Janice Valdez

Last night I think I might have discovered a new threshold for my evolution and today I made the commitment to step forward and upward.  If you’ve ever seen the movie “What the Bleep Do We Know?” or “The Secret” and felt moved and inspired by theses peices, I think you would appreciate knowing about what I am about to embark on.  If you haven’t seen the films, then I’d say…see them.  On the weekend I also saw “The Inconvenient Truth” and that’s also another must-see. 

So back to ‘the Bleep’ - I met the director of the film who spoke about a human development course whose curriculum principles are founded upon years of extensive scientific research on human behaviour.  I haven’t taken it yet so I’m not really the right person to be taking introductory information from on it, HOWEVER! I can speak of how it has captured my attention and curiousity much in the same way as the three movies I mention above.  The anticipation of taking the course that promises a logical, systematic, wholistic and clarifying process of evolving human potential is so great that it’s on my mind constantly.  I’ve decided that where I work is not as important as who it is I work with and it’s my desire to surround myself with and collaborate with individuals who are ready and willing to make the changes in themselves that will inspire and move others, inevitably moving the world through the next phase of human evolution.

I will set-up a private introductory presentation via conference call for people who also become curious about NXIVM.  Let me know if you become curious about any of this, even in the slightest way, and I’ll be in touch about the conference call.  Let me be clear though, that I’m not endorsing a product.  I’m simply pointing out a flag that has caught my attention and I’m excited to see it because I think it could be a very exciting landmark and thrilling journey in getting there.  Kind of like saying, “Hey, I heard that Peru is a gorgeous, joyful, peaceful place to visit.  Wanna see some pictures?”

Janice Books, Down the Rabbit Hole

Tonight I had the most fun discovering the videos of Happy Slip productions on YouTube…otherwise known as You Choob.  It’s hilarious.  A filipina-american in New York City makes these great videos; writing, directing, editing and acting all the characters herself.  If you haven’t checked it out, do!  My favourites so far are “peephole” , “mixed nuts”, “Morning Meest” and “Home”.  She does a great job of capturing the charm and humour of Filipino families and she’s so easy and a pleasure to watch.

Janice Performing Arts

Looking back now at yesterday’s incident, I realize just how narrow one’s thinking becomes.  I totally went into shock and then I went into “flight” of “fight or flight” mode for survival.  I didn’t want to be near any strangers, as well intending and helpful as they were, I just wanted to get to the Belfry where I knew people.

Now it’s the next morning and more injury presents itself.  My neck is strained and more bruises have appeared where there weren’t any yesterday. 

If it ever happens again that i’m hit, I’ll know better to make sure that the police interview me.  It’s really stupid that she didn’t ask me questions because they were insisting that I stay for the incident report.  I don’t know if that matters now, but it did occur to me later that I wasn’t in a state of mind to advocate for myself during the police report.  And I’m thinking now that the driver probably got his word in while I walked my bicycle home and returned by myself.  All I could think of was getting out of there as fast as possible.  Only now that I’m comfortable in my home can I look back and see that I was in Flight mode. 

I can be grateful that it wasn’t much worse. 

As a society that has grown accustomed to shootings and accidents and bombings on tv and movies, a motor vehicle accident with a cyclist may not seem so shocking, until you’re the one hit.  I’m surprised still, by my reaction to the experience and the reactions of others.  Very useful information, in the end. 

Janice Down the Rabbit Hole

I was on my way to rehearse a reading of a mexican play called “The Victim” and then I became one. 

I can now say that I’ve been hit by a car.  Earthquake? Done it.  Typhoon?  Done.  Hit by a car?  Check. 

Most inconvenient because my left ankle is buggered, bruised and sore to walk on and I have to be on stage tomorrow.  

It was a beautiful sunny Saturday morning and I was riding my bicycle down a side walk that runs along Shelbourne street, a main street near the house.  I see a car begin to pull up to towards the road from a driveway that goes up into a townhouse complex.  I see it slow down and I think that he sees me.  I can’t see into the car to make eye contact because of the sun glare of the windshield.  As I approach he’s still rolling and doesn’t actually stop but I was thinking he would any moment.  And then I started to slow down but not in time and he started to accelerate and then next thing I knew I was on the road.  I think it took him a moment to see that he hit me because the front end started come over me a bit.  he backed up.  I rolled over and couldn’t move my left leg at first.  I focussed on breathing while the man and other bystanders stood around saying, “Should we call an ambulance?” 

Within 5 minutes, the fire truck, police and paramedics show up.  Meanwhile, I’m getting annoyed that I’m late for rehearsal and I keep saying, “I just need to get to the Belfry.”  The man who hit me offered to drive me there, but why the hell would I want to ride in his car?  Fucker. 

