Music, dreams and love.

Just came from a piano concert of Maam Luci and fellow students. It was so inspiring, I suddenly had the urge to go to the piano and practice seriously again. I particularly superliked the Bernstein West Side Story for 2 pianos. Panalo!! But man, the rhythm was HARD! Rhythmically challenging. Galing nila! I really wana study that piece. If I'm not meant for theater, I should at least be able to play the music! Haha.

Thats what I can't understand about myself. Its like I have love-hate relationship with piano. Sometimes I am moved so much by piano playing and there are times when I just want to vomit over the piano and bang it until I break a string. Right now, I think I've missed the feeling of breezing through the keys as I make breathtaking music.

My dad arrived from Ilo ilo today and I was happy to see him. He's not as strict as he was before with me ever since I graduated so I find it easier to live with him under one roof. Hahaha. Thank goodness for my diploma and medal! If thats all it serves me, that would very much suffice. I remember one time back in 3rd year college, I wanted to go to a friend's party but I didn't know how to ask permission from him. I figured since I felt old enough and I was already in college, I needn't ask anymore, just simply inform. And oh boy, little did I know how much it blew away my chances.

Me: Daddy...

Dad: oh?

Me: May party po yung friend ko mamayang gabi. Pupunta lang po ako dun.

Dad: ANONG PUPUNTA KA?!?! ABA! Bakit hindi ka na nagpapaalam *hysterical*

And the rest is history! You could only imagine what happened. HAHA

And theres a while lot more daddy stories like that from me! :)) I guess I can understand him because like him, I also have tendencies to be very praning, controlling and nerbyosa...so yeah, in that aspect, I can relate to him. I think I'll be somewhat like him when I have kids of my own. Poor innocent children...Hahah. Poor innocent husband also! LOL!


Anyway, I'm just glad he's (almost) over with that stage since I've graduated and he's actually very supportive with my plans for the future (which does not involve Madrigal and taking masters... x_x) Havent told him yet about those...We'll see.

So far, the things I am doing now are giving me fulfillment. Like conducting the girls in the choir, teaching piano and getting gigs every now and then. Hmm, I just don't know how long this artist life will last. I really have no idea. Right now, I'm just taking it one day at a time and trying to relish and enjoy every moment of it and simply going with wherever place it takes me. Kinda fun, but not all the time. There are days too, when I bum around and do nothing. Its kind of extreme really. Either I'm really busy with performances or I'm almost idle.

This year so far has been a year of dreams coming true. Graduation, Madz and having a choir of my own to train and conduct. The only thing that hasn't been fulfilled on my list is my dream to be part of a professional musical. I'm on the brink of giving up. Its totally different from the culture I was honed in - chorale world, classical piano and voice. Here, how you look is important. Aside from having the talent,you have to BE and LOOK the part - which I guess, if youre just starting off, is hard to find or create. I mean, you can't be casted in a play where they're looking for foreign looking people. Or how can you cast as a leading lady if you're ugly? Or if you're extremely fat? (unless siguro you're in Hairspray. hehe) Theater is a completely different world from music, though I must it has some similarities also. I have much to learn in that craft and I'd love to experience being part of a big production if given the chance. But if not, then maybe it just isn't for me. I don't know. I believe that if you have it, you have it. If you don't, well, you'd have to work extra extra to the nth power hard if you want it that much. Like in music, there are people who are just naturally tone deaf. There are those who try and manage to succeed in singing in tune. But you cant really expect them to be recording artists. Oh wait. That happens in the Philippines. LOL. Theres auto tune na rin pala like what that Rebecca Black did. Heheh. But thats not the point. Point is, well, you can only go so far with what God and nature has given you. There are some exceptions though. I guess the question really is, how far are you willing to go and risk to be that exception?


Gosh. Its only been half of the year and so much has happened. SO MUCH. It scares me and excites me at the same time to think about what awaits for the 2nd half of the year. Hopefully all will only get better from this point. :) Lets hope Mother Earth has calmed down and gives us more pleasant seasons the following months.

Which reminds me, I wonder how Japan is doing now. I really hope they are quickly recovering from the unbelievable calamity that happened last March. Makes you really value each person you love more and inspires you to be more compassionate and loving. Everyday is a blessing. My perspective changed dramatically ever since then. I try as much as possible to always show my love and care, specially to my family and friends, every chance I get. Coz really, you never know when its the end for you or for them.

