jelly roll

Back to ballet. It's not as bad as I expected. My dad has put a condition on our going back and it still remains to be seen what happens to that, but it's okay so far. I wish the condition stays. It would really sadden me if this were my last week of dancing ballet professionally. Looking back, I know why my old career didn't take off: it was I didn't stick around long enough. I had promised myself that this time, I was going to stick around. At least for a few years. I'm praying I'll get that chance.

My dad does have a point about the system sucking. But we can't really fight the system - it will always suck this badly. If ever what we're doing now will make a difference, that difference will only kick in after our time, for the next generation. We've also got a bad economy to deal with. But they really should learn how to prioritize; more importantly how to plan the season's repertoire so that they can produce the ballet within their means. But the system sucks and my dad is only trying to protect us from that.

This strangely reminds me of my lovelife. My guy/ballet company doesn't prioritize me and yet I stay with him/the company because there's nobody/nothing I'd rather be with/doing. People advise me that the smart thing to do is leave but there's too much heartache even with the thought of leaving. There's a lot of heartache involved, but only because I care so much.

Best thing about today: the dancing.

Worst thing: I have a small roll of fat around my belly. I know it's probably just that I'm bloated because I'm ovulating, but it really sucks. Especially when I was happily skin and bones just a few weeks ago.

Mama Joel said it didn't matter if I had gained weight, any of it will be hidden behind the kimono anyway. The problem with those kimonos was some of them were made specifically small and won't close if you have breasts (which was the problem my sister and I encountered for the photo shoot). Mama Joel laughed when I explained this to him and said, "Good luck pala."

I'm taking the good luck to cross over to everything in general. At this point, I really need it.

"you know me, I take everything so seriously..."

Do you ever feel that sometimes your emotions are just so strong that you can't do anything about them, you just wait to explode? I've spent this entire weekend keeping my emotions in check.

It's strange though, who you turn to at the depths of despair. I got very nice, very comforting words from Caloy; I swear, this man always knows what to say to me, all the time. And it was touching that he knew how important ballet was to me. The thing was, this made me realize that because he's thinking this, it means he's also thinking this is where my world is and I would never leave it for, well, him. So while waiting in dread that I would have to make such a decision soon, I shouldn't have been because he was thinking he didn't want me to make such a decision at all.

Am I making sense? You'll have to forgive me. I'm so overwhelmed about the goings-on in my life that I'm trying to distract myself with things that don't make sense and Angel Corella escapism. I may blog about it all someday. Or not.

the angel girl

Before falling in love with Angel Corella, I had already been obsessed with angels. But subliminally; I wasn't really aware that it was a collective thing. I was just thinking about it because I'm extremely pleased with Angel's name, though it didn't at all contribute to my liking him. It made me think we were such a match because my name was an angel's name, Joel means "God is willing." That made me think I had always liked the name Angel for guys.

That made me think of how I always wanted to write a story with a boy named Angel in it, and he had to be cool because his name was cool. It's like, if you're a guy and your name is Angel, you have to be cool. Like three of my favorite fictional characters, the vampire with a soul from Buffy, the blue winged X-man and Tobey Maguire's character in The Cider House Rules. I would have written that story earlier but I kept changing the guy's name from Angel to something else because the character wasn't cool enough. I finally had a cool enough Angel in a story I wrote entitled "Compromise," which is in a Quill folio and made people go "Whoa!" Well, they said.

I was thinking, I had always wanted to have wings, I had always wanted to fly. I had always loved paintings and drawings of angels - muscular angels, not wee cherubs. I was always "Feh!" over Ben Affleck until he spread his angel wings in Dogma.

I came across this story in Simona Vinci's In Every Sense Like Love entitled Angel Girl. I was so excited to read it and, while waiting impatiently for the angel girl, only then thought "There I go with my obsession with angels again." It turns out to be a horrible story about this surgeon who meets this girl who started out normal until she sprouted angel wings. She was so horrified, she tried to kill herself, tried to cut her wings off, tried so many other things. The brother of the girl pleads with the surgeon to make her back into what she was and he cuts off her wings. And she's like "Finally!" and she dies. Ew.

It made me think, if I sprouted Angel wings, I'd be the happiest angel in the world. And then, I remembered that Lala once drew this picture with a naked girl in it - she had angel wings, wild hair, a star for a face and no body hair on either pits or pubes. I remember when she gave it to me, she said, "This is you." I remember feeling so pleased - I now realize why. Even if I didn't have actual wings, other people saw them anyway.

I flipped the book to close, holding my finger to mark the next story that I was going to read (which I decided would be a long time coming), and pulling out the bookmark to place it in the right spot. Lala gave me that bookmark for my birthday: it was a picture of the ocean with a pretty pattern drawn on it with white paint and a sketch of... Then my heart stopped. And I realize, it's the same girl that she drew years ago, except she's holding a different pose and she's dressed. She's got a star on her face, wild hair and angel wings.

