Gianne Amparo Illustration: My Debut

(24th of August 2013)

Dear Readers,

I apologise for the delay but I will now show you some pictures from my 18th birthday debut. A debut is a formal tradition in the Philippines when a girl turns 18. Basically, it's a celebration and a coming of age thing to signify going into adulthood. My birthday was three months ago on the 21st of June. The reason why we didn't celebrate it around then was because my brothers still had school until late July and we wanted to celebrate with family and relatives in the Philippines.

Before the debut a lot of planning is involved and one of the first few things that we sorted out were the venue, dress, etc.

There's this huge market called Divisoria and it's wonderful there. Here, we found some souvenirs for the guests.

The souvenir we got in the end was this pink dress jewellery holder. The photo below shows how awe-struck I was looking at all the lovely items on sale at the market place.

I tried on quite a few dresses but thought some looked alright-tish. I'll show the dress I chose later on...

This was the invitation. My Mum and cousin Ate Ralaine chose this picture for the front cover along with the designer who created the rest of the invitation. I actually painted this picture as the final piece for my A-Level. Getting this photograph was not easy- I had to hold the camera AND shine a torch in my face. Looks creepy but that's one of the many words that would best describe me, har har!

I made this the day before the debut; I was looking through some old photo albums and saw a cute-sy photo of me.

I'm not saying this happens to everyone, but some people do happen to loose that essence or perhaps innocence from their earlier years and change to a completely different person. I think this kinda signifies that I haven't changed dramatically (well, I'm slightly more mature than I was back then I guess).

The day of the debut...

The inspiration for my hair came from Taylor Swift's music video of Love Story, and when I went to the salon I showed this to them and the hairdresser was brilliant at re-creating it. He was so funny and I even got a picture with him.

This is me before the make-up after my hair was finished...

...and this is me with the make-up on. Normally I would prefer just being natural and have nothing on my face at all but my cousin Ate Ralaine did a pretty good job. A series of events happened within the event and so it was quite a long programme.

This is the venue, at the bottom of our condo in Barcelona Tower. In one my previous posts (Mabuhay!) I said that it was going to be at the Marikina Hotel. We kinda had to change the location because of an emergency, and also having a smaller venue I think was more ideal at that time. Of course, the theme is pink added with black.

My cousins Ate Monique and Ate Ralaine were the hosts of my debut and I thought they did a terrific job.

After some photo-taking with the guests and family it was time to eat. Finally...FOOD! (I was so hungry at the beginning).

I don't know why, but during the first half-ish part of the debut I was quite upset, I couldn't put my finger on it but I felt like something was missing. I found it different being the centre of attention which I am not used to, but after talking to one of my dear cousins Rogine, she made me feel better and I began to enjoy the debut as it progressed.

Me and my chickenjoy (an inside joke between me and Rogine).

During the meal my cousin Reinmar made a video presentation using some baby pictures and also some recent ones to display the coming-of age. (And also pieces of my art/design work).

Between me and my cousins and also my 2 younger brothers we had to prepare a dance called a Cotlillion. Baring in mind it was a formal dance involving waltz, we practiced the routine only twice (I think) on the day of the debut. And when we performed it in front of everyone I had forgotten most of the steps (and pretty much everyone else too!) and it kinda went downhill at some point...it was so manic and crazy! Basically, we kinda embarrassed ourselves in front of everyone but we had a lot of fun, even if we did look silly and made plenty of mistakes!

Next on the programme were the 18 roses. The 18 roses involves the giving of roses to the debutant (me) whilst dancing a waltz with a male relative. The first dance was my Dad, leading to my brothers, uncles, cousins etc. It was quite fun and when it was time to look at the camera sometimes I pulled a lot of weird and random faces...also the occasional Asian peace sign.

After the 18 roses came the 18 candles. This was where family and relatives had to give a wish for me whilst doing a speech. At one point I got a bit emotional, but they were happy tears. I blew the candles out after everyone made their wishes. Unfortunately, the camera's memory was full whilst my uncle was taking pictures, but the photographer did take pictures throughout the whole event so I will be sure to upload them at a later date after cutting them down.

Subsequently, came the 18 treasures. 18 relatives gave a present each and some explained a story/ meaning behind them. I received some lovely presents but I don't want to share everything that I got but... some old-friends from Australia got me this kangaroo. Adorbs! Named him Ozzy (derived from Aussi :P)

Next was the blowing of the candles (again), this time on the cake. It was delish...and also filled with chocolately goodness. Yummers...

Next came a surprise. I won't tell what that surprise is just yet but I'll tell you after getting the photographer's photographs. I would say that it was probably the highlight of the debut.

After that little surprise was a dance number made by my cousins (and also one of my brothers).

There was also a little dance number from my cousin Danielle and Arken. It was too adorable. (One of the songs was Psy's Gentleman)

At the end of all that came the PAR-TAY. I had a blast and don't think I've had that much fun in ages. Apparently, my hyper levels were quite high and stayed like that for a considerable amount of time.