‘The Unreachable Note’

Me, as of last night:

S(kyeye): Can’t we just write about this tomorrow? I mean, it’s half-past eleven, we just got home, and we might have homework to do.
V(incent): …all I’m saying is that we gotta write this. We’ll feel unfulfilled if we don’t.

Needless to say, Skyeye won.

Remember what I was talking about last night? The Pisay concert to be held in AFP Theater? Well, we went through it, and the end result (on the outside) is me utterly exhausted and suffering from a bad throat (which developed into a cough today). On the inside though, that was probably one of the most awesome things which I’ve ever done.

We (Himig: Me, Joaq, Josh, Isabel, Justine atbp., Ma’am Crisostomo and the instrumentalists like Raph–Andie didn’t come, though, as she wasn’t feeling well) left school at around 10:30 AM (so we missed classes starting at 10 AM), spent the whole time acting high (singing, and poking fun at Joaq, especially in the form of ribbing) and got to AFP Theater by what, eleven? Anyway, we spent a relatively small chunk of our time rehearsing, having already practiced the day before, so we mostly spent the day loafing around, loafing around, kalokohan with Josh, loafing around, eating, loafing around–oh, and did I mention loafing around? I’ll just talk about the highlights after this (it’s perfectly reasonable to assume that all we did in between the highlights was loaf around and/or practice, and in fact that’s very nearly what we did).

So, lunch. At around two in the afternoon, we all piled into the coaster and went around looking for somewhere to eat, and we eventually settled on Jollibee (second time in two days–the food at the general rehearsal was also Jollibee). So we all went there, and lots of randomness occurred, such as: Joaq making a puppet out of um, tissue(? XD), and me making one out of the packaging of Josh’s pie, and commenting that when we have our own reunion, we (that is, Josh, Joaq and I) would be remembered by the puppets; stealing food from each other (especially from Justine, who had those fries and nachos with lots of cheese and ground beef); and more ribbing of Joaq on the way there and back.

Time between lunch and last preparations: That was mostly loafing around, last-minute practices, and merienda (again, more Jollibee). Oh, and watching the practices of the main participants–the previous batches (batches ’69-’75). They were pretty much awesome, although we didn’t get to see many performers practice. That’s pretty much how the whole afternoon went until around five in the afternoon, when things got kicked up a notch–with people dressing up, dry runs being held, and the like. This was probably the most chaotic part of the day, and the worst possible thing happened to me during this time, short of dropping dead: I developed a sore throat, which is normally an annoyance, but when you’re going on stage to sing in two hours, it can be a nightmare. Anyway, I just tried to sing as normally as possible, although I wound up paying for it today.

The concert itself: Well, the whole first part was us, singing, then the batches, with a commentary in between the performances of different batches (there was this one batch that had a guy that was spouting funny comments–as in really funny), and some solo performances, like those of Reynaldo Vea (the valedictorian of the first batch, ’69), and Hermogenes Esperon (AFP chief). Seriously, to see the guy in charge of all our military operations, up on stage and singing, complete with costume and kodigo in hand? Nothing can beat that. Too bad lots of us didn’t get to see that, though–it was already pretty late by then, so I think the coaster brought most of the people back to Pisay. I, on the other hand, remained behind, because my parents were there and they wanted to finish the concert with their fellow batchmates (um, from an era when Pisay was called Sayans). We ended up going home after 11 PM, so it was a good thing there wasn’t any homework.

In hindsight: Sure, there was a lot of stuff missing (my fellow Himig sophomores know what I’m talking about), and sure, it was physically damaging, but who cares? I had a lot of fun, I was with friends, I went up on stage, and I actually sang (albeit with others) in front of a lot of people. Sounds like the next step would be to sing by myself–but that’s one for the future.

PS: The title? It came from one of the pieces we were practicing–The Impossible Dream, which had the line ‘the unreachable star’ in it. The bass part called for ‘star’ to be noticeably lower than the rest of the line, so in a moment of inspiration, I went and sang ‘the unreachable note’. Now it’s a permanent fixture in my brain, along with other stuff like ‘I don’t appreciate being bastos!’