek my identity!”, was Jahedry’s cry.

“After this path, there be a kingdom terrorized by a shadow. He goes in many forms and he knows everyone that crosses his path. Every king crowned in that kingdom is killed by the shadow. He kills each king by calling his name three times until the soul of that king is consumed by the shadow. If you win against this shadow, there lies a crown that names all. The very crown that named every creature in the beginning of the earth. There you will have the identity that you seek.”

At the end of her last word, she vanished and left Johedry pondering on this message very carefully.

He continued on his way until he came across the kingdom where everyone was filled with gloom an despair. They have had no order for several years and everyone was afraid to try to be king.

So Johedry went forward and declared himself to be king, to which the people did not mind for the men who came in here were after wealth and power, and they have grown weary of seeing all of those who attempted, die.

Johedry entered the great castle door and presented himself to the court.

“Behold! I be next to wear the crown as your new king.”

No sooner had he said these words, the floor rumbled, the windows darkened and the castle grew colder. Then out of nowhere a cold voice sang,

“Many have come, many have gone.
A king I say, this place has none.
Risk your soul, to a fate the same
Let me look now, and call your name.”

The shadow looked hard on Johedry, and looked even more. Then the shadow grew furious as he could not name Johedry for he knew not who Johedry was.

He took his great book of existence and read from it, calling Johedry, every name in creation with face and an indentity.

“Art thou John, Jake, or Jonathan James?
Or Mark, or Luke, or Jonah of Dames?
Which is your name, do you have one?
I’ve tried and guessed, and you respond to none.”

At this point the shadow couldn’t bear it no more. He dissipated and no longer bothered the kingdom ever again.

From then on Johedry lived as a king and he finally had an identity when he was crowned king of the kingdom: the man who was nobody, and everybody, and is now Johedry.

The End

(Okay I admit this story basically has no real moral, I was just writing it to channel some of my frustration. Feeling rather emo so I guess this is one way to channel it )

After going over blog after blog, from newbies to pros, from nobodies to influential bloggers; I came to a realization that I’ve been missing a very very important part of my blog. Branding.

So what’s with this branding? Why is it so important?

Actually, for more than one year I have been branding. The thing is, I have been branding my name but not my blog. I’ve called myself the Photoblogger for quite some time. This name: The Photoblogger is somewhat my personal idea because the proper spelling would be photo blogger and yet I refuse to follow with this correction. I first tried this branding when I joined Plurk and I have to say it did a pretty good job because there was a 50-60% increase in Friendship request in Plurk.

I guess I was too busy branding my name that I forgot about branding my blog. I mean come on. Who would like to read “Through the Focal Glass”? What kind of boring name is that anyway? I overlooked this whole branding thing by becoming obsessed with SEO and getting traffic using SEO. I guess there was just this lack of satisfaction when you get traffic just because people want to look for something in the web. I mean sure it gives you some level of influence as your opinion on a certain product or service will work on the searcher’s mind. But then again there’s just that nagging feeling I got that made me think: I want more!

That’s when I realized what my goal is exactly for the next few weeks. Change has to happen to my blog. I’m going to take note of the changes when I finish branding my blog.

Basically, branding is imprinting a name in a person’s mind when you make mention of a common term. For example you can say toothpaste and you get Colgate. You think photocopy and you get Xerox. You say picture and you think Kodak.

Here are a few examples of bloggers who branded themselves:

*note: these are the bloggers that come into my mind when I hear a mention of the phrases on the left side

