Vocal rest, day 3. On old children's books.

I had opted to just stay home during my 3-day period of vocal rest. Any attempt to go out would tempt me to speak, so I chose to be a bum.

I was already bored out of my mind yesterday afternoon, when I remembered this dream I had a couple of nights ago, of my re-reading some of my old children's storybooks. I even remembered the story ("The Old Lady's Bedroom") that I was reading because of its distinct imagery.

Then I realized, I missed those pretty stories. I have huge imagination when it came to those stories that I've read before.

So on a whim, I went to our little library that housed our old collection of various encyclopedias (yes, we were nerds as kids), and picked out a few books from the Collier's Junior Classics. Hardbound books in different bright colors, each settling on a particular theme (kids' poetry, fantasy stories, stories based on holidays, mythology, American classic tales, etc.)

Favorites among the ones I read again yesterday were

Magic In The Air

• The Old Lady's Bedroom

In Your Own Backyard

• A Friend in Need
• The Yellow Shop
• The Hundred Dresses
• The Girl in Pink

Harvest of Holidays

• The Valentine Box
• The Country Bunny and The Little Gold Shoes
• The Blue-Nosed Witch
• The Water Nixie
• The Library Lady
• Rufus M
• Miss Flora McFlimsey's Christmas Eve

It was so great to visit these stories again. As a kid, every time I read them, part of me can somehow relate to one of the characters. Like Princess Irene in "The Old Lady's Bedroom" because of her curiosity towards little things and finding out what was behind strange doors. Or the girl in "The Valentine Box" because she was quite a wallflower. Plus the there's also the thrill the girls have about every trip to the library in "The Library Lady" because, believe it or not, I love going to the library (and was even in the Library Club for a year back in grade school).

I also loved the different illustrations for every story. Some of the stories had been illustrated with ink and pen, but my favorites were the watercolored ones (especially in "The Hundred Dresses" and in "Miss Flora McFlimsey's Christmas Eve"). Man, I suddenly miss painting in watercolor. I really should try getting back to that when I have free time.

It's such a delight to read these books again. I missed reading, and I love how it feels just curled up with a good book. Too many technology in the way these days.

In other news, I finally got a massage this afternoon. My mom had called in the lady who used to come in for home services, and Carmen did quite well on my once swollen foot before that it's high time to try out her full body massage. Besides, I know I have huge knots on my shoulders after lugging my huge laptop to rehearsals for over a week. And damn, the massage felt good. The huge knot on my left shoulder was pretty tough and painful, but Carmen worked wonders. It was totally worth it.

So this is my last day of vocal rest. I was actually thinking about taking a volunteer shift at the office tomorrow morning, but I don't want to push it just yet. Maybe I'll give my voice another day to rest. And yes, I guess that means I won't be auditioning for Cinemalaya tomorrow. But hey, it's the weekend, anyway.

On vocal rest.

After 2 weeks of not going to my morning part-time job to focus on our Eyeball set, I went back to work last Tuesday, only to find myself losing my voice by the hour as I barreled through my calls. I had a migraine last Saturday until Sunday, and also caught a cold and cough from someone (I think it was one of our actors) in the process. By the time my Tuesday morning shift had ended, I had a full-blown cough and only half of what remained of my voice.

I rested my voice by the time I got home in the afternoon (though I mingled a bit in the CCP Main Theater lobby before the first Mamma Mia! show began), and hoped that my voice would be better by the next morning.

Wednesday morning, I discovered that my voice was worse, so before even starting my shift, I headed to the clinic, and the doctor gave me a clinic pass and some prescription medicine, and ordered me to 3 days of strict vocal rest. My goodness, looks like I won't be earning any money this month.

The last time I was on vocal rest was last year, when I was juggling both my part-time job and 3 school events, plus an acting workshop in the evenings. I didn't really follow the 3-day vocal rest period, as I needed to speak up during the workshop class, plus I was the stage manager for an event that happened on the day I was sent home from work, so it took a long while to recover. This time I'm following the rule to a T. I was told by the doctor that the ideal time for vocal rest was for 7 days, but 3 days would be enough already.

