I find it amusing to look back at the year 1998 and find myself in CCP as one of the glee club members fronting for an australian teenage group of performers touring different countries as part of their learning process...and to find myself in PICC, 7 years later, an usherette to yet another foreign group called The Stylistics. The funny thing was, I knew the australian performance back in 1998 was in CCP but it didn't look the same whenever I visited the place so I waved it off and thought it was probably in PICC, and just several days ago when I went there to be an usherette, I swear I thought we changed venue 7 years ago from CCP and performed in PICC instead. Then just now, I couldn't figure it out anymore so I took a look at the artist pass I had back then. True enough, it was in CCP that we performed in 1998. I found all this peculiar because it was only then it hit me how memories are seen differently every time you try to remember them, and the slightest change in detail of where it all happened could make me go berserk.
I did have fun being an usherette, it was an all-new experience I wouldn't dare miss out on again. I saw a lot of things happen: audiences raising their voices to complain so that others can witness their complaint and flaunt their power to complain that's why they complain (--say what?!), customers putting on poker faces, or smiling too much because they have to return your greeting that's actually part of your job, and not your mutual willingness to greet people, and those who treat us like anything lower than their pets at home. I saw a woman who started making a scene in the middle of the show because of problems they had with their seat numbers and hail an usher as if she was gesturing to her own personal slave. It was a big problem, though, but something which did not require a lot of other people's attention; something that could have been easily solved without creating much of a scene. All I can say is that people who treat ushers and usherettes like that are garbage. Between shows and intermissions, which is mostly during our breaks, we talk about you, we b!tch about you, and you don't know how low we think of you. People who make a living out of being ushers and usherettes are decent individuals who just sometimes try to make both ends meet, yet some are rich enough to buy you, but humble enough not to let everyone know of their social status because they wanted to experience living a normal and simple life without the leisure of living under their parents' shadow. The least you could do is try acting like normal and decent human beings, even if you paid a large amount of money to watch a show.
I'm proud I was able to be an usherette for just a couple of days though, and I'm looking forward to having more of this kind of work. You get to greet people and smile at them a lot. It's a great feeling...it's different. It's simple and yet exhilirating; like watching Stargate Atlantis but feeling melancholic afterwards. Weird, but I like that kind of mixed emotions. Yeah, I love it. Someday soon, I hope I get to do this again...it's hard but it's fun, and you get to meet a lot of new people...yeah, I really like that.
