New dreams, new destiny perhaps

 I learned about the MacArthur Foundation while skimming through Angela Duckworth’s book, Grit: The Power of Passion and Perseverance, the author an awardee of the genius grant herself. I know this blog page’s title shows “Italy and opera”—right now, I don’t know if those dreams are still there. I don’t know if I can still dream them. As an idealist, I learned the hard way that some dreams are just too big for the real world, and if dreaming about them takes too long, sometimes, it can mean they’re meant to be just dreams forever. I’ve been quite lost in my direction over the past months. There are seasons in which I think I’m sure of what I want in life, only to revert back to uncertainty when the vision blurs and my hazy foresight decides it needs to look for the next big thing to dream about again.

When people ask me why I love Italy so much, I don’t say that it’s because of the landmarks. To say that I love something about a place without having truly experienced it yet would be akin to saying that I enjoyed a novel without having read it yet. I have never been to Italy, so I do not know yet how severely tilted the Leaning Tower of Pisa is, and if I went by sources like Edith Wharton’s “Roman Fever” and considered them believable, I could right away believe those juicy things can happen at the Roman Coliseum, in a century past the era of gladiators, because I really have never been there or seen the place for myself. Although I have seen Venetian masks and Murano glass sculptures around, not once have I witnessed an actual festival at Venice or seen real craftsmen do their craft in real life. However, I love Italy because I have listened to its music, which has allowed me to experience the world of gelato and hand gestures in many ways unforgettable. Whether it is in listening to music from CDs or collecting money from multiple benefactors just to be able to watch an Andrea Bocelli concert, this music has done more than affect me on an emotional level. Ever since I fell in love with the sound of the Italian language when I listened to “The Prayer” for the first time at a wedding reception, it became the star that my wandering ship recognized and followed to shore whenever it seemed to lose its way.

When I was thirteen, I found my dad’s collection of Andrea Bocelli CDs, dusty and discarded, some barely touched and others unopened. It was also around that time that I started dabbling in Italian phrases and vocabulary words after discovering Il Volo through the duet of Gianluca Ginoble and Charice Pempengco in an Italian TV show called Ti Lascio Una Canzone. I wanted to study this language so badly after hearing how good the words sounded to the melody, to better understand the Italian lyrics. “Every word in Italian is a truffle,” said Elizabeth in the movie Eat Pray Love, and I always agreed. I printed out the lyrics to their song “Vivo Per Lei” and studied it, carefully listening to the singers’ diction and writing down pronunciation guides in pencil. As soon as my tongue had gotten comfortable singing in this language, I moved from one song to another until a performance-worthy repertoire was formed. I sang Italian songs to my classmates and in talent shows. From once a shy and reserved child, being able to sing in Italian gave me the confidence I needed to become more sociable and outspoken. It became the unique talent I could easily perform in public without having to feel insecure or embarrassed. 

At fifteen, while everybody else danced and bobbed their heads to the rhythms of pop, rock, and hip hop, I was hungry for opera and I wanted to sing opera. My playlist did not just include songs from everybody’s favorite high school bands. Since I discovered singers like Eros Ramazzotti, Marco Masini, Gerardina Trovato, Laura Pausini, and some of the younger singers that appeared in Ti Lascio Una Canzone or had newly launched their songs or albums at that time, my playlist had a diversity of genres of a common language: Italian. Any song in Italian with a melody that captivated me already mesmerized me and I listened to it, sometimes even going as far as memorizing it, just for the sake of “absorbing as much Italian as I can.”

Years later, I went back to the discarded pile of CDs and found Puccini’s Madama Butterfly, The Three Tenors In Concert, Placido Domingo albums, and other such albums that had the word “opera” written on the cover. I listened to all of these and felt what Jacques Lacan might have meant by the French word “jouissance” or “intellectual bliss.” From Il Volo to Andrea Bocelli, to the cinematic music of Ennio Morricone and to opera, my playlist has become an ongoing record of my growth as a listener and as a musician.

My eight-year love affair with Italian music has given me the ability to think and feel in a language far different from my own, expanding my world and my limits far past the limits of my younger, much smaller world. When the time came for me to choose what I wanted to take as my major in college, without a doubt I chose literature. As I developed a love for written works in high school, there was also Italian music which I spent most of my “thinking years” listening to.

I owe much of my influence as a poet to Italian music, particularly opera and pop opera because it has helped awakened my sensibilities as a poet at an early age and has helped me develop a sensitivity for the sound of words and the music of poetry. The days I spent poring over the lyrics on the CD pamphlets, studying the music, and studying the language, has led to decisions that would change my life forever. Italy, for the sake of its music, is “somewhere I have never travelled” which I know would be “gladly beyond any experience” for me.

When people ask me why I love Italy so much, I tell them that it’s not just because of the landmarks or even the food. Because I have never been to Italy, this makes my reason even more interesting—a reason which is mine and mine alone. The most detailed personal stories are often the hardest to tell or even summarize, but when I give them a hint by showing them my playlist, they also get an idea why I take voice lessons, joined DLSU Chorale, and plan to major in voice next as a second degree.

People Hurt

What if the person you've recently started to trust so much suddenly says something hurtful about you behind your back? I thought I'd already have enough experience dealing with back-stabbers to know how to face this one last blow... But apparently it's different today. It was different last night as well when my sister broke the "news" to me. 

