If you haven't read my previous post already, I'd recommend it. Not that it's required or "essential reading," as my high school courses so fondly refer to the extra burdens of homework they give me, but it would certainly be deemed "supplementary." After all, if you don't know what SF is or who Kitty is when I talk about either one of them, it's entirely your own fault, and you will have to remain in the depths of cluelessness, unless you read what I wrote already, then the cobwebs should be removed.
Before I continue, however, I wish to make a little disclaimer about what I may have implied about where my sister worked, which is where I made my abode for three weeks. For instance, I mentioned that we weren't "allowed" to talk to guys. This is a definite overstatement, intended only to imply roughly how some of us felt and acted just because we wanted to avoid any risks of flirtation. We were there to learn and study music, making new girlfriends along the way, that is all. Also, if I say something about the dress code (girls wearing nylons, guys having to wear ties--suit jackets to dinner, etc.), please understand that the strictness of the rules was only in place for our course in order to maintain professionalism during our classes--please don't think it or anything else I have to say about the training center is my way of knocking it. ITC is a great place, and my sister has been happy there for many years--don't think it's a jail house, because it most certainly is not. There, with that minor preface in mind, we can move on. . . .
Sound Foundations was definitely a jam-packed experience--a melange of interesting topics, fun, and stress. Each week was different, each instructor well-informed yet unique. First, let me see if I can "briefly" describe our schedule. . .
Seven-thirty a.m. was our pickup breakfast, followed (for the first week) by choir taught from 9:00-11:00. This was generally my favorite part of the day. From 11-12 we had team meetings scheduled. This is where I, as the appointed team leader (picked almost randomly, it seemed to me) got to display my magnificent leadership skills.
Riiiight.
It was a great opportunity to work on them however, and I enjoyed it more than I expected. I mean, now I was actually SUPPOSED to say all that I wanted to say whenever any little insight came to me, and nobody would think that I was talking too much because I was the team leader and that's what team leaders are supposed to do, right? One day when we had read the required portion of our book for the week I even talked for twenty minutes or more! Oh mah goodness, I better be careful or I might be a preacher. Actually I got really excited when I found out that we were studying worship because I just "happened" (aha! but we know that God doesn't let things just "happen" without a reason!) to have my meeting notes from Craig's and Dad's meetings on the subject way back at the March Feast--and since so much of it had blessed me I thought it a prime opportunity to share it with others. Anyway, I picked the spot for us to meet (generally it was outside, since it was often the only time in the day some of us managed to get out) and led our devotions as we worked through a wonderful book called How to Worship Jesus Christ. I found it most refreshing and I highly recommend it!
At noon came lunch, surprise surprise. If I was lucky (and if I didn't get delayed in an after-lunch team leader meeting or something) I'd be able to rush back up to the ninth floor where our room was and I'd cram in some studying, but it couldn't last long because no sooner had you gotten settled for ten minutes or so than it was time to head back down to the second floor auditorium for music history at 1. So, 1-2 was music history, then from 2-4 was music theory, joy of all joys. This last was definitely my toughest subject during all of SF; even though it was fairly "basic" theory, it was a lot of brand new material that was thrown at us for three or four days before we were expected to spit it all back out on a split-up exam at the end of the week. And not just spitting back definitions, but actually figuring out things--like harmonic analysis, in which you had to understand what you were doing (which I didn't, at first) in order to do it! This class proved fairly stressful for me, but God helped me through it and as it turned out, our teacher was a pretty merciful grader.:)
After music theory came the long-awaited and much needed break--consisting of a whopping half-hour. During this time I would usually check the mail and try to cram in a little more studying before the next session from 4:30-5:30, which for the first week was either Song Writing Skills or learning to put Bible verses to music--pretty fascinating, though I didn't feel up to completing the assignments just yet because the idea of music theory (not to mention music history) exams was swimming over my head too much for me to be able to think a lot about anything else.
Dinner came at 5:30, followed by another hour of music theory at 6:30, and another hour-long session such as The Greatest Enemy to Music Ministry (pride). So when that got out at 8:30, you had half an hour to get into your rooms by 9:00, followed by an hour of study or calling home (actually you weren't supposed to be calling home then, but Kendra had permission to lend me her cell phone after nine when it would be free, and she always came to pick it up). The lights out curfew was supposedly at 10, which happened on occasion, but often we pushed it to ten-thirty to cram in more music theory. Yay. Thus the first week sped by, and once the exams were past I hurried on with song writing assignments with due dates coming right up.