It's only the second day today, and I'm already bored. I used my phone, notepads and gestures here at home (it's harder to communicate with my dog, though), and just a while ago, I got hungry and had a craving for McDonald's. Going outside the village would mean speaking to a tricycle driver and the cashier at McDo (though I once used my phone to tell them my order during last year's vocal rest). Thank goodness for online delivery.

I also had to decline an offer to watch Rivalry's press preview tonight. As much as I'd want to, once again, commuting would mean speaking, plus I know that when I'm with friends, I WILL end up speaking, even just for a bit. I'd rather not risk temptation.

By the way, I just had to add this. While I was in the CCP Main Theater lobby the other day, I ran into one of my former professors in lighting design. I came up to him and said hi. Thank goodness he somewhat remembered me, and he asked how I was, what I've been up to. Then he said that we should keep in touch in case he needed someone to work at his events as stage manager. Oh, thank you, Sir! And this was the guy who gave me one of my memorable OJTs in The Lion, The Witch and The Wardrobe, which was a pretty good experience and my first time ever to use a headset, as he wanted each of us to really learn the ropes.

So now that I'm done sending out a few emails, now what am I gonna do?

And you, dear reader of this blog, how are you? I'd like to hear from you, so please leave comments and make this temporarily mute girl happy.

Eyeball Set B's opening weekend, plus Katy Perry's concert.

I haven't blogged in two weeks! And the whole time I haven't been blogging, I've just been busy with rehearsals for our set (Set B: Isang Araw sa Karnabal and Maliw) for TP's Eyeball.

I took a couple of weeks leave from my part-time job to focus on the show. The work's not really all that heavy, but of course, I don't want to have to stress myself out just because I lack sleep. Thank goodness this prod isn't as crazy and hectic as my last one, and I love the people involved. I even got to watch Set A during their first weekend. And even better, I managed to do Zumba a few times before our rehearsals officially started, as I brought my laptop practically every day to rehearsals.

Anyway, when I watched Set A during their Saturday show, I have to admit that I liked Doc Resureccion when it was still staged in Batute. Back in Batute, you can actually feel and somewhat think that you can smell the stench of Boy Pogi's place. It didn't feel the same when they moved it to the Little Theater. Anyway, I still have to commend the performances of most of the actors in this particular set, especially the 2 leads of Doc. Tita Sherry (who also plays Mommy in Maliw) was also refreshing to watch as Mang. Pam was hilarious as the Babae in Oberpas, but I have yet to watch Minay (who alternates with Rayna) as the Tindera. I heard that she was awesome and pretty natural.

Our set opened this past Friday without a hitch. I was so glad about that. By Saturday night, while I was having dinner with Nikki after our evening show, I was beginning to feel a little off. By Sunday morning, I had a little migraine, but I didn't want it to spoil my day. Thank goodness we pulled an entire weekend of shows pretty well.

Sometime in the past week, during one evening rehearsal, my phone started ringing, and the number that registered was a landline. Considering I was still in rehearsal, I didn't answer the call. When I got home late that night, my mom said that someone from my office had called, telling me that I won tickets to Katy Perry's concert on Sunday (yesterday). Anyway, to be perfectly honest, I'm not really a fan of concerts, because I hate crowds and hearing crazy high-pitched-screaming girls. But heck, I haven't been to a concert in years, and Katy Perry seems like a big deal, so I decided to go for it, even though we had to strike all our stuff from the theater.

