Solo

Our school has an annual singing competition and Christmas party each December. Since we are new to the university, this was our first year to attend.

Basically students from the international department could choose to sing a song in the language they were learning. After the competition there was going to be a fancy dinner with lucrative gifts. (yes, i also wondered what a lucrative gift might be).

Well, last week our teacher who is also the head of the department had the brilliant idea to have our class sing as "filler" for the singing competition. We chose a local song that is quite popular and apparently easy to sing.
Then she had the idea that we could split up the verses so everyone could have a small solo.
If you don't know.....i don't sing. Yes i know the whole 'make a joyful noise,' and believe me I do.....in groups. I do not like to sing by myself. I just don't see the point of it.

My line was something like "there are tears, and bad things, but remember..something," that's a loose translation anyways. I'm still not sure.

Anyways, as you can guess students started dropping like flies. Why my annual sinus infection couldn't flare up this week, i'll never know.

So the last few classes we've been practicing, and bless our hearts. I figured I could just sing really low and no one would be able to hear me. Then the day of the competition my teacher reveals that we will be singing into mics.

After i popped a zanex, i felt much better about the whole thing.

Then right before the competition, our teacher decides that we all need to introduce ourselves and say something interesting. Right.....i'm full of interesting tidbits to share. I ended up saying "Merry Christmas" in english. You do what you can with what you have.

Here I am before going on stage.....do you see the confidence?

Here are some pics Daniel took of me on stage. The lighting was pretty bad. And luckily so was the sound system.

I don't have any pics of me actually singing, because Daniel was videoing it. Here's the funniest part......and i'm so glad it was captured on video.

So, we had been practicing this song in class. We all knew it. The music we were singing to had a lot of background voices singing before and after the first chorus. So i was holding the mic because my part was coming up. We had just finished singing the chorus and waiting for the background singers part to end. Homegirl next to me grabs the mic and starts singing the back up parts. She wanted me to sing with her, so on the video you see her grabbing the mic, me not letting it go, and shaking my head at her. It actually looks like we were fighting over holding the mic. When really I just had no clue about what she was doing, and knew my part was coming up. I wish I could share the video. It's hilarious.

Anyways, after I survived my solo.......we ate dinner and received our lucrative gifts.

Cookies. I'm actually pretty excited, because they are the danish butter cookies.

This is my life.....

love

laura