The Host

Three-Year Old Balbal

Al Francis B. Verbal,17, is a second year college student who writes on and hosts blogs to pass time. He is based in Davao City, Philippines. However odd may it sound, he likes to be addressed as "Balbal". He is currently earning Bachelor's Degree on Secondary Education Major in English. Not that he has a heart to educate the world nor any corny advocate, but because salary really fills in an empty pocket. It's insincere. Yes, he knows that. But it is also practical. And mind you, practicality these days waters more plants than sincerity does. He works as an English Literary Editor for a college publication. This is his second blog, you can visit his youngest by clicking this. But please, not now. You still have to read this mini-biography away. 

Balbal, aside from blogging, also takes pictures occasionally. Frustrated Photographer. Yes, that's the term. His photos are of random themes. Streets. People. Nature.  Whatever-he-likes-to-shoot. Whenever he carries a camera and chances upon something melancholic, colorful, of complex patterns or of awesome textures, expect him to squat, lay, crawl or do any imaginable and unimaginable positions he can just to shoot it from a very good angle. Talk about obsession!

Balbal, feeling pro  with a Digital SLR that his journalism professor loaned their class to cover an event.

He frequently wanders barefoot around the world through books and movies. He loves to dive into fictional pieces. Mainly because powers, incantations, divination, necromancy, magic, human flight and earth benders are non-existent in the boring real world. He is obsessed with reads penned by Rick Riordan. Rick’s smartness and creativity always captivate him in any way he can be. Few of the incredible stories he has in his recesses come from his (Riordan) books. Currently, he is journeying around Egypt, Brooklyn, Russia and Duat with Carter and Sadie Kane to discover and bind the Shadow of Apophis, the Chaos god through the Kane Chronicles Book Three: The Serpent’s Shadow. His list of marvelous authors also includes Michael Scott (Author of the Secrets of The Immortal Nicholas Flammel Series), Keira Class (Author of the Selection Series), Suzanne Collins (Author of the Hunger Games Trilogy), John Green, John Grisham and Danielle Steel (though he loathes love stories). He finds books that are shelved in young-adult and middle-child section the most appealing among others in a bookstore. Whenever his sensory nerves stretch to perceive new releases under those sections, he is likely to run toward it baby-like with starry eyes. On the other hand, he, if not always, most of the time refuses to venture reading love story books. Nicholas Parks? Message in a Bottle? Dear John? A Walk to Remember? Ah, certainly not his thing.

He doesn’t like to read novels set on eBooks. He, without doubt, cannot sustain reading without eventually sniffing the brownish or yellowish pages. 

Whenever he finishes reading a novel, he likes to blab about part or parts of the story that stunned him most, the downsides of reading it, the characters he would love to remain in a sequel, his commentaries about the ending, events that should have happened instead of what has actually happened, criticisms on the plot and anything he can blab about the book.

So from being a blabbermouth, he came across a thought that why not go wired, go online. Why not share with you what he has been sharing with his friends through blogging. He’s afraid it does not make sense but like what is said, why not?