I gave Tin the 2nd ticket to the concert, and we just decided to meet up at MOA because she was coming all the way from Nuvali. Cellphone reception was crazy as I got closer to the concert venue. All my messages started to lag, so I had to rely on phone calls, until eventually, I couldn't reach people who were already inside the venue due to the crazy network connections. Thank goodness Tin had decided that we meet somewhere that wasn't too close to the venue, otherwise we wouldn't have seen each other. Grabbed dinner at Yoshinoya (because there was a super duper long wait list at Bon Chon) then just hung out at the fringes of the concert venue because we knew that the show will start about an hour late. After attempting to go inside the venue once then having our tickets stamped, we ended up just outside, just taking photos and videos of our craziness and even befriended an adorable 3-month-old Siberian Husky puppy named Kiara.

When people inside the venue started cheering, we went back inside. False alarm. Nothing was happening yet. We decided to just stay inside and entertain ourselves with the tweets that were being projected on the screen. Haha, we alternately read them out loud with feelings.

Then show began at around 10pm, and we had positioned ourselves near one of the big screens because we couldn't really get a good view of the entire stage, what with the taller (and more fanatic) kids and all. Unfortunately we ended up standing in front of 2 crazy girls who would relentlessly scream in our ears. Even though I glanced at them a couple of times, I overheard one of them say "Pakialam ba ng iba?" Oh dear, maswerte na lang siya na maganda ang mood ko that night, otherwise I would've pushed her back and under the scaffolding where the projector was. What was funny was that when she overheard Tin's Nikki Minaj joke, they laughed along and shared the joke as well. For that, my visions of retaliation lessened. Instead of discreetly pushing her back to the scaffolds, I silently let a deadly one out in her direction.

Anyway, Katy Perry herself was awesome, gorgeous and awesome! I love her performance, her costumes, and especially that quick change sequence. The boy-kissing felt kind of off, because the guy seemed to look so full of himself (no offense to anyone who knows him, it just looked that way to me).

The concert was only about an hour and a half long, but watching and hearing Katy Perry live was totally worth it. By the time we got out of the venue, it took a long while before we managed to contact people again. Tin finally managed to get hold of her cousins, while I ended up meeting with Erik and a couple of his friends.

Now I get a day of rest. Finally. Then back to work early tomorrow morning.

Kicking an old childhood habit, and learning something new, among other things.

I used to bite my nails as a kid. Not just bite, mind you. Sometimes I pick the skin on sides of the nails. Disgusting habit, I know, but some people say that nail biting was a sign of low self-esteem. I don't know. Well, true, I was quite the wallflower back then, and I didn't have much confidence in myself except when I'm with my close friends.

In 4th grade, my mom attempted to put nail polish on my fingernails to prevent me from biting them. It worked, yes, but of course, as a kid, you can't always have nail polish on, especially in school. So off they went, and the habit was back.

High school was a different story. When nail polishes in wild and vibrant colors came out and half my classmates wore them to school (some even applied them during classes), I envied their pretty nails as I looked down at my stubby ones. So I grew them out, swore to stop picking at them, got a manicure and learned how to apply nail polish myself. It worked. I figured I also grew out of my nail-biting phase for good.

I thought wrong. Back in 2005, during my first office job, I found myself picking at my nails again while idly staring at the phone, waiting for it to ring. And I kept the habit again, except for special occasions when I needed to have my nails done.

Just today, I gave myself a little manicure. Ever since our company Christmas party (when my nails were painted blood red), I've been enjoying how my nails look like, as I haven't been picking at them since then. I guess I'm darn proud of myself. No, not about the manicure, but the fact that I haven't been biting or picking at my nails again for quite some time. Now I need to brush up on my nail polish painting skills again. I remember how I used to apply nail polish like a pro that I would change colors every week.

In other news, my cousin David dropped by the house for a visit this afternoon. He came home briefly from Qatar to spend the holidays with family. One significant thing I noticed about him (aside from the fact that he got fatter, hahaha), was a silver band on his ring finger. As it turned out, he and Nits got married last Tuesday. Just a civil wedding at the city hall, as the church wedding that they're planning will be for next year. When he had said that, my dad suddenly mentioned that he and my mom actually had a civil wedding themselves before their own church wedding. I never knew anything about that. Funny timing, as their 36th wedding anniversary will be tomorrow.

