Mornings

Sharp readers will have figured out by now that on most weekdays, my mornings and early afternoons are as vacant as space (it’s okay…you can’t all be sharp readers *snicker*), which I try to fill with a variety of activities, trying to stave-off couch-potato syndrome.

Poor potato. Wherever did that moniker come from? Is it because potatoes just sit there? Well so do tomatoes…and pineapples…and durian fruit. Hmm…couch durian…

Anyway, when I am unable to go swimming (like these past few days, due to heavy rain), I often find myself imbibing unhealthy amounts of coffee while trying to go through my Suzuki Violin Method books. They’re all I’ve got in the form of pieces, so they will have to do. I’ve worked through the first three books and I’m now 1/3 of the way through the fourth. Those irritating double-stopped triplets in the 3rd movement of the 5th Violin Concerto by Seitz are so demotivating, though – not because they’re particularly hard, but because they just sound so illogical – dissonance for no reason at all. I’ll have to play through it a few more times, I suppose.

When the internet is down (as is wont to happen at least once a day) and I’ve fulfilled my daily practice quota, I do try to read through the Korean language textbooks I’ve downloaded – I have the alphabet more or less down and can read Korean words with a modicum (a very small modicum, to be sure) of literacy, but there are two obstacles that currently impede my progression from reading to understanding, which is absolutely crucial if I want to get around to speaking:

1. Korean grammar (from my perspective, as a native speaker of English – we can argue that point some other time) brings to mind very high-end programming languages, with impossibly powerful compilers that can make sense of very loose syntax. To illustrate, using an example in English:

   “Andrew home-at lunch eats.”
   “Andrew lunch home-at eats.”
   “Home-at Andrew lunch eats.”
   “Home-at lunch Andrew eats.”
   “Lunch Andrew home-at eats.”
   “Lunch home-at Andrew eats.”

   all mean the same thing (figure it out!). If I am ever going to learn Korean, I need a serious upgrade to the firmware in my head.

2. Korean is a context-oriented language. This means that what we English speakers understand as a phrase (an incomplete sentence fragment, so to speak) can actually be a complete sentence, given a certain context. This isn’t completely unusual, since we have sentences like that (“Run!” for example, is considered complete, and the subject – you, us, etc. – depends on the context) – what is unusual is that most of us are not used to perceiving contexts on the same scope as Koreans are. This leads to some truly mind-boggling omissions that are a part of day-to-day speech in Korean. For example, the Korean equivalent for “How do you do?” or “How are you?” (Annyeong hashipnida?) is literally translated as “Are peaceful?”. Imagine somebody greeting you like that in English, and watch the eyebrows go through the roof.I’m considering ignoring the literal translation altogether and just concentrating on direct equivalencies.

So is this report on my mornings geeky enough for you? Hehe. I think I’ll go and look for whatever it is I need to download so that this computer can display (and allow me to type in) Korean.

Hwaiting! – Oh, figure it out yourself.

Thoughts Underwater

I was going to write something about the current wave of fanboy-ism that has swept over me these past few weeks – to my great chagrin, of course – but it seems that every time I have the opportunity to write, I’m not in fanboy mode, and when I am, well…there’s no opportunity to write.

So I guess, for the time being, I shall write about…swimming.

Yes, I’ve recently taken up swimming as my exercise of choice; the public pools are only a short ride away and they give discounts to us “swimmers”, since we come early (before 7AM) and leave early (before 9AM).

No, I will not bore you with my best times, or a detailed analysis of my stroke, or how many laps I can do before calling it quits (500m). Instead, I wish to write of two things: one, the Deep Pool, and two, the High Platform.

The Deep Pool is the diving pool: 16ft deep and 10ft square. Very few people actually use it, and since I’m one of the earliest, I usually have it all to myself after my “demanding” regimen.

Diving into the Deep Pool is an almost spiritual experience: its quiet underwater – peaceful. I can’t say it’s quiet enough to hear oneself think – it’s so quiet, thinking itself seems like an intrusion on the peacefulness. I forget about the technicalities of my stroke and just enjoy the slow swim across. Some people find the depth unnerving – my nerves come when I imagine other things sharing the pool with me. No, the depth is fine – beautiful, even, like watching a thunderstorm. Welcome, the deep says, I have been waiting for you. Dive into me; swim across; take your time; forget oneself for awhile.