Thats all for now. Ciao!

Confessions of a legally blind person

Im thinking if should I sleep with my contact lenses on again. I've been sleeping with it on for 2 consecutive nights, taking it off for a short while during the day. I know its a bad habit to form but I really hate waking up with literally everything a blur. I can't even read the time on the clock from my bed to save my life. Most of the time, I have trouble finding my glasses which have not been updated and replaced since 1st year college. Since that time, my eyesight has increased from -5.00 to -6.00. Yes, I am legally blind. If someone were standing three meters away from me, I wouldn't even be able to notice the a single pimple as large as a 25 centavo coin. I went to school a couple of times without my contacts and without glasses(since I couldnt find them) and you could only imagine how terribly funny that went! I had so many people I didn't recognize waving at me across the hallway or at the street. I'd only identify them through their voice which greeted my name. Thats when I would smile and greet back, but if I didn't hear their voices, I'd squint a little to make out who that image could be. If I can't, either I'll say out loud, "Who are you!?". If there were instances I didn't greet back or seemed snobbish, chances are, I didn't see you! :)) Sorry!

Now see why its such a bother to take my contacts off? I'm not sure what side effects it could do to harm my eyes though but so far, my eyesight is still as terrible as it has ever been before. Its not normal for me to have it off. It feels weird when my eyes tear up when I'm not wearing it. Could this be a sign of abnormality?

I envy people with 20-20 eyesight. I don't think I've ever experienced having that. Ever since I was a girl, I've had eyesight problems. I think it was because I purposely and secretly wore glasses of my parents or relatives so I could have my eyesight damaged in order to get my mom to buy me spectacles.  I was a scheming little brat and I always got what I wanted. And now, I'm suffering for it! :(

Now I almost don't care since Ive been so used to, I don't even feel and know what I'm missing out on. Except maybe when I go swimming; unless I have goggles on, I can't open my eyes underwater. I'd have to swim lapses with eyes closed - may sound bad at first but hey, this could be an advantage when you want to 'accidentally' bump into a sexy, toned, tanned, ab-fullicious swimmer. Unfortunately, I do not possess the audacity of slovenly promiscuous women.

Its also terrible and such a hassle when my contacts dry up and one of it suddenly falls out of my eye...or misplaced somewhere on the ball of my eye and I couldn't find it. I had a missing lens once and I was forced to go outdoors with only one contact lens which I pitifully placed on my left eye. Imagine, one eye with good vision and the other one half blind. It was disorienting and made me all dizzy . I felt so pathetic!! Like one of those loser careless dorks - lost, awkward and misunderstood (but always triumphs in the end...in movies at least.) . At the end of the day, I found out that it was in my eye all along, only hidden way up in the white part, beneath my eyelids.  I wonder what would've happened if I didn't find it soon enough. Lucky me.

Even though wearing contacts has its own disadvantages, I would say it still has more advantages than downsides to it. For one, it hides the fact that you're visually weak. Two, its more aesthetically pleasing to look at than wearing thick glasses. And three, its ultimate function of all - it aids my pauperized vision.

I wonder who invented contact lenses. I'd have to thank him or her a thousand folds. What would I do without it?! I'm so appreciative for the invention of lenses and contacts, I even made a poem about it back in college entitled, "The World is Such a Lovely Place".



I have never felt like this before
You came and brought back light into my eyes
The eyes that never see the little things
Eyes that look right through whats in front of me
Now I know this is how the world is
Never been so awed by it beauty
What life have i been living
Never getting enough sunshine
It was only you who could change my view
The perfect you who taught me the essence of a leaf to a tree
And the petal to the flower
And the ant marching in the antline
Or the letter E in the word SWEET
Tis' the gentle you who gave me confidence
To leap large distances without doubt
To run wild fields without falling
To hold my head up high
To smile to others without fettering
To know what is and what is not
It is only you who could give me this joy.
Without complain, you guide me
Though invisible you may seem to others
They do not know theres an angel
holding on to me tightly
Its you who opened the heart inside me
And brought back the spark in my eye
You're the miracle God has given
The answer to my desperate prayers
What will I do without you?
I'd fall on the grass which would be nothing but green
Everything would be a blur, abstractly senseless
What am I without you?
Insecure...
Unprotected...
Vulnerable...
Blind.
Thank God for you, my dear contact lenses...



