i just thought i'd post this.

Robby's Night

At the prodding of my friends, I am writing this story. My name is Mildred Hondorf. I am a former elementary school music teacher from Des Moines, Iowa. I've always supplemented my income by teaching piano lessons-something I've done for over 30 years.

Over the years I found that children have many levels of musical ability. I've never had the pleasure of having a prodigy though I have taught some talented students. However I've also had my share of what I call "musically challenged" pupils. One such student was Robby.

Robby was 11 years old when his mother (a single Mom) dropped him off for his first piano lesson. I prefer that students (especially boys!) begin at an earlier age, which I explained to Robby. But Robby said that it had always been his mother's dream to hear him play the piano.

So I took him as a student. Well, Robby began with his piano lessons and from the beginning I thought it was a hopeless endeavor. As much as Robby tried, he lacked the sense of tone and basic rhythm needed to excel. But he dutifully reviewed his scales and some elementary pieces that I require all my students to learn.

Over the months he tried and tried while I listened and cringed and tried to encourage him. At the end of each weekly lesson he'd always say, "My mom's going to hear me play someday." But it seemed hopeless. He just did not have any inborn ability. I only knew his mother from a distance as she dropped Robby off or waited in her aged car to pick him up. She always waved and smiled but never stopped in.

Then one day Robby stopped coming to our lessons. I thought about calling him but assumed because of his lack of ability, that he had decided to pursue something else. I also was glad that he stopped coming. He was a bad advertisement for my teaching!

Several weeks later I mailed to the student's homes a flyer on the upcoming recital. To my surprise Robby (who received a flyer) asked me if he could be in the recital. I told him that the recital was for current pupils and because he had dropped out he really did not qualify. He said that his mother had been sick and unable to take him to piano lessons but he was still practicing. "Miss Hondorf . . I've just got to play!" he insisted.

I don't know what led me to allow him to play in the recital. Maybe it was his persistence or maybe it was something inside of me saying that it would be all right. The night for the recital came. The high school gymnasium was packed with parents, friends and relatives. I put Robby up last in the program before I was to come up and thank all the students and play a finishing piece. I thought that any damage he would do would come at the end of the program and I could always salvage his poor performance through my "curtain closer."

Well, the recital went off without a hitch. The students had been practicing and it showed. Then Robby came up on stage. His clothes were wrinkled and his hair looked like he'd run an eggbeater through it. "Why didn't he dress up like the other students?" I thought. "Why didn't his mother at least make him comb his hair for this special night?"

Robby pulled out the piano bench and he began. I was surprised when he announced that he had chosen Mozart's Concerto #21 in C Major. I was not prepared for what I heard next. His fingers were light on the keys, they even danced nimbly on the ivories. He went from pianissimo to fortissimo. From allegro to virtuoso. His suspended chords that Mozart demands were magnificent! Never had I heard Mozart played so well by people his age. After six and a half minutes he ended in a grand crescendo and everyone was on their feet in wild applause.

Overcome and in tears I ran up on stage and put my arms around Robby in joy. "I've never heard you play like that Robby! How'd you do it? " Through the microphone Robby explained: "Well Miss Hondorf . . .. remember I told you my Mom was sick? Well, actually she had cancer and passed away this morning. And well . . . she was born deaf so tonight was the first time she ever heard me play. I wanted to make it special."

There wasn't a dry eye in the house that evening. As the people from Social Services led Robby from the stage to be placed into foster care, noticed that even their eyes were red and puffy and I thought to myself how much richer my life had been for taking Robby as my pupil.

No, I've never had a prodigy but that night I became a prodigy. . . of Robby's. He was the teacher and I was the pupil. For it is he that taught me the meaning of perseverance and love and believing in yourself and maybe even taking a chance in someone and you don't know why.

as you may have deduced, i am too busy to write a proper post about MY life. oh well, someday soon i hope. my office pc's on the blink again and i don't think there's any way i am getting a new one. *sigh*

Can you guess which of the following are true and which are false?

1. Apples, not caffeine, are more efficient at waking you up in the morning.

2. Alfred Hitchcock didn't have a belly button.

3. A pack-a-day smoker will lose approximately 2 teeth every 10 years.

4. People do not get sick from cold weather; it's from being indoors a lot more.

5. When you sneeze, all bodily functions stop, even your heart!

6. Only 7 per cent of the population are lefties.

7. Forty people are sent to the hospital for dog bites every minute.

8. Babies are born without kneecaps. They don't appear until they are 2-6 years old.

9. The average person over 50 will have spent 5 years waiting in lines.

10. The toothbrush was invented in 1498.

11. The average housefly lives for one month.

12. 40,000 Americans are injured by toilets each year.

13. A coat hanger is 44 inches long when straightened.

14. The average computer user blinks 7 times a minute.

15. Your feet are bigger in the afternoon than any other time of day.

16. Most of us have eaten a spider in our sleep.

17. The REAL reason ostriches stick their head in the sand is to search for water.

18. The only two animals that can see behind themselves without turning their heads are the rabbit and the parrot.

19. John Travolta turned down the starring roles in "An Officer and a Gentleman" and "Tootsie."

20. Michael Jackson owns the rights to the South Carolina State anthem.

21. In most television commercials advertising milk, a mixture of white paint and a little thinner is used in place of the milk.

22. Prince Charles and Prince William NEVER travel on the same airplane, just in case there is a crash.

23. The first Harley Davidson motorcycle built in 1903 used a tomato can for a carburetor.

24. Most hospitals make money by selling the umbilical cords cut from women who give birth. They are used in vein transplant surgery.