Oh well, you still learn new things everyday about the people you thought you knew.

Anyway.

I'm still dwelling on what Carmie had said when we had met up in Greenhills. The thought that I could be the floor director for her dad's show. Well, someone's already working as the show's FD, but I can't help but wish and hope that an offer would be open once I had fulfilled my commitments with TP. Oh please, oh please.

On the new year.

I'm not really the type who makes New Year's Resolutions, because I know for a fact that I would keep putting it off and end up not doing it anyway.

But I guess there's always a first time for everyone.

Anyway, upon hitting the big 3-0 on my birthday last month, I decided that my new year's resolution is pretty simple. To learn how to drive. You see, I love commuting. I'm comfortable just commuting because it saves money, and despite my packrat lifestyle, I can go anywhere even while toting huge bags wherever I go. Never mind that my bag got slashed twice last year (first outside the DFA when Minay and I were renewing our passports, and the second was when I was switching buses on my way to Greenhills), as I had used the same huge-ass bag that was actually pretty theft-friendly. Plus I don't really rely much on cabs, because taking other modes of public transport keeps you aware of where you're going, instead of counting on the cab driver's sense of direction (or sometimes the lack of it).

So anyway, I just think it's high time that I learned how to drive, just so it would be more convenient in the future. Plus my dad's eyesight isn't as clear as it used to be, so as much as possible he doesn't really drive long distances or at night, so it would help a lot if I also knew how. Plus, I can finally go on solo road trips, hahaha!

Speaking of trips, I sure hope I get to travel more this year. Last year, I had only gone to Cebu. I do plan to come back to Cebu this year as well, but we'll see where else I can go.

I honestly don't know where this new year will take me. It's so funny how people would post on Facebook every new year that "[insert year here] will be mine." That's a whole lot of blind optimism, and it doesn't really hurt to claim every year. I'm not all that cynical or anything, but I guess I still just want to go with the flow. Hey, I know that at this age, I really should be more concerned about certain matters, but I guess I'm not that typical. Let's just see what happens.

More meet-ups.

Before the end of the New Year, I got together with a few people. First was the day before New Year's Eve with Tita Tessie, despite someone's protests. Met up with at the LRT station, then we headed back to their house. It's been ages since... well, that incident, which was why I haven't had any reason to come visit. But because she kept asking when I would come by, I decided to go ahead and go.

Just hung out at their house with Tito Jun, and their 2 youngest sons were also there. Jerald at first was just sitting at the table, happily content with surfing the net, while Junjun was just upstairs. After a while it was just me with Tita Tessie and Tito Jun downstairs, just talking. I have to admit, it was pretty nice to know that I was still welcome at their house (except when their eldest offspring is at his moodiest, or even when he's not). The moment I arrived at their little compound, Raquel immediately saw me, and I was amused at the fact that she actually still recognized me. And it was quite a sight seeing Tito Jun's face light up when I stepped inside their house.

After a while, Tita and I took a pedicab and walked a bit to Jonell's house. One of the reasons of my visit is that they had invited me to Jonell's wedding, and I wouldn't be able to go because I have a show that day. Anyway, I finally got to meet Lorie, Jonell's fiancee, and she's actually really pretty, and just a year younger than me. Oh, these boys, they really love older women, hahaha. I was actually a bit surprised that, although we never got to interact much unlike the youngest 2 siblings, Jonell called me "ate." I guess that was just it. We never really talked or whatever. But he has the same humor and intellect as his older brother.

Anyway, more talking galore over takeout, plus a little bit of teasing as well (it can't be avoided, anyway), then Jonell and Lorie had to meet someone. We all walked together then took a jeep to the main road, and Tita Tessie couldn't resist having a photo taken with Lorie and me in front of the city hall's big Christmas tree. Said my own goodbyes, then called it a day (as I had a brief rendezvous prior to meeting them that day).