The High Platform is a diving platform over the Deep Pool – about 9 or 10ft high, built of solid concrete. Only the brave dare leap over its edge, for no matter how manageable it looks from pool level, the height is dizzying when you’re up on it.

Many times, the height has turned me back…with good reason: A drop from that height plunges you some eight feet down into the pool. Flawed technique (yes, there is a method to safely jumping off a platform into water) usually means a painful belly or back-flop (and public humiliation as your friends tell everyone how you flattened yourself like a pancake) or ruptured ear canals and/or sinuses. Get it right, however, and something inside of you wants to do it again.

Yesterday, I jumped off for the first time in oh, a decade. No crowds, no jeering friends – just me and what seemed like an eternal drop into the deep.

There’s something weird about stepping-off into thin air – the adrenalin rush of seeing the water rush closer and closer, the heart (and stomach)-in-your-throat sensation as you fall for what seems like forever…

…and then the roar of the bubbles created by your plunge into the cool, quiet water and you are borne slowly up, up, back to the surface. If you did everything right, that’s the moment you wish would last forever…

…nothing but the warm, inner glow of accomplishment…and the sound of your own beating heart.

I Remember

The other week I asked one of my students (Kyu-Yeon, henceforth to be known as The Q – that’s awsomeness right there) to track down an old (5+ years) KPOP tune for me. The tune was Lee Soo Young’s LaLaLa.

Well, The Q and her sidekick Minji (or is it the other way around?) are quite efficient when it comes to anything Korean (duh!), and so she found me a link, I loaded it up into my mp3 player, and had a listen to a song I havn’t heard in a looong time – right in the college library (I’m a student again, remember?).

And I remembered Nari, singing it in her pale yellow top and white skirt. I also remember the time she came to my classroom fighting back tears: she had accidentaly (who would do such a thing on purpose?) bashed her head on a fire extinguisher outside and was rather stunned by the sudden rush of pain usually associated with bashing one’s head on blunt, immovable objects with great force (and vice versa).

It was only my second year of teaching, and well, since I don’t get high school students with blunt force trauma in my class everyday, I was at a bit of a loss as to what to do. Rather innocently, I held-up two fingers and asked her to count them. She laughed (as best as one can when one’s head is ringing like a church bell).

As one memory leads to another, I then remembered Yoojin – one of the gentlest souls to ever grace my classroom. I think whoever composed her writeup in their batch yearbook was onto something when she called her a “Choi-doll” – she was always very soft-spoken and self-effacing, gently bopping her head when she found herself slow on the uptake. She helped me start The Orchestra, along with Abbie and Kristine and Yona and Yookyung – she was our first concertmaster.

She gave me kimchi – a whole bucketload of it (my attempts to store it on campus made me an instant celebrity). She called her violin kking-kkang because of the sound she made on it.

I remember Abbie, who is in Japan now. She had just about given-up on playing the violin, since she had been through a string of sub-par teachers (excellent players, but really bad teachers) before me. She was one of my tallest students, around 5′5″ or 5′6″, with nicely-tanned skin (a color we call moreno/morena) and wise-looking eyes.

During The Orchestra’s very first concert, she came onstage for her solo part in this gold and scarlet gown, all prettied-up (there goes good grammar) and beautiful, and I still remember the collective gasp from the audience.

I could actually go on and on with this, but I’m long on memories and short on time. All I want to say is that if your name is on this list, then know that today, I speak it in rememberance. If not, its probably because either you were never a student of mine to begin with, or you still are

• Nari Yim
• Tanya Aritao
• Kristine Borja
• Seoyun Park
• Taerang Park
• Yookyung Lee
• Yoojin Choi
• Eric Wong
• Benjamin Tolentino
• Eunice Oquialda
• Fahad Al-Khaldi
• Kenzo Teves
• She Ha Nul Hong
• Monserrat Gonzales
• Katrina Gonzales
• Jonty Domingo
• Katlyn de Mesa
• Abiel Balon
• Abigail Balon
• Jen Miguel
• Anna Calcetas
• Charisse Cruz
• Kathleen Hyun Kwak
• James Oquialda
• David Vidad
• Juwon Park

I have this hankering feeling I’ve forgotten a few people, as is wont when it comes to this sort of thing. I apologize – frankly, I’m amazed I remember this many.