Maybe I shouldn't be feeling this way about the person. She's been there for me through tough times. Good and bad, actually. But shying away from the truth on this blog would almost equate to lying to myself--I wish there could be more things I'm not afraid of telling people to their faces. It would make me feel less of a coward to tell people what I truly feel about them. Do I find their eyebrows ugly? Do I hate them on Facebook because I secretly love them too much--and seeing their silence online makes me miss them so much? 

The truth I want to tell this person is far deeper than those mentioned above. I believe it was along the lines of "She goes everywhere, but she's too lazy to go to youth." I'm not sure. I wasn't there to hear it for myself. How can I be sure she said it?

How can I be sure of anything anyway?

Well, true, I wasn't emotionally capable of facing people that night. I did have plans to go, though. It just didn't feel right--how mingling with people I don't feel like I have a connection with could, for a few hours, feel okay. It shouldn't be okay, to say the least. I'm not supposed to like doing that. 

I didn't want to see anyone either. I could try to open up to a few people--try to make friends and hope they'd understand my condition, but that's gonna take a lot of time I'm sure. Because of that, I don't think I'm ready to get emotionally attached to anyone as of yet. Yeah I'm tough, strong-willed, etc. but guess what, it takes so much courage for me to get myself to open up to someone. I go on thinking "I must be crazy for doing this, but what if it turns out okay?" Before I completely shut doors from the world, I did want to give "talking to people" one last shot--because it just might work out.

I shouldn't lie. I did get quite offended by what she said, though I must understand there are also some truths to it. 

Truths:

1. People aren't perfect. Their opinions may not always be correct. That's why they're called opinions. They're not to be believed all the time.

2. People hurt. In whatever way you'd wanna read that statement, yes they do.

3. Lying to myself could be the worst crime ever invented by my mind.

MUSIC @ 100

26 May 2016 - Stepped inside Abelardo Hall at UP Diliman for the first time, saw the music library, and watched a graduation opera recital. All those were awesome.

Hurt People Hurt People

I have been hurt by many men before, but no amount of hurt I get from people could amount to the kind of hurt I receive from my own father. I guess this is where I could talk about everything as I have never spoken to anyone about this before. I've been crying for days, the first of a series of emotional breakdowns happening on a nice sunny Sunday at New World Hotel. I have been weeping uncontrollably ever since. I weep as I type down this entry. Or was it on the morning before that? I had already begun crying in church the moment I entered the sanctuary. I knew the day would already turn out different for me when I sat down and thought of the words my mom had said. I sat in an unusual spot at the back of the sanctuary, where I could cry and not get noticed by people. On a beautiful communion Sunday, all I did in church was cry. No one knew, and no one saw except Rafferty who came to ask about it.

It keeps me unfocused as well. Yesterday I had a statistics exam to study for. I studied for a few hours, but when a giant wave of sorrowful thoughts hit me, I knew I just had to drop everything and collect what was the most important at the time: myself, and the sum of energy I needed to regain. Writing this blog entry takes the time of studying for my BUSLAW2 exam, but I have to write this down, even if I had just breezed through the chapter instead of fully understanding the text. I almost cried again on my seat. Whenever I sit down and try to focus my mind on something else, only ONE image comes up: my dad.

I was never his princess, never his daddy's girl. Growing up, I knew no hero, never experienced "running into daddy's arms." He would call me every bad name, every bad quality a girl her whole life would never want to hear or be called. Ugly. Useless. Shallow. Stupid. On top of all that, he had beaten me up countless times. Compared me to cousins and siblings countless times. Wished me out of the house, threatened to disown me, threatened to stop my schooling, made me choose between being loved and hated. Of course I wanted to be loved! But thanks to him shutting me up every time I would be loud or try to express myself, I turned out the opposite in school. Everyone saw me as the quiet child, but no one knew, that deep inside, I wasn't quiet--I was angry. I was never myself to him or to my family, and he never saw the good in me. And he will never see the beautiful, skilled, witty, brilliant person I can be, all because he never chose to love me.

Essay Answers: YouthSpeak Forum 2016

How do you encourage innovative thinking?

-I encourage innovative thinking by PUSHING people to think creatively, and to START action. I use metaphors (race cars, Newton's first law of motion, etc.) to help them understand everyone's need of a push.

Give at least three issues that you would want to address in our country. Why these three issues?

-Education, Waste Management, Voter's Education - because we need to start from the bottom when trying to resolve bigger issues like corruption, pollution, poverty, and health.

What opportunities do you think the Philippines will have as a country given that it is one of the fastest growing economies in the world? How should we capitalize on these opportunities?

-Human resource -- not just in call centers, but in almost every field of industry. Because Filipinos are among the most hardworking and skillful people the world has. We have artists (name any field of art, there is at least one Filipino who excels), professionals, and even vocations we don't recognize every day. We should encourage relations with other countries and not think of this as a threat to our growing economy. Don't even think "globalization" will affect our nationalism or whatnot. It might even be the solution to all our problems.

If you will be given the chance to represent the Philippines, how would you represent the country?

-I will represent the country by teaching. I will teach Filipino and Chinese Filipino literature, because literature is my major. It's what I can teach best.

How important is our role as Generation Y millennials in this country? How can we bring about change?

-We are practical, opinionated, ambitious, career-oriented, and goal-driven. We're different from older generations who can't change or find it hard to break with tradition. We can bring about change by leading the younger generations and setting an example to them. By doing what we do best, we will be opening their eyes to opportunities and possibilities the old world was too scared of doing.

AngrrrraaaaaAH

The sound of anger.

The sound of the two of us, resisting movement. I am stuck at the year I turned sixteen, where everything began and ended with you. You made that year; you are that year.

You are my only memory of that year.