I wonder if Lala kept track of these things, or it was some strange subconscious coincidence. Either way, it was nice to discover. After reading such a horrible story on my newfound favorite entity.

achieving perspective

I may never dance Juliet and even if I do, the importance of dancing Juliet has definitely diminished (what with my supposed Romeo making strange career changes). Seemingly connected, my new crush on Angel has also sorta diminished. Not because of what Erica said to me about him that somebody said to her. It's a more idyllic thing. It's like I was reeled in because of R&J and what it stood for, etc. I wanted to dance Juliet because of the range of emotion she portrays. And I would have loved to dance with that ill-fated Romeo (no, not Angel), it would have been very realistically emotional. Watching Angel do Romeo stood for that because he is like Angel in many ways - their dancing, their approaches to their roles, their boyishness, their slightly stocky at times built. And so, my crush on Angel happened. By extension. So when what it stood for disappoints you, the crush sort of goes away as well.

But I love this photo. If how I feel about Romeo and Juliet can be encapsulated in one image, it would be exactly this.

This was used as publicity posters in New York buses (or subways? eep, I forget) for the 2000 ABT May - July season. It's supposed to be Romeo and Juliet at the crypt, one about to die, one about to awaken. Which is strange because unlike Pazik's choreography (which is what my company does), Macmillan's crypt scene does not have Romeo and Juliet lying together at any time, except when they're both dead. And Romeo is never shirtless at any point in the ballet.

Not that I'm complaining. Aaah, such a pretty man.



Hey! The actual poster can be viewed on Angel's website (which is en Espagnol, haaaaay, what a turn on). When you get there, just click on Galeria on the menu and scroll down for Portadas. In the poster, you get to see a nippy! Shempre it got me all hot and bothered, how embarassing.

all I needed was a little black raincloud and I'd be getting some honey

How opportune. While at the MRT today, a gust of wind nearly carried me off. I had to hide behind a pillar. While it's not quite the breeze I expected, it certainly was not funny. Not to me, at least.

The Incredible Shrinking Woman

I'm off my diet. Actually, I have been for a while, but people who knew I went on this diet are still assuming that I'm still on it. Well, I'm still watching what I eat, so it's still a diet of sorts, but it's not strict as it was. If I want to eat several slices of salami, I go ahead and do so. I'm basically doing maintenance so that I don't gain weight anymore.

In truth, there was a time I was forcing myself to eat so that I would stop losing weight; especially during Bayadere when I was dancing in every scene and rehearsing night after night. Around that time, Jacqui started calling me the Incredible Shrinking Woman. There are people, not a lot, but a significant quantity, that were worried that I may be overdoing it. But I wasn't even on a diet then. And now, well, I eat frequently. I never go hungry because I avoid going hungry, meaning I eat at the first sign of a hunger pang.

Sometimes, though, I worry that maybe I'm getting too thin and I don't want to own up to it - serious anorexic behavior. There was this photo shoot I had (2 photo shoots ago, not the last one where I was convinced I'm ugly and unphotogenic) where I thought I was the fattest in my picture. I was grimacing whenever anyone opened the programme to the dancer's pages in front of me. Then, my mom says I looked bony in that picture. So, was it just my imagination? These days, I'm convinced I'm fatter than I was last week, but everytime I look in the mirror, I wonder. Just last Saturday, Jacqui compared me to a leaf and said a breeze would carry me off.

Even Niño was shocked at how thin I was. He had left the company and would take class every so often, but for a while, he got sick and wasn't able to take class. We see each other again on my birthday and before he greets me, he's like, "How'd you get so thin?" In ballet class a couple weeks later, he tells me, "You were never this thin when I was still here." I ask, "Panget?" And he smiles and shakes his head. It is the most encouraging conversation I've had recently about my weight, especially the fact that it was a dancer who was talking to me. Then again, it was also that it was Niño saying all that, and anything he says flips my flapjack.

For a while, I was thinking maybe I should gain a little, at least to get people off my case about being sick. But I really like how I look, never mind if people think I'm starving myself to death - which I'm not doing. Ballerinas are really supposed to be this thin. I know well enough to not let myself get to the Gelsey Kirkland danger zone.

Just thought you guys should know. In fact, I bought a jar of lenguas de gato this afternoon and I'm looking forward to consuming every crumb.

My japanese name is

中村 Nakamura (center of the village) 久美子 Kumiko (eternal beautiful child).

Find out your real japanese name. Created with Rum and Monkey's Name Generator.

Wow, I'm an eternal beautiful child. I love the Japanese!

"If happiness could jump and turn, it would be Angel Corella."

That was a quote from a review of his performance a few years ago and I wish I had thought of it first. I think I like Angel Corella so much because he's the kind of dancer I want to be. Of course, I don't think I'd ever get anywhere near his technique, no matter how centered my turns are and how high I jump. But I work hard, as he works hard (in Variety and Virtuosity, while some dancers were being interviewed onstage, you can see him flying around in the background, practicing his manege. His dancing is perfect, but he's still practicing his manege! Then again, perhaps that's why his dancing is perfect).