Wherever you are, whatever you might be doing, whatever you might have become, I remember, and thank God for you.

In recent events…

Yesterday, our Educ110 class met for the first time. Entitled The Teaching Profession, the teacher had us watch a teacher movie – Freedom Writers featuring a shockingly-thin Hillary Swank and, if I’m not mistaken, a pre-Gray’s Anatomy Patrick Dempsey (who I better remember from the late-90’s film With Honors) – but not before making us give answers to a few questions:

1. Why do you want to be a teacher?
2. What do you think the average citizen thinks of our school today?
3. How important do you believe teachers are to our society? Why?
4. What are the characteristics of the best teachers you’ve ever had?
5. How would you rate Filipino secondary teachers as a group?

The first question is asked endlessly in the College of Education, regardless of the subject. It’s cliché, I admit, and the answer is often cliché-er (“it’s a noble profession”, “to help the country”, blah-blah-blah”), unfortunately. Not wishing to become a statistical cliché myself, yet wanting to be honest, I opted for this answer: “I derive a great deal of personal pleasure and professional satisfaction from teaching – I cannot, for the life of me, imagine myself doing anything else.”

And I mean that, in case any of you are wondering.

After the movie, she gave us another set of questions to answer:

1. Do you still want to be a teacher?
2. Do you think you have the talent necessary to become a good teacher?
3. Are you willing to learn the necessary skills required of a good teacher?

In a fit of what some people here might call “suffocating hubris”  (I prefer to call it “overwhelming passion”), I just wrote down “yes” to every question (my handwriting got bigger with every “yes”), turned in my paper, and went home.

Teaching: it’s what I do.

————————————–

I auditioned for the university band this morning – the bulk of their ranks were graduating, so they needed “fresh meat”. I was probably past my expiration date, since I was the only fellow who showed up who was…well…old (I graduated from college five years ago. All the other auditionees were still within their first three years of college.)

I’ve done quite a bit of reading about auditions, since the orchestral life (in the States, at least) is rife with them, and they are taken very, very seriously (if you fail to win one, at some point, you will likely have to trade in your instrument – which you’ve been studying for more than a decade – for something else…like an office cubicle).

Well, there I was, surrounded by (for lack of a better term) kids who, if they were not showing-off to one another how well they could cop the latest tune from Paramore (AAUUGGHHH! EMO!!! RUN!!!), were busy worrying about how the next arrival would ruin their chances of winning a slot. Funny – I was in the exact same position some six years ago when I auditioned for conservatory.

The outgoing members of the band lined the well-equipped room and watched as their “leader” made me play the violin, then the bongos and the congas, then the bass guitar.

At this point, kindly postpone judgement and just let me be honest instead of PC: while the guy plays a mean guitar, I couldn’t shake the feeling that he was a college washout. I can’t explain it, but it was just there. Like ROTC officer-alumni who show-up on training days because that’s the only place where they could get a modicum of respect, this guy seemed to be there because…well…it was the only place where he could get a modicum of respect.

I could be wrong about the fellow, but that’s how it felt at the time. If I’m wrong, I would like to apologize in advance. If I’m right, well…it doesn’t matter anyway.

I bring this up because (and my students can attest to this) while I love music, and making music, and teaching music, I can’t see sacrificing one’s future for the apparent glamor of the stage (which is never as glamorous as MTV would like you to believe) as a profitable exchange. Get that college degree, make sure you’re qualified to take on a job that provides a steady, albeit modest, income, and then go, be a rockstar…if you can. Beware: few people make it…and most of them fizzle out after their first album.

I say this having witnessed numerous examples of skilled musicians who have grown old in “the business”, yet lead lives that border on pathetic. I just don’t believe music was meant for that.

But anyway. That’s my rant. Before I find myself eating my own words, I shall find something more productive to do.

Day 3

I am now into my third day of classes. For those of you who don’t know yet, I’ve decided to take-up the 34 units of Education classes required by the government before I can take the Licensure Exam for Teachers (henceforth to be known as the LET).

Having already graduated college, I am now classified as an SS (Special Student – which brings all sorts of weirdness to mind), and have been herded into a class where we are all a bunch of SS’s (that’s weirdness right there for you). As such, we have classes from Monday to Friday, but always from 4:30PM until 7:30PM. It makes for some very strange sleeping habits on my part.