And then the woman doing the police report said that she wouldn’t issue either of us tickets because we both were at fault.  So if I was on rollerblades and not on a bicycle, I wouldn’t be at fault for being hit, but because I was on a bicycle, I should have been on the road and therefore at fault.  But I just don’t think that is a fair evaluation of the situation because the fact that he totally failed to stop before crossing a pedestrian sidewalk seems to me to have far more dangerous implications than my being on the sidewalk.  Shelbourne is known to have more bicycle-vehicle incidents from bicycles being on the road because the it’s too narrow and the cyclists get nipped by drivers.  Victoria has bloody awful drivers.  And sometimes I feel safer, and really it is safer, to ride on the sidewalk.  So if I was a child riding my bicycle on the sidewalk, I would be at fault?  Fuckers.

 I refused to let the paramedics take me to the hospital so I could get to rehearsal sooner and I decided I would get the leg checked out after rehearsal.  I had been going on and on about getting to the Belfry so the policeofficer offered to drop me off there.  As soon as she did that, the man says, “Oh good, because I have to get to a Tennis match.  Uh, not that that’s more important…”  Right.  So there proves my point.  The guy was in a hurry and checked only one shoulder. 

One thing that did come from this is that I should either get a husband at some point in life or a lot of money to hire people to take care of me in old age.  Because it sucks having to cook yourself dinner and clean after being in an accident.  I had thought about not writing about this incident to avoid unnecessary worry, but I think it makes for interesting discussion around the issue of riding bicycles to “go green”.  B.C and maybe all of Canada really hasn’t done much to give people the supportive structures that make “green choices” like cycling, safe.  To top it off, this week was Cycle to Work week in Victoria. 

Luckily, my bicycle seems to be in decent shape.  And my leg was the point of contact so the car wasn’t scratched a bit.  Please, if you drive:  Remember that when crossing a sidewalk path, pedestrian traffic goes both ways!  And if you cycle, don’t do for one minute assume that they see you.  Assume that all the drivers are blind!  The amount of elderly on the road, half of them almost are!

Playreading details:  The Belfry Theatre, off Fernwood in Victoria.  Sunday, February 11 @ 8pm.  by donation. 

Janice Down the Rabbit Hole

What a terrific piece of work.  I hope Peter O’Toole does win Best Actor for his performance in it.

We barely heard about this gem until the nominations came out and despite that, on a Thursday night (mind you it’s Victoria the city that always sleeps) I was the only one who had shown up to see it and it was already 10 minutes before showtime.  The attendant told me that if another person does show up, maybe they’ll show it but if it’s just me, they could give me a voucher for two free tickets to another movie.  But I wanted to see Venus! 

Oh no!   That didn’t please me at all so I visualized someone rushing, on their way to catch this under-publicized flick.  I put into practice the mindful practice taught in the book “Ask and It is Given”; really, it’s changing the way I live.  Get it! Read it!  I think my wishful thinking manifested this random soul to walk in just as they were going to send me home with a voucher.    As I was imagining, I figured, what the heck, might as well be male.  So, it only took about 5 minutes for the Universe to respond but I wasn’t specific enough though.  He wasn’t so attractive and very poorly dressed with torn layers of cotton sweat pants or something resembling that.  But hey, what do I know?  Could’ve been Jesus reincarnated. 

Nevertheless, it was a great movie.  I also caught a glimpse of a promising story to come to Vic Theatre called “God Grew Tired of Us” .  So even though I went alone and the guy of my dreams didn’t walk through the door, I’m so glad that I went.  Victoria, seriously… WAKE-UP!  And support the Arts!

Janice Books

I recently went back to Victoria and watched the movie I filmed with High Banks Productions (Jordan Clark) last summer.  I felt nervous before watching it, and mixed emotions while watching it (scared, anxious, surprised, annoyed, pleased, confused) and then afterwards, I felt relieved and excited, and still a bit insecure.  Not attributed to the film, but to my own coming to terms that the process is coming to an end and it is now becoming a product that others will see and judge.

I don’t particularly enjoy watching myself on video. Never have.  But it’s a good exercise for actors because the camera doesn’t lie.  I’m very quick to see what I could have done better.  The way we worked actually gave me an out from the pressure of having things done in a specific way, in that there were no rehearsals with scripts and very little character prep could actually be done for scenes that were improvised and shot out of sequence.  Every shot was done the best way we knew how at the time.  If I’m to work this way again, without a script, I’d say I would need to spend more time dreaming in unison with the filmmaker about the vision and direction of the story.  Ideally there would be funding to build in this time so that we didn’t also need to attend to full-time jobs at the same time.  I learned that the script, the written word, is where the team meets for guidelines in the creative process.  I appreciate it’s function in a way I had not before.  In fact, I have thought sometimes that speaking another writer’s words got in the way, creating obstacles to my connection to the role (depending on the quality and style of the writing). Although challenging and limiting, I also see the advantages and fun in working without scripts.

