Merry Christmas to everyone!

What a year! I learned a lot as a teacher, daughter, mother, wife, friend and most of all as one of God's children. I still have lots to learn and we should never stop learning. I am grateful that the Almighty God has never stop supporting me and my family all these years!

May we all have a better understanding in life, contentment, happiness and peace as we approach year 2011! Let us embrace the new challenges with an open heart and ask the Almighty God a humble heart for all the blessings.

HAVE A MERRY CHRISTMAS AND A HAPPY NEW YEAR TO MY FAMILY;  FRIENDS and RELATIVES FROM ALL OVER THE WORLD!

June Tomada Young

Featured Student - DANIKKA

The good thing about teaching people how to not just sing but bring out the best in them is the satisfaction I get when I hear how my students use their instruments to touch the hearts of his or her listeners. For instance, Danikka one of my best below 10 years old student. She is only 7 years old and has been with me since February 2010. Just like any other young girl she is carefree and loves to sing. Her issues are breathing a typical problem even for an adult and professional singers! She sings through her nose and didn't have a great vocal projection. Danikka is still very young and doesn't know about her singing instrument so I wasn't expected much from her really.

However, what separate her from the other learners is that she applies the lessons she has learned during our session as soon as she gets the chance to practise at home. I know this because her Mum told me so when I introduced her the different emotions of a human being. I gave her something to work on and her Mum told me she was asking her about it. Just like any other skill or talent if one has the passion and determination there is nothing impossible to get what you want to achieve. Danikka has still lots of things to learn but I can tell you now that she is in the right path to be the best of what she does.

Please click play on the player below to start listening to the incredible voice of a 7 year old girl, Danikka!

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Daughter' s Singing Lesson

My 5 year old daughter loves singing but didn't have the patience to really learn. When she ask me for a lesson and would have a tantrum after a few minutes I would normally just give her a hug then stop the lesson. I thought well, you can't really teach your own child because she would see me as her loving mother and not a vocal coach.

For two weeks now she has been singing different songs like "Hero" by Mariah Carey and "The Climb" by Miley Cyrus. One day we were in the car and on our way to the organic shop. She was singing "Hero" and my husband told her she should ask my help because he didn't understand a single word of the song she was singing. She shrugged her shoulders and didn't say anything.

Yesterday, she asked me if she can have a singing lesson. She wants to learn the song "The Climb". I told her she has to finish the song "Part Of Your World" from the Little Mermaid movie. She has been learning it for a couple of months now but she gives up after a few lines. She agreed to learn the song but then after a few minutes she started arguing with me. I told her she is never going to have another singing lessons from me if she argues with me again. "But you are my Mum" she said "I am IF you are not learning how to sing. Since you are I am your singing teacher not your Mum" I replied. "If you want to learn how to be a great singer then you need to be patient and you need to practise a lot" I continued. She finally agreed and she had a lesson.

This morning she got up and ask for a pancake for breakfast. While she was waiting, she decided to practise her song and it made her singing teacher proud. She kept her promise to practise and to work hard so she can finish the song she never finished. I took a video of her practising and here she is on her second day of being patient ;) .

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XcoEFvxvzHQ

Oooppps sorry I didn't film the whole song, I didn't want to burn the pancakes ;) .

http://www.singsnap.com/snap/watchandlisten/play/aa91883c0

By the way, above link is another unfinished song my daughter sang when she was only 4 years old. A duet with her Mummy!

Founder of Center for Pop Music Philippines Dies

My deepest sympathy to the family and friends of Mr. Butch Albarracin. I was trained at the Centre at the age of 14 and became one of the vocal coaches at the head office at Quezon City, Philippines year 1989 for a short period of time. Rest in peace.



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Center for Pop Music founder dies

(abs-cbnNEWS.com)

MANILA, Philippines – The founder of the Center for Pop Music Philippines, a pop music school, passed away on September 16 due to lung cancer. He was 64.The remains of Butch Albarracin, who passed away at the Makati Medical Center, lie in state at Sanctuarium in Quezon City. He will be interred on September 24 at 10:30 a.m. at Himlayang Pilipino in QC.Albarracin, who was a band leader in the early 1980s, put up the Center for Pop Music Philippines 23 years ago to provide voice and stage performance trainings.According to the Philippine Marketing Association (PMA), to which Albarracin was a part of, he ran the center “with the same hands-on passion.”“He was generous with staff incentives. He used to give cash rewards for various meritorious achievements, from meeting sales targets to having a perfect attendance for the whole year. He believed that we all have potential to be better than what we are presently and it is our task and responsibility to polish and enhance our God-given talents,” the group said.The center has now 4,000 students with 20 branches all over Metro Manila.

Bad sore throat

I had a terrible sore throat last June that lasted for days. 1 cup of warm water and a teaspoon of rock salt would normally make me feel better. I would gargle when I wake up in the morning, afternoon and before I go to bed. This time though the sore throat didn't go away. I had to take panadol in the middle of the night because the pain wouldn't let me sleep. It was that bad. I decided to see our GP and she told me to buy Difflam Throat Gargle and Difflam Throat Spray . I went home after I bought these products from the chemist.