So far, I’ve had, ahem: Guidance and Counseling, Growth and Develepment of the Individual (the context, of course, being education), and The Sociological Foundations of Education. Today, I will be attending Student Assessment and The Teaching Profession.

The teachers are okay, although one or two stand out from among the rest (I have four, so that might not really be saying anything significant). My classmates, being older, will talk…but I must confess that few really seem to want to be in school.

Fortunately, I’ve been reunited with my old friend Jerms from high school, and he’s one of the sharp ones, so we keep each other sane when classmates don’t seem to get what we’re saying (For example: the teacher asked, “Can anyone give an example of a Static Force in Society?”. I answered, “Laws.” and a classmate of mine disagreed, saying that laws change from place to place, society to society. I countered by saying that while the content of the law changes, the fact remains that any functional society must have laws. She didn’t get it, and so the exchange started to become heated until I realized I probably should just shut up.)

Impressions? Well, despite the late hours, I find I like going to class. The concepts (so far) are easy enough to understand. I don’t find them terribly interesting at the moment, but its still too-early to tell for certain. We shall see.

I’m aiming for 1.0’s, which is the highest grade a student can get. I’ve never aimed so high before. I wonder what happens when I do…

Version 2.0

*Looks around* I wonder if I have any readers left…

Well, regardless…

I have just (not even an hour has passed) uploaded the totally redesigned website of The Orchestra. Yes, after almost a month of neurotic pixel-pushing and by-the-hour redesigns, I’ve decided I need to get a life outside of code crunching.

That said, don’t think I am not proud of it – despite its imperfections, I am. Built from the ground up – no templates, no cheating, 100% hard-coded (none of that WYSIWYG-editor nonsense). I possess intimate knowledge regarding how the whole thing is put together: bone-structure, musculature, skin, clothes and all.

…and still I notice there’s something wrong. Oh well. Tomorrow, tomorrow.

Actually, that pretty much sums up my stay so far here in Iligan City. If I’m not infront of a computer cranking-out standards-compliant code or attending to my steadily-growing number of violin students (only on Saturdays) or attending class (Monday to Friday, 430PM – 730PM), you can find me perusing the little coffee shops that have proliferated here in the past year or so (Aruma’s Bannoffee Pie is mind-shattering…and so is the price), or at home, annoying the family cat.

Hmm…I suppose now would be a good time to work on that driver’s license.

Homebase jitters

Well, well, first post from the home city.

For those of you who don’t know, I recently took a year’s leave from work to finally get myself a teaching license. For this, I need to earn 34 credits worth of Education subjects at the revered university local to Iligan – the Iligan Institute of Technology (hereafter IIT).

After taking almost two weeks to reacclimateto the city (It’s waaaaay smaller than Manila) – and discovering that it is very difficult to get up at any time before 6AM – I am now knee-deep in the enrollment process which is slightly different from what I was used to from my days in the University of Philippines.

It’s a little odd, now that my main competitorfor internet use is my own dad, who has a complete monopoly on the thing (“Clear out – I’m going to use it!”) and so while I save up for a dektop unit that will blow you all out of the water, I must content myself with my mother’s netbook, typing this out on a tiny keyboard, the experience of which is not unlike trying to play a 1/4-size violin with hands of a violist.

In other news, I’ve succeeded in arranging Swift Horse, which is now online here, and I’ve learned quite a bit about importing brushes for use with Photoshop. In not so good news, well…I’m still looking for students. Oh well. One mission at a time.

Well, that’s about it for now. Expect more posts soon…with pictures…maybe.

Exit, stage right.

I suppose there’s no point hiding it anymore, now that the people who really need to know about it already do.

I shall be going on a year’s sabbatical, if you will, returning to my home province to complete the requirements for the national Licensure Examination for Teachers. This year, the Comission on Higher Education and the Philippine Regulations Commission raised the number of education units needed for one to take the exam from 18 to a whopping 30. If I studied for that while working, at a rate of 3 units a semester, why, I’d be studying for five years! My parents, who are educators themselves, got a whiff of this and dropped me a line, saying, “We would like to sponsor your studies. Board, lodging, and tuition care of us, of course. The catch? Please come home for a year. You might want to take the opportunity while we’re still around to offer it.”