Also, and more importantly, he's not all that content with perfect technique, he's concerned about the entire performance. Here's something he said about his approach to his character when he was interviewed for Giselle:

"I don't cry as Albrecht, but playing him is very difficult emotionally. Some people see Albrecht as a cabron, a cad, just toying with Giselle. I can't play him that way. I think he is in love with her, but he is trapped: by his social position, by his life.

"That, to me, is very real. And I think it is the reality that makes the audience connect with the character. All the technique, all their virtuosity makes an impression. But it is being real that counts."

That's how I see dance, how I want to dance - good execution of the steps and a lot of soul into what I'm dancing. So I guess, I'm really looking at Angel Corella as a kindred spirit. Not that I really need a reason to be fawning over him and watching Romeo and Juliet everyday. Hee.

Jacqui eats, shoots and leaves

I once told Jacqui I was okay with facing the prospect of us just having each other for company for the rest of our lives. She replied with a big, vehement "NO WAY!!!"

Actually, we would probably be at each other's throats a lot. Like now. There was a time we didn't see each other much, so we were sweet to each other all the time. Absence making the heart grow fonder, as it were. These days, we're always in each other's faces. We're always quarreling half the time. But the other half is pretty great.

When we were kids, we would never have imagined we would be this close today. We have super little in common. Like she's so into sports, screaming her head off watching basketball and billiards on TV and I'm like so ho hum. And she's ho hum about the stuff I love, like Angel and Buffy and books with stories in them. She's currently reading this big book about Henry Kissinger and is so absorbed. I'd be asleep halfway through the first paragraph.

And we so won't fall in love with and fight over the same man. And we probably won't get it, but we'd be so relieved to be at each other's wedding. Let's just say we're hopeful.

I think though, that it's what I find the most fascinating about her, that we're so different. They're complimentary, these differences. So if there's something about us that's the same, it's a bigger deal. And whatever happens, we've got each other's back.

I don't think I could have wanted anything more in a sister. Jacqui is the world to me. Even if she doesn't want us to be maiden aunts together for the rest of our lives.

Happy birthday!

as love scenes go...

It's strange how you didn't even want to watch a movie when it first came out and how you didn't even want to watch it when you rented it along with stuff you'd rather see like One Fine Day and The Last Samurai and Mona Lisa Smile, but when you did get to see it, it turns into your favorite movie.

I'm talking about Cold Mountain. I really didn't want to see it, I thought it was going to be this long, boring war movie with a romantic subplot. Then again, this was directed by Anthony Minghella, Mr. English Patient, so what was I thinking? And, forget all the love scenes I have ever praised in the past, this is the super best love scene, well, ever!

My formerly-untapped, now-raging sexual energies aside, it did give me a quite different perspective on the entire waiting thing.

Hmm. That's all I really want to say. Out loud, at least.

By the way, did anyone know that Natalie Portman was in this movie? Did anyone watch this movie at all?

the fruit does not fall far from the tree

It was a blustery day today, a day that might make Winniether Pooh think of raiding a bee's nest for honey. Daddy had to go get new fenders for my brother's car. Mommy had to in buy cloth in Divisoria and then go to a meeting in CCP. They asked us to go with them, and then left us at the Starbucks in Diosdado Macapagal highway while they do their errands. As they pulled away, I said to Jacqui, "We're like Hansel and Gretel."

Daddy comes back for us right away, of course. We've already eaten lunch so we just sit with him as he eats. In this blustery day, I'm actually in a good mood. I'm not sick as I was the last few days. I manage to catch the joke he makes about getting a veggie sandwich because he has enough meat from his chef's salad. But the fragile truce threatens to unravel. That irritation with him slowly tries to creep in, scratching the surface. Which is understandable. Just the other day, we had exploded at each other, saying hurtful things, almost unforgivable things. Maybe I hadn't forgiven him yet. After finishing his lunch, he wants to sit outside so he can smoke. Outside, I shiver in my tank top, starting to think this blustery day was full of crap.

I figure he hasn't forgiven me yet, either. He wants to talk about what we had fought about - not the fight itself but the circumstances that surrounded it. It's like he hasn't achieved closure with it yet; we had stopped screaming at each other because he had deduced that I was just like him - rebellious and abrasive; the difference was I wasn't reprimanded as much by my mother not to take things against my father, without whom I would not exist. We stopped fighting because it had become my mother's fault. I was too sick to argue anymore. Anyway, he wants to talk about what he won't stop talking about the past week and I try not to be rebellious and abrasive. I chide myself that I do owe him something - I would after all not exist without him. I'm also probably just in that weird mood because I've been reading Simona Vinci and her depression drenched stories and today, the story I was reading was about a woman sick of all men and was trying to purge herself of them. I was not so overly dramatic to imagine I wanted to purge myself of my own father.

And as I was convincing myself of this, Daddy got up and switched seats so that his body would block me from the blast of wind that made me shiver.

I look at my Dad, my frustrating Dad, my rebellious and abrasive Dad, and I start to understand why this thing he won't leave alone is so important to him. I stop feeling frustrated and we carry on a decent conversation; perhaps the conversation we would have had last Monday if I didn't take stuff he said the wrong way. Perhaps not.

