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.

things to do

I made sure this time and checked that reg in UP has started, will go on till today, after which late reg is officially on until the sixteenth. They keep telling me, "Check the website, check the website..." as if it's common knowledge what the URL is, and when I called to ask if reg had started and what the URL was, my secretary friend from my department didn't know either because she said, "the UP website." I had to google it and came up with www.upd.edu.ph. You can check the class you wish to take on CRS, which stands for Computerized Registration System (this is the URL: http://crs.upd.edu.ph/). This is my class:

13927 Art Stud 299 MIJK
3.0 M 1:00p-4:00p lec CAL 202

It's the Research class. By its course number, you can tell that it's what comes right before the thesis, which is coded Art Stud 300. This sem, I want to take Research and Thesis at the same time. We'll see if whoever advises me this reg will agree.

I bought Lucas' laptop. Well, since he's my brother, he's giving me a really good installment plan. He says he only needs it for presentations to clients and will only borrow it from me in that event. But, he insists, I need it more as I have that new regular racket for Rhea and my thesis to write. I want to also be able to connect to the internet on it so that I can surf and chat during my ballet breaks but Lucas told me that WIFI is a hundred bucks an hour. Man, that's steep.

Anyway, I have a new very gorgeous laptop, I have extra work, I have schoolwork this semester. Additionally, I have ballet and my love to keep me warm. Even if shallow dorks live in my midst, I should be okay.

Oh, and my brother wants to drop by and say Hi!


All you jabronis out there, can you smeeeeell what Quincy is cooking?

selfish, graceless, centerless happy me

I need to fix my center. The center is from where everything moves. I need it to transfer weight from one position to the next, to change positions more fluidly. I am so bad at that. My biggest thing is I need more control - I need everything to move in one seamless motion and still have high legs, perfect execution, grace. I need grace, dammit.

Hats off to Daddy. Because of all the rigid training I had to undergo learning his choreographies, being choreographed by any other choreographer is a piece of cake. Tito G is working on his new piece "Isang Bagong Bituin" and in the couples' group dance, he would set the choreography on me for the other people to learn. I wonder how other dancers survive, without the same kind of training. It's probably easier and more difficult at the same time. More difficult because they learn things the hard way. Easier because they don't have to deal with my father. I should consider myself lucky.

The NAMCYA has included ballet as a competition category this year. From PBT, three dancers have joined and made it through the first elimination. Second elimination is middle of this month, after our show. One of the three is kind of asking me to mentor her. In the current company ballet heirarchy, she is getting better roles than I am. I'm thinking it's too weird that she looks up to me as an authority figure when I can't even get my own dancing into gear.

Okay, okay. I know it's not that weird, because I did leave ballet for a significant time but I was still a ballet teacher all throughout the time I was gone. Many teachers never really made it to the principal level; they retired early from dancing and opted to teach instead, and many teachers are actually better teachers than dancers. Many principal dancers don't really make good teachers. I had a long argument with Marga about this idea; she couldn't understand how you couldn't teach something you can do well or how you can't do something you teach well. In ballet, it's different. You can have an eye for what's correct technique, yet you can't execute it yourself because of the limits of your body.

I know I can probably train this girl for her competition. But I don't want to. I want to focus on myself. I know, that sounds really selfish, but I have a few years left and this girl is only half my age. There are things that I am just now figuring out about dancing and I don't want to impose them on impressionable girls who were doing fine without me. And I can see it happening: I'd be very concerned about her, perhaps more than I would be with myself and I don't want the shift in priorities right now.

When I was her age, I wasn't mentored. It came a year later, when I entered UP. My mentor had long ago turned her back on dancing and ran her own school while teaching in UP. Similarly, I didn't need all that much mentoring, just a lot of reminders about my center and my attack/approach to the dance, a lot of direction for the kind of dancing I wanted to do, for the kind of dancing that I was capable of and didn't know it. I am grateful for that, never mind the training I endured from my father, without this pushing from my college technique teacher, I doubt I'd be the dancer I am now. I don't think I'm ready to be responsible for someone that way, not yet.

I need to work on myself first. I want to be selfish, while I still can.

you don't know what's comin' at ya...

IF YOU WERE A GUY...
1. anong name mo?
Angel. My girlfriend will call me Devil when she wants to get some.

2. style ng hair?
I want Ethan Zonn curls! But if I were a boy and I still had straight hair like mine is, I'd keep it short and out of my face. I probably would have bangs.

3. Local & foreign male celebrity lookalike mo?
I don't want to look like anyone. One of my mom's friends was once looking at one of our souvenir programmes and asked, "Which are your children?" She pointed at us. Friend said, "He's really handsome..." pointing to me. Meaning if I were a boy, I'd be more handsome than either Quincy or Lucas. Panalo. So, I'll look like myself still.

4. height mo?
Not too tall. I'm one of those cute medium sized boys that girls can't resist.

5. talent mo?
Matinik ako sa chicks!!!! I'd probably still write. I'd probably make more pirouettes, hopefully seven.

6. sinong gf mo?
Joelle Jacinto. And I would love her so much.