25. Humphrey Bogart was related to Princess Diana. They were 7th cousins.

26. If coloring weren't added to Coca-Cola, it would be green.

Answers below...


*All of these are true. Now go back and think about # 16.

mirrors my state of mind. heh. thanks marky.

finally, after days of agonizing, i have finally purchased my very own copy of harry potter and the half-blood prince. an unexpected windfall has come my way and i went immediately to powerbooks in megamall where stacks of hbp awaited me.

anyway, i didn't stop reading until i finished it which was about 4 in the morning. i barely had sleep, i cried buckets towards the end but i'm not telling why.

i am alive again. i can't wait for book seven.

i know i am supposed to share in mommy's medical expenses. however, i have no idea where i will get the money since i earn so little nowadays since my boss died and i have also incurred medical expenses when i got hospitalized in march due to my miscarriage. i do not know if you know about it but i am telling you now. i got pregnant but unfortunately, miscarried and i was in the hospital for two days. joks and i had to shoulder all the medical expenses of course which in turn drained what little amount we were able to save in our years together.

i am also dividing my income between my own living expenses and the bills payment for mommy. as of now i pay the monthly meralco bill which is Php1,400-1,700, the phone bill (Php700-800), the water bill, and give around Php2,000 a month for mommy's food and various expenses in the house. i have been doing this since she got back to quirino. again, i do not know if you remember that this is part of our agreement. i have told you before that my salary can only go so far and as much as i want to shoulder all the expenses you are burdened with, i have no other means to provide the 25,000 pesos you are asking for.

honestly, i have lost sleep over this and i still don't know how to come up with that much cash. i wanted to ask mama chabeng but they have already given kreng an additional 6,000 pesos for her school (she has not graduated yet) and i know they are also burdened by daddy vito's illness. i have tried looking for other jobs but really, the situation nowadays isn't conducive to job hunting.

you can always leave everything to god anyway so if you feel you can't help mommy with her medicines and stuff anymore, well...that's it. i appreciate everything you've done and i know how hard this has been for all of you. wala naman po kaming magagawa kung wala na talaga kayong pera. bahala na lang ang diyos sa amin.

well, watched my movie. it was nice seeing my name under the words "screenplay by" on the large screen.

to those who missed it (all of you did!), there will be a real premiere probably on september. will send you invites.

yes, the film i worked on will premier today at 6:30 p.m. at the ccp dream theater in manila.

it's entitled groovy. (yes, with a period) and is about the colorful world of globally-famous filipina artist pacita abad.

do come. it's a wonderful film, trust me on this one. it's being exhibited during the cinemalaya festival but is not among the contestants. so, purely for fun.

tickets are php100 for adults, php50 for students. good thing you read fine print. if you love me, you will come see the movie.

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i was talking to my boss' mother a few days ago and she told me she finds the evenings the hardest times to get through these days. she says she's okay for most of the day because she gets to visit her son's grave every afternoon and bask in the sunlight and serenity of the park. but when the sun sets, she doesn't like it, she says. perhaps she feels as alone as i do sometimes -- well, these days i feel alone a lot of the time and i don't know why.

there are moments when i feel like i just want to let go -- to escape from all of these. i've been doing it most of my life they say -- not that there's any place left to run but that cold, damp place underneath the ground. and sooner or later it would be impossible for me to escape anyway. but sometimes, it seems to me that it would feel so damn good not to have the world on my shoulders any longer forever, to be free of the burdens imposed upon me.

i talked to my mother a couple of nights ago and she, in her wobbly voice, pleaded me not to let go. she promised she'd be well enough to go settle in the province with joks and me by the time she's evicted from her home by her own siblings.

really, i don't know what to do most of the time. i just grope blindly along, wishing it was over. for me, at least.

the past few months have been a terrible ordeal for me. i just felt that after going through with my mother's stroke, my miscarriage, my mother-in-law's surgery, my boss and friend's deaths, and an eviction waiting to happen, it would be illegal for anything disastrous to happen to me or anyone else around me for that matter. but then again, i'm not god. i'm just saying though, in case he's listening. he doesn't seem to do that nowadays, at least that's what it looks like to me with everything i'm being made to go through.

this is not a call for help, let me make that clear. this is just how i feel and i just wanted to express it otherwise i might explode from all the things i'm burdened with. you guys, yes you, reading this, i know who you are and you're probably getting worried sick about me. don't. on second thought, DO. i might actually be going crazy. and i might actually need intervention one of these days.

anyway, what brought this on was i was sitting here, flipping channels and i tuned into oprah.

there was this young woman who accidentally ran over an 11-year old girl named holly. and the show being oprah, they had to bring out holly's parents to meet the woman. and holly's parents talked about how holly would probably have liked her parents to reach out to the woman who killed her, to make sure she is okay. holly had also saved her lunch money for aids-stricken kids in africa and they gave the money to oprah's angel network.

i mean, the girl was 11 years old and she thinks about sick children in africa half the world away.

it was then that i knew god is shaming me for feeling the way i do. he si telling me that i have no right to die yet because well, i have nothing to show for my life. at my funeral, people would probably say nothing if i die today.

i'd like to have people saying nice things about me -- truthfully-- in my own funeral. how i saved the world from hunger and illiteracy or some other kind things like that.

seriously though, when i think about what i've done with my life right now, worthwhile stuff just don't come up. i tend to forget good, happy things like that. just the way i am.

so if you're listening / reading this and can spare a small amount of your time, please remind me. i really do need affirmation right now.