Later, he goes into Starbucks and gets a drink. It turns out he buys it for me, it's a White Chocolate Mocha, which I actually don't buy anymore, but it's nice. Maybe we are the same; maybe when I'm not frustrating, rebellious, abrasive and not going on and on nonstop about something that's bothering me, I'm an okay human being.

When it's time to pick my mom up from CCP, he tells us to be careful with the fenders that are lying in the back of the Brazilia; he warns us, the edges are sharp. Automatically, my sister and I feel our fingers along the edges to check how sharp and we laugh. We recount that story to my mom, with my sister saying, "Ang titigas ng ulo no?" My mom agrees and says, "Manang mana." My dad chuckles.

an artfully detached, enigmatic voice

I think I have to mute the Simona Vinci in my head. I'm almost done with her short fiction anthology entitled In Every Sense Like Love, and I'm getting more and more disturbed each day. Although she uses the word "love" in her title, the book is more about why love doesn't work. She focuses on obsession, on loss, on the bitterness of the loss, and she's not shy about becoming gross at any moment. I bought this book in 2002 and I remember why I haven't finished it yet. Reading her straight through is like sitting through five root canals one after another.

There are parts in her writing that are kinda feh, though there are many moments that her words are so beautiful that you wonder if her genius only occurs in flashes. I guess because I'm old and jaded, I feel that a lot of her anger is misplaced. Maybe if I had read her a few years earlier, I'd love her. But not now, not really.

What bothers me the most is I could have been her. Maybe not as demented, but the blurb in the back of her book says she has an "artfully detached, enigmatic voice..." A lot of people describe my fiction that way. Well, not in those words, but the "detached" comes up a lot. I'm glad that was established way before I ever discovered Simona. Still, I'm finding it scary. I could have swung that way. I'm scared and relieved.

what if i do not need springs of any kind?

I would have had a lot of TV time the last few days but I was sick so I've only seen a few movies and a lot of time to think about those movies I saw. Particularly this movie on the Hallmark Channel entitled The Roman Spring of Mrs Stone. It stars Helen Mirren as an older woman/ former celebrated Broadway actress living in Rome and her relationship with a much younger man who's obviously after her money, played so well by Olivier Martinez. Actually, I want to see it from the start because there's this thing with this street garcon that I don't understand and I'm thinking maybe it's explained at the start of the movie.

Anyway. There's this series of scenes that really got to me. So, they start their brash affair, I think after Mrs Stone (Mirren) makes it clear to Paolo (Martinez) that she's too old for him and he's too beautiful for her. Like that ever stopped anyone before, hmph. You would think that it's easy to define their relationship. He's there for her money, she's there for his nice, supple body. She looks at herself in the mirror a lot and feels insecure about the relationship, thinking he would want to leave eventually.

The scenes that got to me were when her writer friend sends her his finished play and she takes it out of the package and says out loud, "Bravo, Christopher!" The camera is on Paolo, who looks up, looking disturbed. In that instant, you can see he's as insecure as she is - I get that, it's never wholly flattering to be wanted just for your body. But he capitalizes on that anyway: later, he wakes up in the middle of the night, alone in the bed. He covers himself with the blanket (a silk sheet, actually, sigh, Olivier Martinez in nothing but a silk sheet...) and goes off to look for Mrs Stone, who's reading her friend's play in the adjoining parlor. He approaches her, grabs the play and tosses it to the side and opens the blanket to her (he's got his yummy back to the camera). Did you think Mrs Stone was going to ignore him and go get the script that's on the floor? Do pigs fly?

I think he has real feelings for her until his pimp, who's not really a pimp, at least not outwardly, played by Anne Bancroft, is angry that she cannot get money from Mrs Stone and throws in his face that he's an idiot if he's falling in love with her. After that, everyone's pride is hurt and the movie goes downhill from there. But then, we didn't really expect a happy ending, did we?
I'm just wondering what the homeless guy did in the movie, why was he important? I hope I get to catch it again.

I watched that early Monday afternoon and since I was feeling a bit better, I took ballet class. Present were my two younger men. Of course, I don't look like a Mrs Stone who needs a Roman Spring - I definitely actually look younger than the older of the two - but watching that movie and then having them both around made my mind go awhirl.

They're fun on their own, but together, trying to one-up each other for my attention, it's like they're redefining how immature they are. And I remember why I'm not giving in and getting involved with a younger man (again, but much much younger this time). Mrs Stone loved Paolo as he was but he felt she could see through him to his shallowness and lack of dignity. He wanted to be more than just a younger man to her and, failing that, he ended up demanding that he needed her to be more than just an older woman to him. When two younger men are trying to get your attention, you want to look for signs that one of them will be more than just a younger man to you.

