Sunday, April 06, 2008 // 6:09 PM
yay i've finally got down to blogging!its been long hmmmmmmmm. since italy!
lets start with that!
ITALY/GERMANY/AUSTRIA
it was pretty cold out there, and the water wasn't quite drinkable (except in austria, the tap water tastes like evian!), we changed hotel close to everyday, and we even stayed at a haunted hotel (!), screwed up our songs, but i loved it entirely. i feel that the choir bonded over the trip, and we all really looked out for each other all the way.
in the days leading up to the competition, we had choir practices squished in between our sight-seeing, like before lunch or after dinner, on the bus to the german school exchange and before we slept. i have to admit it was tiring, but thats the main reason we were there, hmmm?
'as much practice you do, weeks, months, years, everyone will remember the performance. that crucial 10, 15 minutes. no one sees how hard you really work.'
what the teachers always told us, came reality on the day of our competition. i don't know if it was nerves, over-confidence or whatever, but our so called better songs got badly screwed up. at least thats how it felt there. i don't think i'd ever been as disappointed over a choir performance or over anything for that matter, but when it happened, we just continued grinning like idiots, and once we were off the stage i actually teared, as did quite a few others. it wasn't the fact that we sang badly, but that our months of practices, how confident we had been, it just disappeared. it was plain disappointment.
but well, we cheered up after that, dressed up, had our first good dinner, went for the concert and partied at night.
the next day, we watched like tons of choral performances at the competition. as much as i love choir and enjoy hearing other choirs. you've got to admit choral is boring. we all dozed off at one point or another, unless the choir's performance was very arresting.
third day of the competition, we took a walk around lake garda and had a boat rider around lake sirimione. i loved the boat ride cos our driver was really fun, and he loved our songs too! haha and he called us bella's, which means beautiful HAHAH! we saw fat lemons (the size of my palm!) bought pretty soap and ate gelato which was uber yummy, and finally went back for the RESULTS D:
before that was the grand competition, where the winners of the seven/eight different categories performed for the grand award (best of the best choirs, suppose?) yay i loved the kazakhstan kids choir, too bad we missed it. at least i got to watch them at another concert! catholic high and anderson jc got in, both led by conductor nelson kuei! his style is seriously an entirely different approach from ours, i have to say a little gimmicky, but nonetheless amazing. my gosh i loved catholic high's performance! i forgot they were a all-boys choir a couple of times. their soprano ones sound sooo.... err, pure? they can reach amazingly high notes, considering they're guys! and suddenly there were these oh-my-goodness-funny action bits, where me and mel had to control our laughter a lot! she almost had to stuff her scarf into her mouth, and i was biting my finger to keep from laughing out loud. SUPER AMUSING. ajc's was a tad bit gimmicky for my liking, with the drama parts which were really, really action-y. but their lower voices was like whoaaaa, it really gives it a lot of central-ness and sounds very rooted.
when they announced that there were 25 gold diplomas, 13 silver and 2 bronze, mel and i were like, oh no we're the bronze. after watching all those cool performances, we were thinking the worst of ours. a silver seemed unreachable at that moment. when they announced us, our points 20.53, we were screaming like crazy, and we were all crying maniacally. a 20.5 equates to a gold diploma, and we were so happy and thankful. it was entirely amazing experience.
the rest of the trip seemed to zoooooom! past, buying chocolate, singing in huge, breath-taking churches and not to forget, jet-lag when we got back! i guess seven hours of difference was a lot:/
hahaha ohmygosh i love you guys so so much! you brought so much life to the trip and made it an awesome one for meeeeee:D
and i love this shot cos we all look killer unglam, but we're all having fun!
MEL JESS NAT NIC VEET!
ya'll mean the world to me ily!
yay my birthday last week was awesome, everyone who made it super special (three surprises!) THAAAAAAAAAANK YOU!
haha kay i have to study bio now D:
its a hard knock life, honey!