Take a Chance on the Unconventional

I've been thinking a lot lately about my short-term plans for my career. Well, I'm planning to resign next year. I'm only looking forward to the Christmas bonus that waiting my resignation will be that long.

Why will I resign?

My primary objective is to finish my masters thesis in Epidemiology - to finish what I have started in the past. To do that, I'd have to resign from my current job and work on it full-time. I've talked to my uncle about my initial thesis proposal, and he rejected it and proposed a study on virgin coconut oil on multiple-drug resistant (MDR) TB patients. I am not quite confident about the proposal; it is rather unconventional for an epidemiology student to have an experimental study for a thesis. But once I prepared a good methodology and got a good data on this, it would be a major breakthrough in alternative medicine, but not really in epidemiology. (Halt! Among my few readers, nobody cares. So let's move on.)

My other and more important objective is after I finish my masters, I will be able to close the book and start a new one by taking a full time study in Sta. Isabel. I do not know if this is a safe move because I will not be able to earn money as I have been earning today. But if I do this, I will be investing on my musical potential, a move that is unconventional for a science graduate. After the internal SIC-SICCO issues I've heard about these past few months, I feel the need to be there more often than now, to secure some things. In other words, I want to partake in the musico-academic politics in Sta. Isabel and the classical music industry, to preserve some things that are important to me: the chamber and my friends there.

I know what my friends would think of me now. They would say I'm a bit crazy in deciding to abandon a career that has a full potential and financial stability over a career that has neither of the two. I, however, do not wish to abandon anything. I only want to take a chance on enhancing my musical skills, which will take up most of my time to be able to make it. And besides, I am old, and I have a lot of catching up to do as far as practicing violin is concerned.

I somehow do not want to stay long in public health anymore, for the politics is overwhelming. I somehow do not want to dwelve in a doctor-dominated field, where they nag you and order around what you must do. I am sick and tired of the academic politics I have been hearing in my previous school, that I wanted to abandon everything that I can remember about it. And worst of all, I vomit on my statistical services to the resident doctors who do not appreciate research but ask me to do all the work. This retreat from my previous world gives me a fresh start, and I never felt more free anywhere else than in music.

Reminiscing my past, I think I have been silenced by my traumatic experience with music in my grade school days with a music teacher in San Beda, who lashed me down upon my request to leave his school-based boy's choir. I subconsciously avoided anything that involve music, including touching a piano or participating in any musical activities. But somehow on my way to college and even after, I have been with music. If not appreciating it from a distance, I somehow got involved in friendly and short-lived choir participations. It was until in my masters days that I fell in love with music big time that I'd have to leave anything else for it.

I remember my aunt in Geneva discouraging me to pursue music as a profession, citing her niece-in law who was a Summa cum Laude BM graduate in Ateneo Conservatory but felt defeat in Juilliard as she was categorized among the "other" ordinary students. But I do not wish to be the cream of the crop. I just want to be a good musician and a good music teacher, with a vision to alleviate the country's status through musical or cultural stimulation.

This is quite ambitious for someone like me, but hey, what are we here for in the first place? We make a difference, that's what.

So I'm taking chance on music. Sometime in the future, I may miss being a health worker and epidemiologist, but it's worth it.

I can't wait.

A Message from the Heavens

I broke Carlo's violin "Ram" (it stands for "Hiram;" I borrowed Carlo's violin; Carlo is the SICCO concertmaster) and lost 3 of my 4 P1.5k worth of strings all in two days: last Sunday and Monday.

The disaster occurred after our mass performance in Sts. Peter and John Parish in Malabon. I left Ram in its case, open, on the church's floor, only to move a few steps to light a candle and make a wish to the Virgin Mary, then when I turned back, a heavy wooden music stand was on Ram, with the G string cut, and one f-hole cracked. As what I was told, a tall microphone stand was accidentally bumped, then it stumbled onto the heavy wooden (I have to stress this) music stand, which in turn crashed over the helpless violin, just when I was praying a few steps away.

Carlo was upset, of course, and made loud guilt-tripping jokes on me before leaving the church. He was quite effective... I got quite furious.

I tried to repair the violin. A few adjustments and the wood seemed to have no cracks, just bruise.

But to make matters worse, I was tuning the strings when the E and A strings were busted last Monday. In anguish, I went to the far-flung Mall of Asia to buy a new set of P1.5k worth of strings. "Kashing! Kashing!" I was advised not to use these strings, not just yet. Perhaps after a few months.

Just when I was wishing to the heavens prosperity to the orchestra, God struck my instrument.