How dorky can you get huh? 

Anyway, I have to go now. My eyes are tired  and sore from looking at the laptop and its 2 in the morning. I have to sleep unless I want my eyesight to break its record once again. 

Still wondering though if I have notifications in my FB. Maybe I'll peek for just a tinsywinsy while.


And still deciding if I should take these contacts off...


Maybe I should. I think I will. 

Musings

read in a blog somewhere that growing distant from God is not something we decide when we wake up one day.One day,you may find yourself being a devout follower of your religion and then as time passes, you find yourself questioning, but still attending services. Then as days, weeks, months or years continue to roll on, you still question but give up attending services or anything related to your religion in order to seek answers. The time will come when you're too busy to even realize you don't care anymore. You have drifted apart without even knowing it. The time when it doesn't matter.That is the day you thought would never happen during your devout im-ever-so-faithful days - you become an agnostic or an atheist or whatever, you probably wouldn't care at this point. You realize, "Hey, so this is how it is to be one. Its not so bad afterall. I used to think atheists and agnostics were bad people. People who did not see the 'light'. People who thought of themselves too intelligent for the concept of religion with nonsensical and childish traditions and rituals. People too smart for God." The day realize you are one, those people whom you thought were once "bad, sinful, evil, ungrateful, not-saved", aren't "bad, sinful, evil, ungrateful, not-saved" after all. They have just been misunderstood by fundamentalists and self righteous, hard core ostracizing and discriminating religions.The great irony of that becomes clear. Then when you come to know others with same perspectives, you come to terms with it and think, its not so bad. In fact, its not bad at all. I have my morals and I'm not hurting anyone. Why should there be a god in order to have and understand compassion and love and goodness? Why should you do good because you're afraid of a god who might send me to burn in hell? You want to do good not because you're scared, you want to do good because its right.

Most people don't grow out of relationships because they actively decided to one day. They grow out of it because without even knowing, they give it less and less attention as time passes. Circumstances like work, projects, school, performances, busy schedules happen. And when you meet again with someone you knew so well, if you meet and want to meet again, you're face to face with a complete stranger you could'nt care less about. Thats what happens with friendship. Or with lovers. With family. And even with God - if you still believe in one. One day, one finds oneself so distant from the people you used to care about, and realize, its ok. You've learned to live without them before you know it. Memories do not hold firm grip on you the way they once had. They would be just like skimming through pages of a boring text book you would only read once and forget about without even trying. And it makes you neither happy nor sad. Hey, its neither right nor wrong and its no ones fault. It just is. Thats life.. Right?

random thoughts

Watching great movies, reading books and making/listening to music are currently my avenues to life. I feel like I'm dead and numb inside and those are my life-supporters. Those are the things that make me feel life. I feel most alive when I'm enraptured by art and creativity. Too bad my life isn't too much to make art of.

Empty

For these past few months, even more so these past few recent weeks, ive been feeling so empty. Life seems to make no sense at all. You live, you give, you die. And the cycle goes on for those after you until probably the world ends. I feel like we're machines designed to make sense of everything, but the truth is, at least for me, we're just as insignificant as chemicals reacting to each other. Its also recently that I've thought about not having kids ever. I told this to my close friends and all of them seemed surprised that those words came out from me, being the kid lover that I am. I know its a weird perspective but I think that thats actually a loving thing to do. To not have kidsmeans I will spare them from suffering and emptiness. Imagine, they all would have to go through that same misery and hardship every human being goes through. I look at my nephews and nieces and all I see is the pain they will go through and the balancing act they have to maintain most of their lives in order to live a 'normal', 'happy' life. They'll live most of their lives trying to understand why, what they should do, what shouldve been, what should be, how to deal and cope with life. And in the end they die, like all of us will.

Its ironic though, as empty as I might feel, and even after surrendering to that emptiness, I've been crying more frequently nowadays when I watch movies I wouldn't normally cry over before. I wonder why. Its like I either feel too much or nothing at all. How come I am touched by movies and yet life itself does not seem to have a moving effect on me? Maybe I'm not as empty as I thought I was.

Here I go again analyzing too much.