7 Random Facts About Me

Alright! Alright, you rascals! I see that some of you tagged me and at least one of you highlighted the fact that everyone has played the Tag Game except for me, so here goes.

1. The #5 plays a significant role in my life. I am the 5th child. My parents had 5 of us and waited 5 years before having 5 more kids. My mother gave birth to 5 boys and 5 girls.

2. I have a serious side, which is the lawyer and lawmaking, community service/activist side of me. And I have a "self-nurturing side" that creeps up on me once in a while and demands that I do NOTHING responsible for anyone else and selfishly concentrate on myself. In this dream, I blissfully go about doing things only for myself, such as work on my artwork, write a book, read more books, work on my photography, learn Japanese, Chinese, Tagalog, Korean, learn to play the uke, guitar and the piano, etc., and sleep in as late as I want to.

3. I manage the popular family band Olomwaay. Brother Gus founded this Band. I produced the Band's first hit album (She Gave Us Love) which sold 2,000 copies in 3 days! This is no joke! Gus composed the original songs "She Gave Us Love," which pays tribute to our Mom and the struggles we endured to survive after our father was murdered, and "Ta Baila Na Dos," a Chamorro Chacha song. Although Olomwaay has been on hiatus for a few years, we're making plans to dust off the cobwebs and get crankin' again. Do I hear music? You betcha! Come see the Band this Friday, May 25, which will be playing at the Karidat Fundraising Dinner at the Aqua Resort. Email me at cintamkaipat@gmail.com if you're interested in details.

4. I composed the lyrics to "My Micronesia," the theme song for the Micro Games that brother Gus composed the music to.

5. I once formed a choir at a large company I worked for in Chicago. The big honchos at the company liked the choir so much that the company bought us a piano! I had fun going out with one of the company attorneys who played the piano to pick out the "company piano." We had several company "concerts" using that piano!

6. I met famous Blues singer Koko Taylor and her band on a plane back from Paris, France. The Band invited me to the Taste of Chicago, where they entertained thousands of people at Grant Park. I became the envy of the thousnds of fans there who saw the guards briefly open the gates to let me in backstage after the band's drummer spotted me and asked the guards to let me in!

7. I once did an experiment in law school that back-fired on me. During an election period for Law Council (the STUCO equivalent for law school), I noticed that they had an opening for one 3rd year representative. I secretly nominated myself and told no one except my best friend Terrance what I'd done. After we had a good laugh about it, he said to me, "You know, Cinta, you know enough people at the Law School (U of MN) that I bet you could just stop a few people in the hallways and ask them to vote for you and you'd win." I said, "What? Are you crazy? I'm going to conduct an experiment. I'm not going to campaign; in fact, I'm not even going to tell a single soul, except you, that I'm running, and we'll see what happens." Well, sure enough. For the next couple weeks or so, my opponents campaigned and posted their posters and, me? I just went about my business.

Finally, Election Day came along and I decided I may as well go and vote. The Law Council President who was overseeing the elections said to me, "The most frequently uttered expression around here is 'Cinta! I didn't know Cinta's running!!!'"

Then it was my turn to be shocked. I walked into the computer lab one evening and the lab monitor said to me "Congratulations!" I said, "Congratulations for what?" He said, "Didn't you run for Law Council? You won!" I was stunned! Honestly stunned! I raced downstairs to the bulletin boards to verify what I'd been told. That's when I learned that I beat out 5 other people for that one slot.

Okay, so how did this back-fire on me, you say? Well, after I got elected to represent the third-year law students at Law Council (law school is only three years full time), I did everything to avoid it, but still ended up being elected Law Council Secretary. Yep; that meant that after every and all Law Council meetings, while everyone else had gone off to do whatever it was they wanted to do, I got stuck staying behind to type up and distribute the minutes. Ugh! Gosh, that was a lot of fun -- NOT! :( Afterwards, I was kicking myself and repeating, "Hey, Cinta, got anymore great ideas? Anymore experiments you wanna try?"

Okay, that fulfills my 7 (useless) random facts about me, but I'm actually having more fun doing this than I thought I would that I've decided to include a bonus. No bonus? Ok. You can stop reading here. :)

Bonus Feature:

Years ago, when I was still living and working in Chicago (well, okay, Evanston), I saw this jazz musician on the Johnny Carson Show. I was really intrigued by the way he played the guitar. He didn't play it the conventional way and it didn't sound conventional either. It was like a piano playing, only there was only one person playing the GUITAR! His name is Stanley Jordan. I was hooked! I even roped some friends into driving to Indiana to see him in concert. I was too chicken to see him backstage (I was too self-conscious about this "music groupie thing"), but my older and more aggressive friend went backstage and secured an autograph for me.

Years later, imagine my delight to find out that Stanley Jordan was going to appear at one of our local record stores within blocks of where I lived. Woo-Hoo! This time, I made sure I was there in person to get my autographed albums and photos, which I promptly sent home to Gus. I said to him, "Check this guy out! You're gonna love him."

Years later, Gus got a job working for MVB. Who does he meet one day? Stanley Jordan, of course! Gus ended up spending time entertaining Stanley Jordan the whole time he was on layover in Saipan on his way to Japan! According to Gus, Stanley even gave a concert here! Now how cool is that?!

Okay, enough said. I tag Bev, Captain Carl, Lex, Marites, and Aya-san and the whole Isa-CNMI team.