That was almost a month ago. I thought about it for a week, knowing that my parents had an excellent point (many of my colleagues agree – their eyes and faces all lit up when I mentioned my parents would sponsor me) but that taking the opportunity would mean leaving the students that I so dearly love and the school that has been my home for the past five years. And yes, there’s The Orchestra to consider.

Five years ago, I walked onstage as The Orchestra’s only cellist. I had put The Orchestra together so as not to have to listen to 30 students play Twinkle, Twinkle, Little Star one after another. Seeing they, now joined together as a larger performing group, could play more dignified repertoire, I proceeded to be ambitious and program arrangements of Vivaldi’s Spring, the popular hymn Amazing Grace, Edgar Meyer’s Short Trip Home, and Jay Ungar’s Ashokan Farewell. I was young and a bit more foolish than I am today, and I confess I shamelessly inserted a cello solo into Ashokan Farewell when I, in retrospect, really should not have done so.

Five years later, I can no longer be so shameless, since I can’t take anymore solos. The Orchestra has more than doubled in number and the students have time and again surprised many a jaded colleague who thought they were coming to watch a laughable, if adorable student performance. Today, the students are such that what used to take 3 months to learn they can now do in one rehearsal. There eyes are experienced, their fingers accurate, their ears sharp.

And for one year, I must leave them.

I confess, it is flattering to hear reports of them losing the motivation to play in my absence, to hear some of them whine, “Don’t go…” even though they know I must. But it also disturbs me that I have failed to train a successor, or at the very least, a substitute, thus making The Orchestra very me-centric, which was never my intention at any point. Now, as I prepare to bid everyone goodbye for a year, there’s a mad scramble to prepare everyone to carry-on without me. Mental note: train a pool of conductors when I get back.

Of course, I don’t intend to just study (oh, how boring!) – I intend to tie up the several loose ends that I’ve left hanging ever since landing my teaching job at school. Things like learning to drive and getting a driver’s license, clearing up my social security and taxpayer’s status, that sort of thing.

And so I will miss the school, the students, The Orchestra – some of the students I might not see again, since they graduate this school year and few students are seen again on campus once they’ve graduated. I will miss my colleagues – some more than others *ahem* – but I will be back. I can only stay away for so long

Odd. I’m actually excited by this sabbatical – I have loved every moment of the past five years – but this…this feels like I’m turning a corner.

En peu musiquè

Alright, alright, I stink at French. I just thought something French-sounding in the least would be appropriate for this post.

Last night, a few members of The Orchestra (myself included) went to what is starting to become a yearly oddessey for us: the last concert of the season of the Philippine Philharmonic Orchestra.

Unlike during the previous two years, the PPO did not embarrass itself this time – even though I felt the conductor (some French guy who’s name escapes me at the moment) was a little hard to follow sometimes (OK, OK, a lot of the time), apparently he was well-liked by the orchestra and they chose to follow him, so pizzicato sections were clear, cohesive, and “together”, there wasn’t much fuzziness in the sound, and the orchestra seemed reasonably happy to be onstage.

But it was also last night that I noticed how small the PPO is as a symphony orchestra: at only 60+ strong, everything seemed to sound rather small. Not small as in pathetically small – just small. They sounded big for their size, but 12 first violins is not 16, 10 second violins is not 14, 8 violas is not 12, 7 cellos is not 10, 5 double basses is not 8. This isn’t there fault, of course. I’m just saying I was looking for (and naturally didn’t get) that sound.

My students weren’t nitpicking this year – most of them were simply mesmerized by the coordinated bowings (which they are still learning to do themselves). Sure, the 30-minute pieces bored them somewhat, and one of them threatened to pull out an iPod, but it seemed like a positive experience for the most part – very much like going on a fieldtrip.

I noticed there were more black-haired heads in the orchestra (as opposed to gray-haired heads) this year than before. There were still a few mainstays, whom I’ve been seeing for years, but for the most part, the guard seems to be changing and this strikes me as a good thing – perhaps we can expect a younger, fresher sound from our national orchestra in the years to come.

