Just a few sound bites that may inform you of how and why I turned out the way I did:

- Me to my Dad: “I got a 97 on my test!”  Dad to me: “Why didn’t you get 100?”  I shot this right back at him when, at perusing his college yearbook, he said, “I graduated 3rd in my class…” “Dad, why weren’t you #1?”

- Director to a 9-year-old me at the note session at the end of rehearsals: “YOU ARE A BULOK ACTRESS!!!” said in front of the whole cast.  If anything, it was a test of my character, and my mom’s who had to endure all of that along with me.  A few other mothers pulled their kids out of the same show at the time, opting to not stomach what they saw as vitriol and abuse.  Truth be told, I wouldn’t hesitate to say the same thing to the 9-year-old me; I really WAS kinda bulok (read: auto-pilot) at the time.  I did get better though.

- Mom to me: “If you don’t finish your homework, I am not taking you to rehearsals.” I LOVED rehearsals! That was more than a valid threat. I eventually started bringing homework to rehearsals, enlisting the aid of many of the adult actors around me.

- Mom to an adult me: “If you were ‘normal,’ I would allow you to go out on your own/date openly/go to the movies with your friends.”  I kind of resented my brother a little bit at the time because he, being the rebel that he was, defied my mother and grabbed the opportunities at independence far earlier than I did.  A guy that I dated at the time strongly encouraged that I start to take the bull by the horns.  I did begin to, in my own way, carve out an existence for myself that didn’t involve her: I had boyfriends, snuck out, and to top it off, returned to my New York apartment alone after an overseas engagement, packed up all her things in several Balikbayan boxes and sent them home.  Yes, it hurt her, but this was something I needed to do, in order for me to figure out who I was, alone.  So now when I hear of other celebrities that are going through a similar experience, i.e., being guarded man to man by their parents, I fear (and even hope) that they come to realization that sometimes, to have a life of your own, you have to fight for it.

- Golden retriever to a 9-year-old me: “ROWRF!!!”  With that bark, his teeth came into contact with my face, near my eye.  I remember some Spanish cologne on Kleenex being placed on my face in a attempt to clean the wound (it did make it smell better).  I remember laying down in fear in my mother’s car on the way to another rehearsal, where the replacement dog -- a trained German shepherd named Jabbar -- would have his first day.  I was very nervous, but after time and training with me, I learned to handle him.  And even fell in love with him.