• master seo w/ cute blue stickman – JEHZLAU
• yagit na bata w/ cool gadgets          - BATANG YAGIT
• personal blogger w/ emo tales        - MICAMYX (we love you mica! peace on the emo part )
• celebrity tech blogger                        - MCBILLY
• Mar Roxas’ blogger                              - KEVIN RAY CHUA
• Google Philippines                               -AILEEN APOLO de JESUS
• Philippine Travel Blog                        - BYAHILO
• Tech news Philippines                        -TECHNOGRA.PH or YUGATECH
• Fashion Philippines                             -BRYAN BOY
• Fashion Cebu                                          -INSTYLE CEBU
• extraordinary kid                                 -BRYAN KARL
• Cebu Gay SEO master                          -OBNOXIOUS QUEER
• mom blogger                                          -MOMBLOGGER NOEMI
• food blog                                                  -PATAY GUTOM
• diving blog                                               -A BUGGED LIFE
• bisdak blogger                                        -DAHONG LAYA
• events blogger                                        -AZRAEL
• Cebu adsense millionaire                   -SINJIN
• Mr. Ratified                                              -KOYA DREW
• Diyosa Blogger                                        -RIA JOSE
• cute blogger with a flair                      -FLAIRCANDY
• videoblogger                                           -COY CABALLES
• live talk show online                            -TALKING HEADS (Kring and Chris)
• CDO blogger head                                  -CHIQ MONTES
• Cebu Bloggers Society Head             -VERNON GO
• pretty pink girl                                        -PINK URINAL (CAI ABASS)
• infra photography and macro          -MAKI EDUARDO
• Influential blogger                                -JANETTE TORAL
• blog ethics and authority                  - JUNED SONIDO
• bi now gay later                                     -AJ MATELLA
• atheist blogger                                       -BENJ ESPINA
• political blogger                                    -TONYO CRUZ
• Chiz’s blogger                                          -BRIAN ONG
• funny personal blog                             -YOSHKE

So if you give it much thought it’s all about making the right name and the right details that you want to go with your name. So guys watch out for a change in branding for my Focal Glass

It seems like yesterday when I once stayed longer in Manila to be able to attend the 5th iBlog summit. Back then I was able to meet a whole lot of friends and I was pretty excited to once again be part of this iBlog summit.

Friday, April 16

I wake up with a complete luggage and I was ready to fly to Manila but I still had classes in the morning so I just left my stuff in the shop and I proceeded to class. The whole time I was already very excited to go out and just take a taxi to the airport but the parents wanted to send me off.

During my lunch break I rushed off to Ayala to buy some last minute pasalubongs for my friends (I don’t haz taym to shop kc T__T ) then I rushed back to school so I wouldn’t be late for class. After class I got ready, dressed up for my travel attire and then ran all the way to Alavars just to buy someone’s greatly desired pasalubong. Because I was super paranoid with the whole overweight luggage thing, I decided to unpack and repack everything again. While doing all these I did a very stupid thing which later led to a funny but stupid moment. I did not return the padlock to the luggage thinking I would need to add anything else to the bag.

Dad, mom, ahia, and I went to mass in Redemptorist and then we headed to the Airport to check in my stuff before having dinner. Because i was super paranoid I placed the padlock on my lap. This led to a rather stupid and unfortunate event (how many times have I said stupid?) In my panic and paranoia, I jumped out of the car (and prolly while unaware, said goodbye to my padlock) and then ran in the airport while hyperventilating.

I then lined up in the check in line (gosh I was uber proud of myself as this was the first time I ever flew alone ). While lining up I discovered that I lost my padlock. So what else could I think of at that time? I took out the ring from my key chain and latched it on to the two zipper handles.  (Take note this is a Samsonite Medium Travel Stroller bag with a built in Numerical Lock Code) Am I a genius or what?

10 minutes of panicking later I am sitting in Golden Cowrie in Marina Mall nomnoming on my favorite Sizzling Gambas. I was nomnoming very fast that time because boarding time was only 10 minutes away (talk about Rush hour). This day also happened to be very significant as I made my first payment ever in Credit Card. (yep, mom and dad supplemented  me with a Platinum BDO Credit Card…. with a 5000php limit X__X so much for platinum)

Off I went to the airport where Mom, Dad and Ahia said their last goodbyes as I would not be able to see them for 12 days because they are off to Holy Land. I then entered the airport in a rush (with poise pa, as if super sanay sa flying alone). Apparently my tripod needs to be checked in. So I had to go back and rush to have it checked in (I even asked the lady guard if I could bring it with me because I was afraid that I would get left behind.) I had my tripod checked in (and the Eee PC charger which I borrowed from Mom was in there o_0 and the tripod bag had no lock, daring noh?)

I went back into the gate lounge and since I was panicking I didn’t care to look at everyone’s relaxed expressions while they were all waiting for Flight PR 864 to start boarding. I walked up to the man in charge and asked if the flight PR 864 was already boarding. Though it was very embarrassing at least I already calmed down and was ready to relax during the flight.

