a molder of minds. eee, scary.

Kiara and Zeena, "conversing" as palace guests at Princess Aurora's birthday party in The Sleeping Beauty

In Act 2 of The Sleeping Beauty, a hundred years after Aurora falls asleep, the Prince walks through the forest and is surrounded by forest nymphs who show him a vision of the Princess. There's a soft Lilac Fairy's leitmotif when the nymphs swoosh on and off the stage. In this section, I give Kiara a little solo. She's one of my Primary kids, one of the smartest ones (actually, I could challenge that; I'm pretty sure she's the smartest, given that she's only five years old and she's smarter than some of the kids a couple years older than her). All she does is run in, wave her arms a little while doing a little courus in place, and then run back out.

The reason why I believe Kiara is uber-smart is because she knows the dance after learning them and doing them once, she knows it perfectly with the music, the exact steps to the exact counts. Beyond that, if she could run the rehearsal and take my job, she'd be the happiest five year old ever. My favorite moments are when Daddy is rehearsing and he asks one of the lost kids, "What are you supposed to do there?" (to establish that they should independently memorize their steps) and Kiara pipes up, "She's supposed to do this!" and demonstrates. She cracks me up.

And how many five year olds do you know dance and perfectly hum the music along?

So I give her her little solo. She is sooooo adorable. As she runs offstage, Daddy says after her, "Ang galing naman ni Kiara. Parang si Teacher Sol." She kinda looks disappointed and we older people laugh (Sol is especially amused). So Daddy says, "Sige. Parang si Teacher Jacqui." Kiara looks at Jacqui, Jacqui waves back at her, Kiara looks at my Dad with still the disappointed look on her face. So Daddy says, "Sige na nga, parang si Teacher Joelle." And she smiles and nods.

Daddy hollers, "Sipsip!"

It kinda makes me think about how impressionable my students are and how many students I have impressed so much over the years. We did The Sleeping Beauty over ten years ago and they were all a different set of kids except for our oldest student Mimi, who just celebrated her debut last week. A friend of mine tells me, "Hey I met this girl who reminds me of you," and she turns out to be a student of mine, more than ten years ago.

The part about her reminding my friend of me has been making me think. From the testimonials my former students have written about me on Friendster, I would say I played a big part in their formative years. It makes me rethink about my entire teaching persona and regret all those times that I've ever lost my temper. These are kids and they looked/still look up to me. Even if it seems strange, I must have made a really big impression on their lives. And I continue to do so, apparently.

No more losing my temper in class, I swear. Next time it rises up, I shall flash an image of Kiara in my brain and calm down.