In a way, I'm glad we're not going back to ballet anytime soon. The dancers are having a strike. And I need to watch other movies.

from Pacific Islander to Asian in six weeks

I have a secret. I'm bleaching myself. Mostly because I'm playing a geisha next month and jade on brown skin looks kinda gray-ish and I'm vain enough to painstakingly bleach myself instead. Thanks to my uncle who works in Unilever, we have a lot of whitening cream lying around at home, unused. And an aunt works in Flawless and gave out samples of bleaching soap, so I've been using those. Surreptitiously. I'm not up to having my family members find out, I'll definitely never hear the end of it. There are just some things that are automatically uncool.

Actually, I'm not a big fan of skin whitening, myself. I'm finding the entire experience rather strange and I didn't even think it was really working until I saw myself beside two other people who are supposed to be my skin color in the mirror last Saturday. It was like, holy cow, this stuff works. Thank goodness, it works slowly.

Honestly, just get me to a nice, warm beach after the show and I'd be super glad to be brown again. Then again, who knows if this production will ever make it to the stage? Get me to a beach anyway.

a little entry about the name of this blog. and a tribute as well.

Ever since I had ever heard/heard of Blind Melon, I have loved them - all of them, all of their songs, everything they do, everything. I relate to all their songs. I am the happy, dancing bee girl, who "just wants someone to say to me, I wanna be there when you wake..."

I am the little lost kid who "only wanted to be 16 and free..."

I "scrape my toes across the floor," hoping for some direction and purpose.

I am the surfer who was "hit hard, really hard by the tide" and was livid/livin'.

I'm sure there are a lot of people who love Blind Melon this much - there are a lot of tribute websites out there to prove that I cannot lay claim to being their biggest fan. But I would still lay claim to it because I don't know anybody who loves Blind Melon the way I love them (only Doiks comes close, and on some level, he's the only one who really understands). I know my world is kinda small in comparison to the vastness of the universe (I only have 189 friends on Friendster and 6 on MySpace, after all), but I feel I transcend mere fandom. I can not only sing the songs to you, I can sing the instruments. I love them in their entirety. I would love to manufacture their textures as a fabric so I can wrap myself in a large blanket of their music when I go to sleep. I listen to the songs so much, they're like my life's soundtrack. And it's been consistent, my answer to "What's your favorite band?" all these years. Sure, I also mention the staples of every era in the 30 years I was alive - The Beatles, Dave Matthews Band, The Purplechickens, Incubus, Smashing Pumpkins, Razorback, Rage Against the Machine, Aerosmith, The Dawn, Audioslave, STP, Wolfgang, Led Zep. But it always comes back to Blind Melon, sitting at the front of the heap, no matter what happens in my life.

It's like how Mozart died early. There have been debates whether Mozart would still be turning out sheets and sheets of music if he hadn't died in his thirties, and if that happened, would people still love him and consider him a genius today? If Shannon hadn't died, would they one day make the album that would disappoint me (as have some of the bands I had just mentioned) and I wouldn't love them the way I do?

I just realized this: I love Tori Amos the same reasons why I love Blind Melon. That's comforting.

And people know I love Blind Melon, like crazy. From my baby brother amused that I can be completely sober and listen to a band you can only listen to while high (his words, not mine) to my cousin Anne sending me the two CDs as soon as Soup came out in the States because I was singing "Change" to her over the phone, to Doiks burning Nico for me as a gift (which I have yet to receive, hinty hint hint). To whovever angel it was who anonymously sent me the ringtone of "No Rain" and made my old phone a happy little 3210. To Mayo, opening my walkman to find the tape of the first album in it and asking me, "Hindi ka na nag-progress?"

I am proud to say I will never progress from Blind Melon. Or even if I do, I come back to it. Like home.

"And so I wave, goodbye! I'm flyin'... I'm flyin'..." Hee.

I used to have this Creem magazine with the band on the cover, interviewed by Robert Hunter of Grateful Dead. I wasn't aware of how valuable that particular issue of that magazine was at that time and I cut up the cover and taped it on my weekday house's bathroom door. It's still there. My uncle used the bathroom once and said, "Who are these comedians?" And I said, "Those are my buds."

When I'm looking at my life the way I always do (with coffee mug in hand, journal lying open in front of me), I sometimes imagine that I'm in the song, "St. Andrew's Fall," wanting to "buy the sky hanging over this bed of mine," and hoping I can see whatever's there that everybody else can see. And I know it will be okay because "I don't think I can find an easier way..." As long as I don't fall off the 20 story building I'm sitting on, I guess.

Nowadays, I'm waiting for the "biggest part of my life to unfold." And I sit in my sleepyhouse, listen to Blind Melon and am still constantly inspired. This blog is me writing "my words on the face of today."

And then they'll paint it.

happy, bouncy, mercurial me

I'm happy again. Yes, I think the condition's called manic depressive and I should get locked up. But Nobody knows, sssshhh...

Anyway, I've been forgetting to blog about this: We have a TV. In my weekday house, where I've been TV-less since my strange fire a year and a half ago. All this time, I've been watching the TV in my aunt's dark living room (where there's a connecting door to our apartment) and I sometimes miss episodes of Buffy because they are too scary to sit through in the dark. Now, it's more convenient to watch TV because it's in the room, very well lit.