We’ll be screening it in Victoria sometime in March.  I’ll go but I’ll probably be watching the audience more than I will the film. 

For the trailer and music clips and the director notes on the making of the film, click on aswang movie under the blogroll.

I think my family who were in the movie will be pleased.  They were invaluable to the making of the film, both in Canada and the Philippines.

Janice Performing Arts

I got a comment from a Filipino in response to my post titled “Pinoys in Taiwan” and I just wanted to comment on the comment.  Firstly, I think it’s so neat that someone other than my friends and family is finding relevance in what I’m writing.  And secondly, I’m really starting to feel the eeriness of being public via the world wide web.

The comment, if you can’t be bothered to click back and read it, was a request to use my story of being a Filipino Overseas worker in Taiwan.  Now this is an interesting question to me because while I was there, I often thought about whether or not I qualified as an OFW.  I am Filipino and I was overseas working, but in no way was my story similar to the men and women who had fled the poverty of the Philippines to work hard for low wages in Taiwan and send money home to their families for survival.

I was warned that I might experience prejudice from prospective employers whose ideals for an English teacher can often be more about how much one looks Canadian, as opposed to how well one teaches English.  They were right. Teachers are a respected lot here and if a school were to hire a teacher who looks the same as the students’ nannies, then parents may complain or at least question the school’s judgement.  I did get work, and fairly easily, but mostly because there is a shortage of native English speaking teachers in Taiwan.  And also because I had good people connecting me with open-minded school directors.  What many have not come to realize there, probably because they have never been to Canada, is that “looking Canadian” is not exclusive to any one race.  But hey, even here in Canada many think that there is a way to look Canadian, and I don’t mean by wearing a hockey jersey and toting a six pack of beer around.

It’s quite easy for me to see how I’m different from the majority of OFW’s:  I speak the North American dialect, I dress and walk differently (I don’t know what it is, but other Filipinos can tell that I’m not from the Philippines before I even open my mouth) I didn’t go to the Filipino church services (although I wouldn’t have minded for Christmas), and I didn’t work as a nanny or a domestic aid, or a nurse, or a factory worker.  I have not known the hardships that burden them and my Canadian passport allows me privileges and freedoms that are beyond the imaginations of many.  And I walk differently and attract different things into my reality because I grew up in receiving messages that I am capable.  The majority of Filipino’s receive the message at a young age that their options are limited and so, they are.  But at the same time, I don’t think I’m all that seperate from them.

When one is in a foreign land for long enough for one’s routine to develop beyond that of a tourist, the source of strength to endure the vulnerability of being immersed in strange sounds, smells, structures and systems becomes, I believe, a communal wellspring.  No matter what brought us there or how we sustained our stay, I can appreciate their plight on the basic level of being an outsider.  Some might say, “But you chose to go there and you were making far more money than them.”  True.  And they also chose to go there to make money.  The difference of income is a larger economic issue that I won’t address in this blog mostly because it doesn’t change the fact that our choices lead to a transforming process.  What I find interesting, is that when I read the stories of OFW’s from the Philippines and their accounts of feeling homesick, I can relate.  And as I’ve written in past posts about homesickness, I refer not to a feeling of missing a place or specific people, necessarily, but the feeling that who I am inside is not aligned with the life that is reflected back to me by the activities, sights and relationships in my day-to-day reality.  In truth, I often felt homesick in Victoria, B.C., where I have roots and a house and relationships that span 1/3 of my physical life.

So was I an overseas Filipino worker in Taiwan?  One might say I was an overseas Filipino-Canadian worker in Taiwan.  And even though I’m a citizen of Canada, my privileges do not rob me of knowing what it is to be foreign.  I’m grateful for that gift because I think it has caused me to think more about identifying as a global citizen rather than depending on a national identity.

I wrote to Dominic, who made the comment about my OFW post, saying that I remain open to sharing my story for her site should it seem appropriate.  It’s been my impression that the stories of OFW’s usually seem to be accompanied by trauma, pity and shame.  Maybe we are coming into an age in which Filipino’s will see themselves as adventure-seekers, travellers, the finest in helping professions, global citizens.  The power of who I am and who I am not, is in what I believe and do.

Janice Taiwan