attempting a "first" weekly night out with the new crowd

Yesterday, Nikki and I made plans to attend the Directing Lecture series at CCP, but we didn't know that the lecture on script analysis was moved from 9am to 1pm. Hahaha, we ended up having brunch at Pancake House, then killed time at the LT lobby until before the lecture began. The speaker that day was Bart Guingona, and I loved how he spoke with such passion. Discussed points on drama, did a reading of Sir Dennis' Ang Buhay Ay Pelikula and broke down the first scene. That script was such a great selection that a whole bunch of us bought a copy of it after the lecture, hahaha.

I headed for the conference hall after the lecture, where half of my classmates (Gino, Paul, Jelli, Joyce, Alain, Princess, RJ) and I had agreed to meet an hour before class. We had made this dance where each of us had to contribute one action (based on the 8 basic efforts), and we had decided to meet an hour before class to rehearse it with music. Ended up borrowing Cinderella's (yes, that's really her name) CD while she and Gia were still waiting for the rest of their group, and with Gino's direction, managed to make the entire thing pretty quirky, and by the time class was about to start, we finally got it.

Oh yeah, I realized this week that I can actually move gracefully, hahahaha! Well, thanks to the wonders of slow time, and those stretching exercises. And the jazz walk, oh my. When we first tried the jazz walk, we were doing it barefoot, so our toes were pretty worn out by the time class ended. Last night, we were all ready with socks, hahaha. Bong even joined us for a while, que funny! And holy kamote, Sir Nazer even made us do vocal exercises while doing slow time and plies. Alaveeet!

Last year, almost our entire workshop class would always get together someplace at the end of every week just to hang out, eat, talk, drink, bond and simply just go crazy. Despite age differences, there were no gaps whatsoever. Who can ever forget those "I'm paking drunk" moments by Ian, Merv's endless requests to Jenny about mixing a drink the way he likes it, Michelle's tarot card readings and those conversations where everyone would always speak up, share their story and voice out their opinions.

I got so used to it, that I tried it this week with this year's crowd. During a free moment last Friday night while we were rehearsing our dance, I asked a bunch of people if we could hang out and eat and talk or something after our Saturday class. A couple had agreed with me, and we mentioned it again last night. Argh, most of the people had to go home. Tough. In the end, the only ones in class who were dying to do something were Gino, Paul and me. And the simplest thing we could come up with was a late dinner. Gino, though, had asked if we could wait for Minette at the LT lobby as usual. When Minette arrived, she, Jacq (sp?) and Arvin suddenly mentioned that a bunch of people from the AC class were at Penguin, and invited us to join them.

That was it, the 6 of us squeezed into a cab and headed there. Grabbed a table outside near the door and listened to this band (Brass Monkey?) that was playing inside. They were great! Wheee, the AC crowd was just at the next table. While Jacq went inside to hang with some of her friends, the rest of us stayed put and talked over sisig and tofu. Hahaha, Minette's tactless moment about Arvin was classic! "That was awkward!" HAHAHAHA!

I haven't seen Lao since the Dogeaters script reading, and he squeezed himself into our seats every now and then as we checked out his new creations. Man, I've got to hand it to that guy. I love how he manages to come up with new designs for his beaded jewelry, but I don't think I can ever pull off wearing one of those bracelets.

Sometime after 1am, when the band was done playing and most of the people were already leaving, we decided to leave as well, but we didn't leave the Malate area. We started walking around, not really knowing where to go. After a while, we ended up at Malelandia, where Arvin offered to buy everyone a round of drinks. Of course, because it was beer, I had Paul to back me up on my share. And coolness, there was a videoke machine, so Arvin, Gino and Paul had a few turns at it.

Aba, Jerald managed to catch up with us a couple of hours later because he and Lao were just at O Bar, and because Lao had his own agenda, he left him and headed over to join us. Nyak, Jerald and I wound up staying while Minette, Arvin, Gino and Paul left to eat somewhere and eventually headed for home. Ended up just talking until I finally managed to catch a ride home when the sun was already up.

Next week we're hoping to gather the entire class, plus the OJTs (Arvin's assignment) and the Beginning Acting class (Minette's assignment) for a night out together. Hopefully we can pull it off.