I don’t have much time to blog lately. Lots of work, lots to do.

Yesterday was a long, eventful Friday. Lunch was spent with ******* and Ada from PEX, the three of us talking about the nitty-gritties of witnessing and testimony. A few tough questions were answered, and some interesting insights reaffirmed over a yummy Chinese hot pot meal.

That night, *******’s radio station staged Maestro Filipino III, a classical concert tribute to Filipino performers and composers. Lots of great music by great classical masters of the Western and Filipino traditions alike. The gamelan group Kontra-Gapi had an especially rousing percussion number, using kulintangs, gongs, drums, and other authentic native instruments.

We also had a great performance by a pair of excellent singers, Lawrence Jatayna and Rachelle Gerodias, with opera excerpts from Rossini and Mozart, plus a few other Filipino classical composers whose names I forget again. (Well, sorry, I lost my souvenir program.) Lawrence is an excellent bass-baritone, with a rich and deep voice, and Rachelle is an equally proficient soprano; both of them definitely rising stars in the Philippine classical scene.

Some clues for the clueless, however, when attending at a classical music concert:

* TURN OFF THAT CELLULAR PHONE. It never fails. Even with repetitive, clearly enunciated reminders over the P.A. system before the concert and between performances, some people still had their phones on, beeping and ringing away. Some rather inconsiderate Nokia owners even had the obstinacy to leave their phones either in LOUD mode, or ASCENDING, thus marring some otherwise excellent piano and vocal works. If you can’t TURN OFF or at the very least MUTE your phone at an event like this, then you have no business attending.

* DON’T BRING YOUR BABIES. The PWU Guitar Ensemble was rather rudely interrupted at one point by the piercing cry of a little girl near the front row. The child had already been making loud utterances and gurgles even beforehand, and I had to shake my head and wonder who the genius was that had thought of bringing a baby to a classical concert. Babies cry, and babies crying, well, that can bother performers and audiences alike.

Well, it was a late night, and I got home at midnight, at which point I fed Foxe (Tommie’s brother, also a stray kitten), then plopped into bed without even showering. Not wise; I still felt dirty and grimy when I woke up this morning. So, I got into the shower, poured Tea Tree Oil Body Scrub on a loofah, and scraped myself to bits. Now I have to go moderate my PEX forums and work on Pula.ph. Excuse me.