My mom decided to buy a flat screen 24 inch that they were packaging with a free DVD player, so we took the 17 inch that used to sit in the weekend house den. Dad likes to tease Mommy that she only bought the new TV so that we can get the other TV. He's half correct, actually. Anyway, the TV doesn't have a lot of channels - 30 max, but we have the important ones, with the glaring exception of Discovery Travel and Adventure. DT&A is the channel which I usually leave the TV on when nothing else is on. I realized this when I was channel surfing last night and was just going on and on and on and on and wishing I had Discovery Travel and Adventure.

Speaking of Discovery Travel and Adventure, I recently found out that Bradley Cooper aka Will on Alias is a globe trekker. How cool is that? And he looks really hot, not kawawa beside Michael Vartan/Vaughn. Yeah, go Will!

Anyway, because we have a new TV, I've decided to challenge myself to be more productive in spite of the irrepresible urge to just change channels, catatonic on the couch, when I get home from work. Even though I missed registration completely and wasn't able to enroll this sem, I'm trying to get a lot of research work done for my thesis and hopefully get some of it written before I see my thesis adviser. That way, if he sees I've made a lot of progress even if I wasn't enrolled, he'll allow me to enroll in both Research and Thesis next semester and I can graduate next March. It's good to have goals like these; when I find myself parked in front of the TV, I feel so useless and inutile. Doesn't make me feel compelled to get up and do something, though. Except maybe raid the fridge.

falling off the tightrope

Things were going awry. Not major major life-and-death situations. Just really panget stuff that I would probably be able to ignore if I wasn't going to get my period (which I got today). I was starting to hate myself for the person I had become because of ballet. That, by itself, was really ugly, and getting uglier by the minute. I had just gotten my deadly sins down to below negative when recently, I'm scoring high with at least four of them again - envy, pride, wrath and gluttony. Not gluttony for food but for dancing; it was suggested over the weekend that we rest a couple of days from ballet and I freaked out and my parents were wondering what kind of monster I had turned into. And then I have to deal with my envy, pride and wrath.

So I was made to think about whether dancing is the best thing for me right now. And I would get so frustrated thinking about this, like I friggin' left my job for this and it's bad for me? It really wasn't a pretty last three days.

It was the manifestation of the devil's playground.

Since I didn't have ballet to distract me (as in actual dancing) and instead I was sitting at home, reassessing myself as dancer, I started to freak out about other things. This guy I think I would like as a person if he wasn't pursuing me sent me an SMS - one of those really baduy forwards. It's super nothing on a normal day, but it definitely bites when you're about to get your period and, at the same time, you're waiting for this other guy to send you an SMS, saying anything at all, even if it's super baduy. I was about to snap.

I tried confronting that issue and just got more frustrated. Well, actually, I didn't confront it, not really. I fished and he apologized and said he was just really busy. Ho-hum, what else is new? Still, I was very "Oh, don't apologize, you have nothing to apologize for..." And he doesn't know what to say, so he said "God bless..."

Looking back, I may have overreacted to that. It's not a bad thing, being blessed. It was just too formal and I don't want him to be formal. The thing is, he was born with that stick up his ass. So, yes, I overreacted. Between that last text of his and this new realization of mine, I was going nuts thinking and rethinking what he could have meant by that, what did it say about this relationship, or perhaps was this a non-relationship, blah blah blah. I was even thinking of that dork who texted me late the night before and how at least this one sends me a baduy forward about me being in his heart and shouldn't I want to be with someone who wants me there than someone who doesn't think of me at all?

But then, ew. Good that the thought didn't last long.

So, all these emotions were going on and I didn't know how to handle them and I couldn't talk to anybody because it was all just this one big melodrama that nobody should hear, especially when I was eventually going to knock some sense back into my head. Eventually. I'm still kinda waiting for the eventually to actually kick in.

Let me just say, though, in the interest of balance, not everything sucked these last three days. I got separate calls from two companies who owe me money that my checks are ready. Buying new shoes may just be what I need.

are you...

[pikon] very

[maarte] i'm OC about stuff, not necessarily maarte

[pihikan] yes, surprisingly

[malambing] very

[madaldal] haha, ako pa

[traydor] never

[k.j.] no, kaladkarin nga ako

[malandi] only when i have to be

[conservative] feeling ko yes, but people beg to differ

[lakwatsera/ro] i have wanderlust but i don't go out on lakwatsa

[o.a.] hahaha, yes, very o.a.

[blacksheep] all the time

[epal] si ate jacqui to ;P (sorry, private joke)

[papansin] before, it was to the point na ksp ako. try to have 3 exceptional siblings and not be
ksp. but i got over it. i'm very low profile now.

[bulgar magsalita] ay grabe, jacqui has to hold me down and tape my mouth

[pranka] when i'm naiinis, minsan.

[maharot] with sydney, hahahaha

[boring] sometimes. we're not perfect.

[liar] if hindi ako nagui-guilty, pwede

[faithful] ay, don't talk to me...

