Choir Mania

Yesterday was a total Choir day! My school gospel choir called “Vocal Journey” performed with an orchestra in neighboring city. We, caught a bus at 9:30am and didn’t get home till 12:30 at night….. needless to say I was pretty tired, but I had a great day!

I had really been looking forward to this, cause my choir is filled with a bunch of really cool people that I only kinda of know from class. I thought that if we spent a whole day together, there would be more opportunities to get to know people better.

The rest of this blog isn’t really gunna talk about the concert, more about what I learnt and am constantly learning about myself, about meeting people, about the amazing concepts of expression and language etc., and to try and give you and myself a better insight into this experience on a day to day basis. (I’ve actually cut it into 2 blogs)

SO, I began this day thinking that I would hang out with the people that I’m already more acquainted with….which happened, but I also talked with a ton more people too. I find myself often in a tug-a-war when it comes to these situations, cause sometimes I just want to talk to people that I’ve had previous conversations with, so I don’t have to explain for the 10 MILLIONTH time where I live in Canada, why I came to Germany, what I’m studying, where I live, how do I like it here, and oh ya,…have I heard about KARNIVAL?! Hahaha oh Karnival, it really is what this city lives and breaths.

Anyway, so I like talking with my friend-acquaintances cause I don’t have to repeat stuff, but I also like getting to know a little bit more about people in my classes and letting them get to know me better.

One of the things I’ve struggled with the most here (especially cause my classes are all small…around 20 ppl) is being the quite foreign kid, who sits in class, doesn’t speak, doesn’t really input, and has a hard time speaking the language. That’s just not usually how I am. I like to talk to people, know what’s going on, tell a joke with the person beside me….but I don’t have the confidence in my speech to do those things yet. I feel like when I talk to people, even if its just for 10 minutes or so, I can show my real personality a bit more an hopefully actually be a real person, instead of the “Corner Mute.”

So, this concert day was really good…met some more people, hung out with some oldies….the concert itself was ROCKIN! We sang with about an 60 person orchestra and band, there were 2 other choirs in the program and the concert went for 3 HOURS! We sang songs like “Ain’t no Mountain High Enough,” “Joyful Joyful,” and “Hallelujah” chorus to name a few…..complete with hand clapping, dancing, wicked solos on piano, drums and voice ect!
By the time it was time to board the bus and go home I was exhausted! Not only from singing, but also cause I had basically only had German conversations ( and lots of them) the whole day, so my mind had been working double time. Anyway, I hope you are all having a great time getting ready for Christmas! Happy Holidays!!

Love,
Katrina