If there is one thing I'm not comfortable doing it would be introducing myself in front of a large audience or in front of a person or say, if I get famous, an interviewer (LOL). Ask me to sing though and I'd be like a boombox on your shoulder on "play" mode. I learned to hum and sing even before I could talk, I was told. Until now, I would rather sing first for icebreaker before I start a formal introduction.

But this blog just made this introduction easier (aside from the fact that posting a vid of me singing on this blog just might turn you away from me forever, LOL). So here's how I start.

If there's one thing that I had truly learned and appreciate about me is that I don't easily give up when my heart is set on one thing. I was told when I was turning 6 that I'm tone deaf. I proved that person wrong when I learned to sing like Barbra Streisand at the age of 8. What I did was try to sing like her for about two years until I sounded like her completely. That's how I learned to sing from diaphragm. I also joined a choir when I was 11 to "fine tune" (pardon the pun) my self-training.

Aside from singing, I also love to dance. I remember as a child, I tried learning ballet on my own by copying my cousin's moves (she was training then); and ballet dancers I see on TV. We were poor then, my parents could not afford to send me to a formal dance school.

I realized early on that if I could teach myself to sing, I could definitely teach myself to do other things! So I taught myself to dance freestyle, my first moves were Elphabaish (Elphaba is the main character in Wicked), my friends would crack up when they see me dance. Years after, people would watch me and my colleagues perform a fusion of bellydancing and Filipino Igorot dance choregraphed by my bellydancing instructor, ate Malou. I led that dance. Years hence, I would be performing as Cosette, the lover of Marius in Le Miserables; and Susan from Tick! Tick! Boom! - a musical by Larsson who also created Rent in a local musical stage camp play "Louder than Words" by 9Works.

I also had my share of failures. I auditioned for Beauty and the Beast by KAPI and I didn't get a callback. I joined the UP Ambassadors in college but had to stop my training short due to several fieldwork schedules for my major subjects in Geology. I later joined the U.P. Tinig Filipiniana when my schedule freed up. I was their coloratura (did I spell that right?) soprano.

You've