While in flight I got to sit down in Aisle seat and just played with my 6 year old Palm T|X during the whole duration of the flight. I arrived in Manila pretty much intact and quite excited to go out already. Ahia Rell texted me that they (mak mak, jeh jeh and him) were all coming to pick  me up. This made me even more excited because Jeh jeh was supposedly not going to meet because of unforeseen reasons (or maybe reason that I don’t wanna see). I got my luggage and tripod bag and praise the Unmoved mover for all my things were in place and nothing was lost. I love PAL!

While waiting for the Nyoks I was able to see some Jejemons who are becoming quite a popular breed of humans in the net. When the Nyoks finally came I was already very excited. Mak mak was driving and Jeh jeh was in front seat. During the drive Jeh jeh, Ahia, and I tried to Bisayafy Mak mak. She did learn a whole new set of words and phrases which she later used in Twitter. (maki’s twit “maghikog ko” *facepalm*)

I was then dropped off at Kuya erik’s flat where I settled down (sorry Kuya erik for waking you up) and then I slept in preparation for iBlog 6 the next day.

Saturday April 17

We woke up pretty late because I was still exhausted from yesterday despite not doing much. The going-to-iBlog 6-early-to-network  was a phail because we were already late. Thankfully I haz new calling card designed by Ahia rell and specially picked up by Kuya erik (thanks Kuya and Ahia!!)

We ate breakfast prepared by kuya erik and then we took a taxi all the way to UP Diliman (where I was supposed to give my shoti a package from home too). This year I’m pleased to say that I finally have an ID. (What is it with me and IDs. I haz a collection of em.) When we entered the Auditorium it was packed with new faces. We knew we were late because we weren’t able to catch Han han’s talk and also because the ever inquisitive you-know-who blogger was already there (when he usually is late).

iBlog 6 was rather interesting at first but I was constantly distracted because I had to contact my shoti who could not get his stuff from home.

I learned a lot of Theoretical Aspects in Photoblogging 101 from Kuya Juned. After that it was already mostly about some product which had to do with Mobile Blogging. After the first half of the iBlog talks THE Manuel Viloria came near me and said “IRFANVIEW”. Now what in the world is IRFANVIEW? It’s a totally cool software which now aids me in my photoblogging tasks at hand. I love it! Thanks to Manuel Viloria for telling me about it.

During the lunch break it was rather fortunate that I met two bloggers from Iloilo, one of which was Habagat Central’s Bern. We discussed a little about Cebu Blog Camp and the later Visayas Bloggers Summit. I’m pretty excited for the event. It was rather unfortunate that I had to leave early together with the Tech Tanod Bloggers as we had to head over to Ateneo de Manila University where a Tech tanod session was to take place. Before that we had lunch in Mr. Kebab, I finally had the honor to meet THE Marocharim (and I still regret not having made a haiku to introduce myself to him). Gawd is he white, I seriously need to know his secret of pale-ific glory.

After lunch we then proceeded to ADMU and on the way we kidnapped Yoshke to join us. Ahia Rell had his talk first on how to make money online and then Coy then talked about Video Blogging.   It’s been a long time since I last saw him and it’s nice to meet him once more. (Coy happens to be one of my fave vloggers,its just sad that he doesn’t vlog much anymore )

After Tech Tanod we went back to UP Diliman but we were too late for the group photo T__T sayang ang Tripod ko T__T. Actually come to think of it, in the whole duration of the trip, I don’t think the tripod was of much use. I think it was only used once. Toinks.

When we arrived in UP Diliman we were able to see to Mica and Mak mak nomnoming on Isaw. When Mak mak was through with her Isaw she let me play with her Canon 7D. Sigh, Mak mak you make my heart fill with desire. Canon 7D you shall be mine. I can’t wait to see Mak mak’s Asian poses

We then head on to Mang Inasal in Makati where we ate while waiting for Cai cai. When Cai cai arrived I finally got to use my Tripod (just this one time T__T ) It was rather unfortunate that Billycoy had to go home na T__T he couldn’t join us in our Karaoke moment in Music 21.

