I hate cleaning my room

Burara kasi ako. It simply means my cage is too messy that cleaning it on my own would take at least 2 days to finish, no matter how small it is, with less than 3-single-bed floor capacity. My window is facing the polluted street of Sto. Tomas, so I could plant any rootcrop in my room after months of stagnation. And as I age, my trash multiplies and ages with me. What I hate the most is my unreasonably dragging attention to my trash.

Over the years, it has been my room-cleaning tradition to browse through my old and new trash for a very long time and judge whether to keep or discard them. This time, my trash included handouts from my college and masters classes, not to mention my college books and high school materials that I kept over the years, if not decades (They're trash in a sense that they're unorganized bulks of paper scattered all over my room). I remember every detail of what the materials remind me of - from Public Health subjects to our fieldwork report (that kicked asses by the way) to Epidemiology courses and outbreak investigation.

They were good memories so vivid that I started to smile. Actually, I was starting to forget that I was a public health worker and an aspiring epidemiologist, with all these grudges with my current work and my attention given to music as a course. Then this...

I also saw some newspapers from my grade school and high school years, but not college newspapers when I made good in journalism. Perhaps I intended not to keep them, sparing me from another cause of anguish.

All these remind me of my current status in life - free of choice. Before, I had to accomplish compelling requirements, such as finishing high school and landing on a good university. And my previous thinking was I must finish whatever course I took in college, then get a good job. I did all that. In fact, I have a good job now, only to find myself itching to get out of it, during the times of global crisis. In other words, I can do whatever I want with my life now, without boundaries.

Once I wanted to be a doctor, then an epidemiologist, now a musician. It made me sad. I feel that I am irrationally leaving a big part of who I wanted to be, wasting all my knowledge and skills I gained for a very long time, just like that. And aside from making myself a one-of-a-kind freak (a public health musician, who would have thought..?), it made me stay out of focus on my future.

I hate cleaning my room because it takes me back to the past, remembering and digesting what I have done over the recent years.

But still I'm cleaning, and will proceed in my day two - probably the last day.

Kung may katulong lang ako...

My Pre-Christmas '08 Experience...

...was a bit crazy yet absolutely gratifying.

It was in our office Christmas party that I applied my skills in choral arranging for the first time. I arranged Don Moen's "Our Father" chorus part into four voices, upon my suggestion and my officemates' request.

Here is the original music from Youtube. Listen to the chorus:



Now here is my choral arrangement (with the help of Finale). This one has voice "oohs" to have a cool effect. Check this out:

I think this one, with choir "aahs", has clearer chords, so you can listen to the chord progressions:

Unfortunately, we weren't able to record the actual performance.

Aside from that, I had participated in the toxic activities of the school and the chamber. I joined the Santa Isabel College students sang and played for the simbang gabi at the PGH Chapel last Saturday. It was a bit weird for me as an alumnus of the campus, but the feeling was not that intense, since the colleges and the hospital are "physically" divided. And besides, no one whom I know in the campus was there, so it's only like being in "another church performance."

Also, I also joined the SICCO in our "mall tour" in the different SM branches: Sta. Rosa, North EDSA (I wasn't present here), Fairview and Megamall in three weeks time. The last one, in Megamall last Sunday, Dec. 21, was the best, although the time was a bit unfavorable because some of us were committed to perform in a simbang gabi with the Vox Angelicum in the Our Lady of Hope Parish a few hours after, at Monday dawn.

What's great about all these toxicities was the funny company of crazy musicians in the caravan. Ang saya, grabe! I might post pictures soon.

I was a bit guilty that I didn't prepare presents for people, and even not able to attend other social gatherings. But nah, I'm preoccupied enjoying to work my new crowd now, and we offer better gifts! Someday I will make up for all the shortcomings, perhaps I will include that in my New Year's resolutions.

So that's it for now. Merry Christmas everyone! And I mean everyone!

Watching a Youtube Video Gazillions of Times

ANG GANDAAAAA!!!!