Okay okay, I know there was no doubt I would survive my iBlog 7 talk but trust me, it took a lot of positive self-talk and imagery exercises to appear all calm and collected when I got up on that stage last Saturday :)

It was truly a great honor for me to be among the roster of speakers for this years summit. I AM DEEPLY HUMBLED (okay, keeping in line with the let’s talk about me theme of my speech, I am also deeply flattered by what has transpired since then :) ) to have been given the opportunity to share how much blogging and social networking has changed my life as I know it.

I won’t summarize what transpired during the event in this post. One, because I was too nervous to be a good listener on that day  and two, there are so many brilliantly penned posts about it already so what I hope to accomplish with this post is simply to extend my deepest gratitude to everyone who supported me every step of the way :)

Thank you, first and foremost, to Miss Janette Toral and the iBlog7 team for giving me the time and space to share my thoughts about this virtual community (or like I said in my talk, virtual playground) I have discovered and become part of. It was an interesting experience to say the least, and I hope I did not disappoint :)

Thank you to all my blogger friends and the mommy blogger community who cheered for me, calmed me down and listened to me whine and complain and be all maarte about my talk…

and um…to Chats, Cookie and Teacher Julie for making kunsinte to my luho aka laughing at how I had to go buy my dress in Forever 21 right before having dinner at Chilis the night before my talk ktnxbai. Thanks too for the early birthday greetings :)

and of course to Jane who, together with Chats, actually inspired me to do this talk during one of those random girls nights out :)

To my offline/non-blogger friends who always remind me to keep myself grounded not just in the online community but in real life as well, thank you. It is through you that I have really learned how to find balance in these two worlds I live in.

It is through these two communities, I would like to think, that I have been able to recognize that Yapatoots/Teacher Ria (as I am known as in the online community) and Ria (the person) are but one and the same, albeit existing in different ways, shapes or forms.

To my new Facebook and Twitter friends (I don’t like calling you just Followers because it seems impersonal, but hey, that’s just me), I am deeply humbled by your reactions to my talk. Thank you for appreciating how I tried my best to speak not just from the heart, but also with relevance and meaningful content (aka research which may  not be my forte but I realized is not so bad after all hehe…but let’s not go there, that’s a whole other story!!!). I’d also like to give a special shout out to Alex and Kel, as well as all the other bloggers and online peeps who have said such heartwarming things about my talk.

Oh, and lest I forget, thank you Mike Abundo for…um….asking your questions :) Haha. It was quite a memorable experience. If I can survive your questions, I can survive anything, haha.

Thank you again for such an enriching experience. See you all at the 8th iBlog Summit!!!

OH OH OH…before I forget…thank you to the owners of these photos. :) I’d love to give you full credit for it but I can’t find where I got them from already :( bad bad bad…the last two, I know, are Jane‘s photos :)

For those who are asking, here’s a link to a video of my talk :) I am still trying to work on typing este transcribing what I said…um…I had a whole speech prepared but it just kinda went all sorts of other directions when I was up there haha.