The Voice Major Party: for the Department's web site

I first found out about the upcoming voice major Christmas party a week before the event, when I saw the colorful poster on the Voice Dept. bulletin board while rushing to the loo. "Hmm... that's a first," I thought distractedly, and I am ashamed to say that I put it out of my mind almost immediately, seeing that it fell on the same evening as a Jazz Concert that we were supposed to attend to get extra pogi points for our MuL 13 class.

Wednesday evening: I had just come from another Christmas party (which was a HUGE flop due to lack of proper planning) when a text message from Keith reminded me of the voice major party. (Thanks Keith!!)

I replied that I couldn't make it, I had to watch the jazz concert, blah di blah di blah...

And then it hit me. What am I doing? I said to myself. This is an HISTORIC event!

Another voice hissed in my mind: But it's a POTLUCK party. You just attended one of THOSE, and it was a disaster! Not to mention the food which was hardly better than CASAA fare. And the games were ill planned. This party will probably turn out like the previous one! And what about the jazz concert?

My good angel huffed and puffed: Teka muna, MuL major ka ba, o Voice Major?

The B.I. (bad influence) voice spoke up: Mapupuyat ka... e puyat ka na nga tonight. You'll need your energy for the next day, for the lantern parade! The party will probably be boring, anyway. You won't miss much.

Good angel shifted tactics: Sige ka... kapag hindi ka pumunta, ikaw ang pag-uusapan!!

Oh goodness! I better go!

Fast forward to Thursday afternoon. A couple of us voice majors congregated in the canteen, waiting for our rides. "Is _______ riding with me or with you?"    "What kind of pasta are you bringing later?"     "DON'T buy chocolate cake! I'm bringing that already!"    "Are any of the freshmen going? Goodness, I don't know ANY of them!"

Three of us (Feon, Shaddai and myself) left first because we had to drop by Katipunan to buy our contributions for the pot luck. We decided on Cello's donuts, and I got two boxes (cheese and cinnamon crunch) while Feon got chocolate sprinkled ones.

At least the dessert's good, I thought to myself, preparing for the worst.

We then proceeded to the party venue: Zuri's (new) house at Ayala Heights. If it hadn't been for the map beautifully illustrated by the official cartographer of the voice department, Tanya, we would have been hopelessly lost.

Upon our arrival, we saw to our dismay that Ma'am Kitchy had been the first to arrive! Shame on us. "Para pala itong klase...palaging una ang teacher," she joked.

We couldn't very well start eating without the others, so we settled ourselves on the comfy chairs around the tv and watched De-Lovely, the musical movie on Cole Porter.

(Good thing our department head was present! Otherwise the only thing left of the Cello's donuts would be their boxes by the time the others showed up.)

After De-lovely, Zuri popped in a dvd of a broadway concert special, hosted by Julie Andrews and featuring the best dancing/singing divas of our time. Time simply flew by! We got so involved in watching the dvd, and it was nice because Ma'am Kitchy would comment every now and then. "The Americans don't really prefer quality or a beautiful voice... mostly, their idea of a Broadway voice is a nasal one, with power," and other little gems of wisdom would pop out of her mouth. And all of us would go: "Oooooooh...."

Finally, when a sizable number of people were present, we started eating. I was astonished at the bounty on the table!! Each person who was asssigned to a particular food (e.g. pasta) made sure to bring the most delicious specimen possible, and lots of it! If I recall correctly, there were three different kinds of pasta, an enormous Yellow Cab pizza (courtesy of Ma'am Kitchy) which was devoured in a matter of minutes, and other yummy things. We happily filled and re-filled our plates, and ate to our heart's content while gossiping amongst ourselves, seated in the patio/veranda outside with the cool evening breeze wafting on our faces

Definitely NOT Casaa fare, I thought happily while I got my 3rd mini-slice of donut. Someone had the brilliant idea of dividing each donut into four pieces, for those diet-conscious among us. I may have had 4 or 5... I don't remember! Possibly more... no wonder my jeans were nigh near bursting after eating!

The freshmen arrived soon after we higher years finished eating, so while they ate, we watched Zuri's dvd entitled GREAT MOMENTS IN OPERA (or something like that).

It was fun watching singers with fellow voice majors! We would alternately sigh / gush / make fun of the singer, depending on how good they were. An example of a typical discussion would be the one on Vissi d'arte as sung by Leontyne Price ("I prefer Callas' version... " "Leontyne's my IDOL!"  "Ever notice how black women have big asses?"  "Don't you mean VOLUPTUOUS behinds?"  "Didn't ________ sing this for opera workshop?"  "Will you LOOK at that MOUTH? SCARY!"  "Woohoo! Inggit ka lang! Kaya mo ba yan?")

When the freshies had finished eating, we introduced ourselves all around. We were divided into helpful categories such as Bechie Babies, Ferrer Gals to help the freshies remember us more easily.

Good! We now knew everybody else! Time to play games!

There was a suggestion that we play strip poker, unfortunately nobody really quite knew how to play. Besides, there were MINORS present! Hehe. Instead, we played GUESS_WHOSE_NAME_IS_WRITTEN_ON_THE_POST_IT_STUCK_TO_YOUR_FOREHEAD. Of course, the names were all those of people present in the party. And we were divided into two groups. Pataasan ng points!

The person on the hot seat could only ask questions answerable with 'yes' or 'no.' There was this time when Patrick's name was written on his OWN forehead! He easily guessed it after the first few questions: "Is he a guy? Is he in our own group? Is he studying under Ma'am Vina? Is he a baritone? Ohmygosh this is SO hard! *sarcastically* Who can this be? 

Uh... is he CUTE?"

To which we all shouted NoooooOOOOOoooo! "Then it can't be me!" Patrick said, deadpan. Haha!

Next we played a variation of charades. The topics? People from the college. Ma'am Vina came up with the name assignments. That was how I came to impersonate Sir Raul Navarro's conducting style.

Later, we played the connect-the-song game (hey, we're voice majors! No surprise there!). The first group would sing any song, and stop at a particular word. The next group had to start singing on the same word (or one that sounded very much like it).

E.g. 'Doe, a deer, a female deer...'

'Deer... ever had a shiny nose...' and so on.

I remember the time our group was stumped when the other group sang out, "Hakuna!" Haha!

Eventually, one group lost. "Truth or consequence?" Rather than being forced to admit their crushes in public, they chose the consequence: Spell your name with your butt!

(For more information, please see Tanya's lovely videos.)

Sadly, I had to leave at 9:30 pm so I missed out on the christmas carol sight singing part of the evening. Ich bin "loser," yeah, I know. My family picked me up and we still had to go home to Paranaque. (If only I'd known beforehand that there wouldn't be a lantern parade the following day!!)

So there! That's my (incomplete) transcription of the events that took place in Dec. 9, '06.

I can't wait for the next voice major party! To say that it was fun would be an understatement. Zuri's neighbours probably hate him now, since we made such a huge racket that evening. I got to bond with my colleauges (and teachers! Hi Sir Leslie and Ma'am Vina!) on a level that would be impossible to achieve within the classroom/school setting. For one beautiful evening, different people came together, bonded by our love for singing. And we were ONE.

*sniff*

Sa mga hindi pumunta: Sorry na lang kayo! We gossiped about you guys all evening... hehe I'm kidding. :) But we might, next time around. SO BE THERE! OR ELSE!

Mabuhay ang Voice Dept. ng CMu!!