7. skin complexion mo?
Creamy, with the tendency to get all peachy-reddish due to heat, embarrassment or overexertion. Joelle kinda digs that color in guys, now that she thinks about it.

8. gwapo, cute, fair?
I'd be more gwapo than cute. Like now.

9. career mo?
Timpani player. Assuming that if I were a guy, I have more coordination than I do as a girl. I don't like how this implies that there are some careers that men do that women can't. I know there are, like what woman would want to tweak breasts for a living? I guess if I had enough coordination, I'd also be a timpani player if I were a girl. But lacking the right coordination, I would say I would still be a writer. Also, ballet dancer and I'd feel so inferior to Lucas and Quincy. But I will find solace in the fact na mas gwapo ako sa kanila and I have such a dishy and extremely brilliant girlfriend who never gives me a hard time.

10. age ka magpapakasal?
Joelle doesn't want to get married so I'll humor her and let her string me around for the rest of her life.

11. built ng body mo?
I have wide shoulders. And a nice Angel Corella round ass.

12. formal, informal?
Not too much of either. Just right.

13. hair color?
black

14. style ng bag mo?
Backpacky or mailbag. Doesn't really matter, so long as it's blue.

15. usual get-up mo?
t-shirt and jeans, collared shirts and jeans (but bought in People Are People or G2000 because their men's collared shirts are REALLY nice), I'm pretty sure I'll have really nice colored shirts. And really nice sneakers.

16. sports aside from basketball?
I can't play basketball. I'll be a swimmer or a middle-distance runner. Yeah, I have endurance, baby.

17. nick mo?
Loverboy.

18. almost perfect sa physical mo?
Care to find out? *wink*

19. first step sa first day ng pagiging guy mo?
I'd stare at myself in the mirror for a while. Take pictures of my face and beautiful chest. Take my shirt off and walk around in front of people. I'm not saying I want to do that as a girl, but I was thinking being able to do that because I was a guy would probably be neat.

20. last step sa last day ng pagiging guy mo?
I'll be harassing Kitch to sleep with me till the end, which she'll pretend to go for because that's her nature, but I bet the weirdness of it - additionally, that I will turn back into a girl, her very homophobic friend, the next day - will creep her out. I'm not sure if I will sleep with Kitch if she does agree to sleep with me. I'm not really sure how I would feel about my homophobia if I were a guy and my homophobia would be nil because Kitch would be of the opposite sex. And then there are the moral issues - how will I still be friends with Pye if I do? Factor in the knowledge that Joelle, whom my heart belongs to, will never speak to me again because I slept with one of her best friends. Ah, so many considerations.

Yes, I'll be spending my last moment as a boy shaking my head.

raining aaaall the tiiiime...

On our way home from our ballet school the other week, Daddy played a CD of really sad jazz tunes sung by some of the best torch singers around - Billie Holiday, Dinah Washington, Nina Simone, Ella Fitzgerald. I then started to notice that if I were heartbroken (which, by all accounts, I should be, but it's strangely not the case), I would be hating this CD. It was all sad songs, starting with "Cry Me A River" and peppered with "Smoke Gets In Your Eyes," "La Vie En Rose," and that song that goes "Though I can't dismiss the memory of his kiss..." and the "Stormy weather... since my man and I are not together..." song. Even the version here of "Come Rain or Come Shine" is totally depressing. And then, strangely again, there was Etta James singing "At Last" right smack in the middle of it. A sliver of bright light in the midst of gloom.

I was sitting in the backseat and just listening, being grateful that I wasn't heartbroken and thinking how strange it would be to mix such a CD; the theme would be too sad to listen to. I mean, I would make a happy CD for when I feel happy, I would make myself a feel-good healing CD for when I feel sad (yeah, Razorback!!!). But I wouldn't make myself a CD of all the saddest songs in the world, what am I, suicidal?

Stranger then when I realized that Daddy got this CD from Twinkle, my brother's new ex-girlfriend. They had just broken up a couple of months ago; there was much ado about how this relationship ended and I don't plan to get into it here. Suffice to say that during the break up, he managed to give us a lot of stress and now he's happy with someone new. Should it have been that easy? we wonder.

Anyway, I wondered if Daddy was aware he was playing sad songs from the CD Twinkle gave him, and if he's doing this on purpose: playing sad songs for Twinkle. He didn't even like Twinkle that much, but I wouldn't put it past him to do anything to irk his own children - perhaps, someone should mourn Twinkle a bit.

The other day, again on our way home from ballet, he played a different CD, another one that Twinkle burned for him. It kept skipping, as some burnt CDs do. After a while, Daddy ejected it from the player and said, "Ever since Quincy broke up with Twinkle, her CDs don't work anymore."

My dad has a rule about not wanting to meet our chicks unless we're absolutely sure this is the one. He hates the idea of getting used to somebody only to have this person ejected out of his life because they were ejected out of ours. Or at least, that's his explanation to the boys. He had met Twinkle and had gotten used to her, now he wonders why he was so polite when he went to visit. And he had met Erica and is always making jibes about her and Lucas getting back together.

As far as I know, my dad has never wanted to meet my (ex-)boyfriends. There was never any idea of the possibility that he may get used to them one day. I'm not even his baby. I can't wait till Jacqui falls in love.