I was very amazed because after 1 day, the stubborn sore throat was gone and it never came back!  I wish I didn't buy the spray though because I didn't get the chance to use it as the gargle made me well already. I wonder if I can get a refund hehehe...

Junk mail from Jonah or June?

It has brought to my attention that some of you received a junk mail from me like "pharmacy" "viagra" or something like that. Kindly ignore it and if it keeps coming back please delete my email address.

I have been receiving a spam mail from my high school classmate's email address as well and I know he doesn't know this. I hope YAHOO will be able to help us fight spammers.

Thank you!

How old am I?

I celebrated my birthday last month with family and friends at our humble home. I was also greeted by family and friends from all over the world via email, karaoke site and facebook. It is funny how I always say I am 28 years old and the truth of course is that I am way older than that. Those friends who knew about the number "28" will say "you are 28 again!" hahaha... I guess I stopped counting the years when I reached 28. I had to remember my real age though after a new gym instuctor asked for my age and I said "oh my gosh, I don't know!". He thought I was being funny but I was serious! I can't remember how old I really am!

Anyways, it was great to be 28 again hehehe! So many great things happened and I am looking forward to more success!

My Cough

Every time I feel like I am going to get sick, I panic! That is because it takes forever to get rid of it. My cough and cold would hold on until it takes all my energy. Well the bad news is that I got sick last month. I was coughing for more than a month! I went to the doctor and he sent me to some test including a chest x-ray. Took some antibiotics but nothing happened. I had to drink honey almost every hour, drink lots of water, took 2 capsules of Vitamin C, and had some ginger tea and all sorts of tea. My cough was still non-stop. I had to stop teaching for weeks as I hate to see my students get sick because of me.


After more than a month, my cough finally subsided! Hurray! I still cough but not as bad as the last few weeks. If anyone of you out there has the same situation, would you be kind enough to share me any information’s about this kind of cough?

Take care everyone!

June is now on Facebook!!!

I am blessed with friends all over the world, some of them prefer to be called as June's fans but I call them my friends. My personal facebook account is full of music and singing, so a friend named Celine originally from France who now lives in Texas, USA suggested I create an artist account so I can separate my personal facebook account and share music related topics in my artist account instead. I did think about it but it took awhile for me to create one. I finally made one on the 3rd of this month, March and how I enjoy posting just anything about music!

If you want to add JUNE "JONAH" TOMADA in your facebook account please click the link below or copy and paste the link to your browser's address bar and push the "enter"  key on your keyboard;

http://www.facebook.com/pages/June-Jonah-Tomada/374279070785

Hope to see you all there and once again thank you Celine Lajoie for the idea!

Driving

I was hesitant to take driving lessons when we first arrived at the Central Coast. I was too pampered in Asia where we have drivers and to employ one is also pretty reasonable, so I guess I thought I don't need to drive again. I thought I can get away with a public transport but I soon realised that it wasn’t as easy as I thought it would be. Hubby got a few projects to work on in Asia and this requires him to be away for weeks. Although I have some relatives in the area, their time is not suitable to mine most of the time. The thought of accidents while my husband is away and no one can drive us to the hospital scared me the most.


So then my journey in getting a driver’s license begins. First I had to read the Road Users Handbook that has 175 pages. I took the Driver’s Knowledge Test and got a 100%. Thanks to my supportive Mum in-law for driving me to the RTA!

I had 3 driving instructors and all of them had different styles and techniques of teaching. All are great in their own rights but sometimes no matter how great you are if you don’t have the connection to your students as well as the passion to do your job; it is in my opinion a waste of time. However, I would like to thank all of them for sharing me their knowledge and helping me familiarise the road rules of NSW.

If you are reading this and would like to get a good instructor at the Central Coast, I would suggest you call this person;

Laila of Avenues Driving School --- mobile # 0410651830

My hesitant to learn was replaced with fun. I guess I was more scared of the road rules in Australia because where I was driving (in the Philippines) we don’t follow most of the rules lol.

Oh by the way, I got my full license last February 24, 2010! Thanks to my Testing Officer who has got all the patience in the world and was very nice! I was so nervous because of the horror stories I hear about testing officers. I think gone are the days where they have to make sure they have to look and talk scary or are they?

My daughter and my car!

HAPPY 2010!!!!

I hope everyone had an amazing 2009. It was an interesting year for me and my family. We moved from Indonesia to Australia, I had my New Year (2009) in the Philippines, I went to Bandung with my Mum in-law to shop at the factory outlets, tried the "Eat Right for Your Blood Type" diet, my Mum got really sick, we enrolled my daughter to a big school  for this year (2010), had Christmas with my in-laws in our home, I got my Learner's permit to drive, I met some friends on SingSnap at Myrtleford, Victoria!

So for this year I am wishing everyone a good health, wealth and happiness. Let's all have a successful 2010!

HAPPY NEW YEAR EVERYONE!

June Tomada