Dé Céadaoin, Deireadh Fómhair 19, 2005

Disapointment and other things

The Oddity of my situation has just dawned on me. I'm sitting here at starbucks listening to people around me talk, not because there conversations are interesting but becasue I'm the only one sitting outside useing an american accent. There are eight people sitting outside, including myself, and I've heard eastern European accents, Russian or Romanian possibly, possibly Scandinavian accents, and the blond haired girls sitting directly infront of me are speaking together in German, I'm disapointed that it took me so long to understand them. So at the moment I feel more like I'm traveling in Europe than interning at Chruch in Southern Connecticut. This isn't that much of a surprise really, the majority of the labor around here is foreign based. The families hire Au pairs for the kids that they havn't sent to boarding school and most of the Au pairs come from Europe. Leaving me with the impence feeling that I'm more of an American in Pairs than my situation actually supports. Of course I find it all highly amusing, so I sit here and chuckle to myself. I never thought that the language barrier would catch up to me in Darien, CT.
Disapointment struck for the second time today. I say second, because my house situation hasn't changed. I havn't talked about that before simple because it matters so little to me. I honestly am very happy living my rather bohemian life in the Yoders basement. I've a chair, and bed stand, two lamps, my own refrigerator, a clothes rack and drawers, and a bed. It's actually quite quaint and, like I said, rather bohemian. I remember wishing, not all that long ago, that I could live the life in Walden. Living with the bare minimum, simply taking care of myself. So here I am in my basement, not quite the starving artist that I imagined but probably as close as I would like to be. Anyway, I digress. My main disapointment comes from the middle school choir that kelly and I are trying to get started. We've had two "rehearsals" if you can call them that, have had a grand total of three kids show up. Two at a time I might add. Matt, Emily, and today we added Elenor to our list. Only Matt returned this week, and while Elenor said that she knows Emily very well she did know why she wouldn't have been there. So...we have know idea what to do. We've talk personally to people, handed out fliers, mailed out fliers, I called members of the old choir and people who would have moved up from the kids choir last night. I got several yeses and a few maybe's that sounded very positive, and only a few we're definat no's. We really are at a lose as to what to do. I would be happy if 5 kids showed up and wanted to sing, really that's all I'm looking for. It's just all very disapointing. Kids choir was a lot of fun anyway, especially since everything that Kelly and I worked on laid untouched. I don't say this because I'm annoyed. It really is a happy thing. Kelly and I are as of today successfully two weeks ahead of all projects, papers, etc. For the procrastinator this is a wonder that it happen, and thank goodness for it.
I'm taking on a new voice student, Jenny. She's one of the kids from the High school choir that Tim directs one day out of the week. She has an amazing soprano voice already. Tim had us up there for practice this past week so I could work with the Tenors. I needed more than five minuets to do anything more than go over the phrase that Tim wanted me to go over, but that was all I got. They need some serious work, but what high school tenor doesn't? Working with them I started remembering what it was like to be a high school tenor. Absolutly horrible is what it's like. Not only are you a guy in choir, which is an invite by itself for any gay joke you could imagine, but your a tenor. You sing high, non manly tones and have more in common with the girls than you do the basses. Anyway, over the rest of the choir I hear this voice. More than the voice I hear the vibrato. A controled, articulate, mature sounding vibrato that you almost never hear in a high school setting. She's either working on getting into All State choir, or she's already made it, which wouldn't surpise me. She's never taken voice lessons, and needs help with foriegn languages, especially Italian. She also would like two half hour lessons, which was a shock by itself especially that this came up after I told her I charge $25 per half hour (music can be lucrative if you're in the right area). So we're starting next week, and I'm very excited. I'll need different liturature for her, but I need to hear her voice before I start looking for books.
So...That's an update on life. The internet has been down at church, so that's more or less why I'm at starbucks. Things are going well. Waiting to hear back from people about New Years, don't let the basement thing fool you, I've got room for you I just need to know if you are coming. No questions to ponder...except for maybe this...What does it mean that one of the only words I've really been able to understand from the two german girls sitting across the table has been Scheisse? Does that make me a bad person or just by lingual?
A.T.H.

1 comment:

Elizabeth said...

Interesting cafe experience. Have the same thing happen most days, only its Japanese and well its cause this is Japan.

The music stuff confused me. But it sounds good.

And i am saying no to the bad person question.