Music 21 in Makati is a fun place to be in. I love it! There’s just something about the tight black room, huge remotes, colorful cocktail drinks, salty pika food, and modern music karaokefied while your friends just sing away. I had so much fun that night, I felt… free. (drama ayu?)

The night was well spent with out three ladies: Mica, Maki, and Cai singing the night away.  I wish we could do something like that again. And this time naman with Jeh jeh (he apparently was last seen somewhere in Nagsasa ata and then he was in an unchartered area in Google Maps)

We  then went to a Starbucks to drink the Frapuccino na Green tea (which will be the last time I’ll do so) Everyone had to go home because they had business to do so I had to head back na.

Sunday April 18

We woke up pretty late that morning (I’m thinking it had a lot to do with the cocktails) It was the annoying sounds of campaigning that woke me up. We headed over to the Sunday Market and bought lots of dimsum (hakaw FTW!!!) and then I was also able to try out the Ratatouille for the first time ever!

After washing up we went to Rockwell so I could meet my shoti there. I could really feel the distinction between the rich and the poor in Rockwell. I bet I was the only poor person there. o_o

My brother came with our beaten up car from Cebu which was nearly as old as I am. (yes, a really old car yet not old enough to be an antique, entering the very roads of Rockwell) So to avoid embarrassment we headed over to Joe’s Kebab where my brother loved to eat. It was quite near our Condo in Astoria Plaza. My brother has had his fill so we headed over to UP Diliman where he bought this cool Mango shake and then we also bought a UP-D ID strap. (I just love UP)

We attended Mass in the Parish of Holy Sacrifice in UP. Mass was every hour pala o_0 grabeh. I love the architecture of the place.

We then went to SM Mega in Ortigas so we could watch Clash of the Titans in 3D. We ate in Bigby’s. I ordered my fave: Pescado al Fresco. When we watched Clash of the Titans I really couldn’t feel it being 3D. I think the End credits is the only 3D part. I’m still disappointed and confused as to why the blue eyed wizard guy died.

After which I helped my Shoti in his Mandarin homework and we headed home. I packed up for the trip home and so I didn’t sleep..at all.

Monday April 19

On my flight home to Cebu I was already wearing my School Uniform, this of course brought a lot of attention to me. Oh well, it was a fun experience wearing uniform from Manila to Cebu.

When I arrived in Cebu I found it irritating that we passengers had to walk half a Kilometer before we could flag a Taxi because they prioritized the Taxis in the airport. Tsk tsk. So i rode on the Taxi and went to McDo Jones to eat breakfast and calm myself before taking an exam that I didn’t prepare for. Since the exam is still at 9 am I slept. When I woke up it was already 9:30 am so I had to run to school.

After I took the exam I realized my body just can’t handle it. So I went home early instead of going in my other classes. And that was the end of my adventure.

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-Alex was running wild.
-Dad was shouting cuz Alex dipped in the pool
-Alex made a sharp curve
-I made a sharp curve
-Alex made another sharp curve
-I made the wrong move
-I tipped over to the pool
-I threw my phone to the side
-I fell in the pool
-Phone is saved

PHAIL was the result of the chase. But yey for my phone that was saved! “Bow”

I felt so proud of them following by my side.

5 minutes later, I did what the helpers could not do. I found Milan.

I called her and all three big dogs followed me. Gawd that was so cool. It was something like out from a movie. (I felt like a kid fulfilling his dream of Airbud, Balto, Snow Dogs, or Lassie).

Hope to have more dog walks with large dog pack following me

First of all, I’d like to say that there has been only 2 fatalities in the Philippines which has Ah1n1 partially written on it. And these are both HIGHLY IMMUNO COMPROMISED. So why should I be worried?

But here’s the irony, I got my flu shot about a month before I have my flu. I drink vitamin C, I exercise and eat a lot of Veggies. So why did I get sick?

NO SLEEP… and once more how ironic and stupid of me.. I am making this and not sleeping (doh).

So anyway, I’d just like to thank all my friends who cared for me.

So thats it for my first post on AHini! Woooot! Rant to da max!!

one more thing:

100 years ago Americans said that when they will have a black president pigs will fly.

On the hundredth day of Obama’s presidency… SWINE FLU!