[palamura] my mouth should be washed with soap

[madalas mag self-pity] oh wow, that's me! especially today

[smoker] no

[lasengga/go] well, once you pop, you can't stop... i don't go drinking often though.

[weird] i nearly won "weirdest" in high school; kids can be so cruel, no?

[sexy] ay grabe, napaka ;P

[crush ng bayan] hindi naman ng bayan. but i do attract foreigners, teenagers and 4 year old
boys

[friendly] when i'm in the mood

[walang taste] sabi ni lucas wala, hahahahaha

[walang originality] i'm a diamond in the ruff

[mayabang] of course i am, jacinto ako eh

[antukin] at the inappropriate momemts. that's why coffee is my best friend

[lakas trip] all the time. vinnie used to ask me, "what are you on?"

[mababaw ang luha] recently, yes. i figured, it's better to just let go.

[love your neighbors] hindi eh

[sumbungan ng friends] ng siblings. i will always be on their side no matter what, and i know for
a fact that they will always be on mine.

[may prat] hahahaha prat!!!!

[tried vandalism] maybe once in high school. not too interested.

[late] i hate to be late but it happens. i don't like people waiting for me. my last few weeks of work, i was always late though.

[dork] i'm sure i have my moments.

[explorer] always. except pag madilim.

[always hungry] ay grabe, that's so me.

[lazy] for most things except ballet kasi nerd ako

[loveless] i will always have love in my heart :)

[talino] ahem.

[inggitera] hahaha, napaka

[gastadora] only on my siblings

[kuripot] no, si jacqui yon

[sabik] bastos

[tapos na] ay salamat

I snagged that from Friendster. I really don't feel Friendster anymore. Actually, today, I don't feel like blogging, either. I'm really feeling blah and I guess my recent blog drama is preventing me from writing about it. It's really not worthy of a post, it's just a weird, pervasive icky feeling. Please note though that my use of the word "pervasive" shows that I still have a sense of humor. I'll be okay.

balance

A few weeks ago, I was having coffee with some of the dancers and we were talking about other dancers and how this one girl was strong but lacked musicality, from when she started out all the way to when she was dancing big parts. I pointed out that she was really tenacious and that should make up for her non-musicality; I said it like, "Okay lang yon, masipag naman siya." I wanted to pursue this thought with this realization about Cogie Domingo I had while watching Lagot Ka, Isusumbong Kita that despite being in award-winning films, he has no comedic timing at all. But it's alright, because he's so darn cute. I was like, "Okay lang yon, nakakalaglag panty naman siya." Since he does loosen my garters better than any iron can though, I went on and on about Cogie, never mind if I had a point. But I did have a point and since I wasn't able to make my point then (Cogie kasi eh), I'll state it now. My point is balance.

I'm really digging balance these days. It's not the kind of balance where I'm thinking, "It's okay if I don't have a boyfriend as long as my professional career is good..." (vullshiz) or "It's okay I'm not that pretty as long as I'm smart..." (which in effect means if you're pretty, you can't be smart; something that really irked me about the person who said this). That's not the kind of balance I mean; my take on balance is broader.

Like the dancer we were talking about, I have a few problems of my own: I'm small, I'm not turned out, I may not have star quality (as it would seem from the people in power). But I work hard and darnit I'm good. And I'm musical. And maybe they'll realize that I can come close to star quality when they realize I jump higher and can do that closing to passe thing from pirouette en attitude en dedans. Great dancing is always equal to star quality anyday.

Whenever I come across anyone who seems perfect, my thought is always "You gotta have a flaw." And there's nothing wrong with that, nobody's perfect. It depends on the flaw, I guess. Like I can live with Caloy's flaws, otherwise I wouldn't be waiting for him still, don't ya think? Although I'm all for balance in the universe, one of my biggest flaws is I can't stand that I'm flawed at all. I hate that I can be such a bitch, I hate that I'm so full of myself, I hate that I always want everything perfect. Then again, what's so bad about wanting to be perfect? Then again...

Balance also figures in what happens to us. I spent a long time away from ballet and having a life (an actual life, can you believe?), so I shouldn't feel bad about going back to dance and starting from zero again. I was also trying to balance all the bad things I feel about dancing against what I feel when I'm actually dancing and the latter will always cancel out the former, no matter how bad it gets, so there's a good balance there.

A friend of mine recently got really ill and was even in the ICU for a while. I remember this one time I happened upon her on the train after an eternity of not seeing her, hearing from her, or even hearing about her. On that train ride, she told me how sad she was about her life and how everything she did seemed like it had no purpose. I don't think I was any help talking to her as I didn't have anything really comforting to say, but later on (as in months and months later), she tells me how that one conversation changed her spirits. I remember that what that conversation thing did was make me worry that I don't see my friends enough. Meanwhile, it's equally balanced for her in that though we never see each other, that one time that we do is like this huge catalyst of some sort and she will always be grateful to me for it (and it kills me that I don't remember anything I contributed to that, meaning she just needed to let it all out).