Well, that’s that. Thanks to JT and Kyu Yeon for the ride which made this year’s trip to the CCP considerably less-stressful than before. We should do this again sometime

Dreaming…

I’m supposed to be working on the Guitar curriculum (and I am, I really am), but after going over some of the videos and video blog entries about the Youtube Symphony, I suppose I have to commit this to a journal entry before I can effectively work on that curriculum.

For those of you who don’t know about the YT Symphony, a few months ago, YouTube announced it would be putting together a symphony orchestra via online audition. The music was posted online, and amateur and professional musicians from all over the world were encouraged to study, practice, and audition. In the end, more than 90 musicians were chosen, flown to America (Google, the owner of YouTube, footed the bill), and as I type this, are probably performing for the first time at none other than the New York’s revered Carnegie Hall.

I’m not going to gush about the innovative selection process – in the end, even the YT Symphony is still a symphony orchestra, albeit a very multicultural one. And besides, most of the internet news reports about the YT Symphony have already done a much better job in doing so that I really care to do at the moment.  Actually, this post was inspired by watching the many video reports posted by some of the participants themselves (you can view some of them here, here, and here, plus feed your ever-growing curiosity by going to the YT Symphony channel here and engorging yourself).

Some of the videos actually feature nothing more than the author talking about his or her experiences during the day, but if you take the time to watch and listen (they’re actually well-prepared – if their posts are improvised, it doesn’t show), you’ll see something – the look in their eyes, the twists of lip and tongue – that really shows they’re excited with what they are doing and well, that get’s me excited!

I found myself pining while watching the videos – not that I wanted to be there (although that would have been really cool – they could have used more Asians!), but that I want to put that kind of experience, that kind of excitement into the musicians in The Orchestra.

Dream with me a bit here: if you could get 90+ not-so-talented, willing-to-work-hard musicians together, all between age 11 and 25, teach them that music is in the end, all about God and not about us,  and then get them working together on music that they enjoy (or will eventually learn to enjoy). 10 months later, they’ve seen the face of God and they’ve become family: they laugh, they joke, they tease one another, they, respect one another, they bicker, they love (although that kind of love hasn’t happened yet – it’s always someone outside The Orchestra who doesn’t understand or really care about what’s going-on…or so I think). They enjoy the music, they appreciate the hard work necessary to perform it well, and they rareing to get onstage.

Now imagine being able to take this colossal  musical force and bring them to places they’ve never been to, to perform on stages they’ve never imagined standing on. Imagine giving them the opportunity to travel together, to eat (really eat!) together, to give the hotel staff headaches with their fun-loving antics together. Imagine them playing to full houses, moving themselves to tears, uplifting their own spirits, opening the eyes of their own imaginations with the music their very hands are creating. Imagine the squeals of joy and excitement backstage as they celebrate their achievement. Imagine the audience unable to restrain themselves in their seats, the peals of thunderous applause raining down from the balconies – imagine the pride of the parents, the ones who were somewhat skeptical about the whole affair but nevertheless gave their support. Imagine the glow on the musician’s faces as they prepare for the trip home, the tears as they part ways.

Imagine how a person can be changed by all that – the influence such an experience would have on them for the rest of their lives.

Sure, this happens in the professional ensembles (well, the younger ones, at least) where the musicians are trained and all. But my dream has a twist – it’s about giving the ordinary, the not-so-special ones a chance, an opportunity to prove to themselves and to the world that what they desire, what they work for, they will achieve. And it’s about inspiring the nameless everyman – that he or she can also achieve extraordinary things.

Of course, there are so many things that stand in the way – logistics, lack of parental support (believe it or not, there are parents who view what we do as a waste of time), lack of peer support (Aw, isn’t that cute? Kiddies playing onstage. So did you get the name of that cutie you saw yesterday?), and ultimately, lack of financial support (What you do is inspiring, but what’s in it for my company? Will it increase profits?). Yeah, sooner or later, it boils down to money…or the miserable lack of it. How I hate that.

(On a side note: the little company commentary about profit actually took place and ended with the well-known company dissolving their orchestra and fielding a basketball team. It’s just good business. Boo.)

But I…I must continue to dream…and to seek out dreams that in turn inspire me to dream, so that maybe someday, before I am old and gray and too dead to care, the dreams will come true, so that someone else, in turn, can dream.

Come, dream with me…yes, dream…