Anyway, I haven't been able to visit her or anything because the schedule is just so wrong. My other friends have all been to see her and I start feeling bad for her when they tell me how she lives like John Travolta in The Boy In The Bubble and she'll probably be in this kind of limbo for a long time. And then they tell me Tony Leung wrote to her. Long story short, she was part of his fan club and she wrote him a letter that so caught his attention that he wrote her back, making personal touches and everything. And I thought, again, balance. Limbo suddenly didn't look so bad from where I sat. I hope to see her soon.

You're One Hundred Years of Solitude!
by Gabriel Garcia Marquez

Lonely and struggling, you've been around for a very long time. Conflict has filled most of your life and torn apart nearly everyone you know. Yet there is something majestic and even epic about your presence in the world. You love life all the more for having seen its decimation. After all, it takes a village.

Take the Book Quiz at the Blue Pyramid.

I found this quiz from my college org's mailing list, quite apt as we were a literature org. I always thought I was magic realism, somehow. I'm not sure if I AM One Hundred Years of Solitude but I do have to agree that things have to take a bad turn before I see the value in what I have. And, of course, there's something nice about being "majestic."

Goddam those half-Japanese girls...

I just had a pictorial and I thought I was ugly in all the pictures taken. What happened to me; is it age? I used to think I was pretty photogenic. Well, I don't even think I'm pretty anymore, actually. Or was I ever to begin with? Don't mind me, I'm everyday looking for new stuff to obsess over. But can I just say that I worry because I felt the exact same way (unphotogenic, fat and ugly) in the last pictorial?

The highlight of the day was putting on the kimono for the first time. I'm sure it's not a real kimono, a costume equivalent. But wow, it rocked. I think I'm so ready to be a geisha so much that when they were thinking of poses for us to do, every pose I hit was like "Yes, Joelle!" My only problem was the hooks in the back of my costume, in the neck, getting caught in my hair. Minor glitch though.

I love Japanese things. Especially recently. I'm walking around in my tights and my thong sandals and even if my tights are convertible (there's a hole at the soles of my feet so that they can be footless if I want them to be), I wear my tights footed so that I have that stockinged chinelas Japanese look.

Sometimes, I think Japanese things are only fun to the non-Japanese. Lotsa times, it doesn't seem like they enjoy anything. I heard they're really shy, that it's imbibed in their culture or something. Which explains that, and explains why the un-shy Japanese are usually the strange freaks like the Crazy 88s in Kill Bill. But what do I really know about how the Japanese think?

A couple weeks ago, I finished reading Haruki Murakami's Dance Dance Dance. It's quirkily strange - I really didn't understand some of what happens; well, mostly why some of the stuff happens. It doesn't end quite the way normal books/TV shows/movies do - the weird stuff doesn't really get explained, nor do the things that don't make sense find their way to making sense in the end. Perhaps that was the point, but while I respect this turn of events I still kinda felt that turning the dark hotel floor incident into a dream was a cop-out. You kinda think, maybe the important thing was the main character finally did get to screw that pretty receptionist with the glasses.

Other than that, I like Haruki Murakami. My favorite parts are when his protagonist is hanging out with the kid, Yuki. I read their conversations and I'm awed at how they talk - do the Japanese really talk that way? I want to say I love his use of the language, but I wonder if that's him or the work of his translator. I wondered the same thing reading Banana Yoshimoto and Yukio Mishima. Almost makes me want to learn Japanese. Almost.

Of course, not everything is turning Japanese, at least I don't think so. It only seems like it because I'm more aware of anything Japanese, now that I'm getting into character. I'm quite worried about any faux Orientalism we don't even know we're guilty of (as was the case with my graduation recital), so I'm always looking at anything Japanese for clues. Hence this fixation. Well, I'm guessing. I only made that up just now. But since we're buying into that, I admit I have leftover issues about how I did my recital. I mean, the research I did was mostly going to the arcade and watching Japanese video games.

My graduation recital (which is the equivalent of a thesis in my college, except we dance majors were required to write a thesis and stage a recital to get our bachelor's degree) was a modern version of Cinderella, set in the Philippines. Cinderella's stepsisters are Japayuki and she wants to be one also, so her Fairy Godmother dresses her up and sends her to Japan. She becomes the girlfriend of Boss Charming, a Yakuza, who passes her off to the other blackies (picked that up from Murakami) and since she's thinking, hey I went here to sing, dance and find a boyfriend and not to whore myself, they kill her. Even if the panel gave me a 1.0, I feel like if I had more time and more freedom with it, I would have made it less problematic. At the time, I was just following the libretto given to me and I didn't put up much fight then because all I wanted to do was finish my recital on time. My choreography and staging was pretty good but now I wish I had seen Kill Bill or read Murakami before I did the recital, I would have made it more Japanese. Or more respectful of the Japanese, anyway.

I do accept that I'll never pass as a Japanese. Even in my kimono and my heavy, extended eyeliner, I look Filipino. Or maybe Thai. Or Vietnamese. In a kimono and heavy eyeliner and very unphotogenic.