But not on Saturday. Here it was at last. I don't know if I've ever quite looked forward to a Sabbath so much in my life! I was so happy to have what was reportedly the driest and probably the hardest week of SF behind me, and one of my assignments turned in right about sundown. I was free! For a little while at least. Klara and I excitedly thought of the things that we could do that we couldn't do before--like actually keep curfew, which was an odd luxury, considering how tired we were and that we didn't have to study; and go outside, and play volleyball. Friday evening we had a little Sabbath meeting with Kendra in her room (I had secured permission to go to her room now and then), and then she came down to ours and shared dried mangos with us while we shared our granola bars, and thus happily employed, we played a relaxing game of Dutch Blitz.
On Saturday we slept in to the lovely hour of nine o'clock, after which I had a little fiasco in which we couldn't find my contact for an interminable ten or fifteen minutes, I finally prayed seriously about it and discovered it roughly thirty seconds later on the side of the toilet seat. That was definitely God! Brunch was at ten, and oh what blissful rest and idleness! Some people went to an optional Hymn Improvisation class (for the piano) taught by a friend of Kendra's, but since I didn't think it really applied to me, I just rested, called home, and did whatever. It wasn't easy to stop entirely though, especially as I thought about assignments with due dates coming up on Monday and Tuesday, but whenever I found myself talking about it Klara veered me away from the subject and reminded me that it was the Sabbath. So, to remind myself, or just because I was content to have it be the Sabbath, I would sing Sabbath songs in the stair well, which was fun because the acoustics were superb--you just had to keep an ear ready for a door to open on any of the floors because then the intruder would hear you, even if he were five floors below.
I spent much of Saturday evening outdoors, playing volleyball with some girls or tossing a Frisbee (mine--I brought it with me:), or learning how to play four square with a basketball (which, in my humble opinion, is one of the dumbest and most pointless games I've ever played--but maybe it's just because I was terrible at it:). Also I watched the guys play Ultimate Frisbee--which is a lot of fun because guys are generally pretty good at it, and these SF guys were no exception. So I just watched from a distance, wishing I could transmogrify myself into a guy so I could join them. After all, mightn't it have been me who put the idea into their heads in the first place? To understand this idea, we'll have to rewind. . . .
It was Tuesday morning, the second day of SF, and we were to have our first session of choir. After arranging ourselves into our appropriate sections, we waited curiously to see what it would be like in choir, and more importantly, what our instructor, Mr. C., would be like. But, to our surprise, we didn't start out with singing. Nope, Mr. C., after introducing himself, wanted us to introduce ourselves! We hadn't been around each other long enough to know more than a handful of names, and now was the time for every single one of us to stand, state our name, where we were from, and an interesting fact about ourselves. This was fun. To be honest, it didn't really help me to remember very many people's names, and I remember very few of the "interesting" facts, but the whole experience was interesting in itself, and it helped us all to relax and get to know each other a wee bit more (I did, by the way, learn just about everybody's name by the time SF was over). What types of things did people say?
This guy liked soccer. That girl can juggle. This guy likes French and construction. That girl is fluent in at least three different languages. This guy likes origami. This girl likes to read. . . or run. . . or play basketball. . . or work outside (that's what Klara said). One guy, after introducing himself, said this:
"And for an interesting fact, um. . . " (here he scratched his head) ". . . I don't have a very good memory." That was very interesting indeed!
My turn came, and with some trepidation and I stood and proudly gave my name and state (I was the only representative from it), adding that I liked traveling and Ultimate Frisbee. After this Mr. C. wanted to know what it was and if blood was involved. I told him sometimes, and then tried to sum up the gist of the game in as few words as possible, which turned out not to be enough to make him understand, so one of the guys came to my rescue in my explanation. Therefore, I take partial credit for putting Ultimate Frisbee on everyone's mind and have only myself to blame for my envy.
While I'm on the subject of choir, I must say that it was lots of fun! Mr. C. proved to be an able teacher with a great sense of humor and a beautiful voice. An avid Cubs fan, he kept us updated on their status--especially if they won; and he also amused us (or plagued us) with his corny jokes and quotes that were funny just because he was telling them. For instance:
"Why do ballerinas wear tutus?" Mr. C. asked us with a grin.
No clue.
"Because the one-ones are to small and the three-threes are to big!"
Or:
"Where does Napoleon keep his armies?"
"In his sleevies!"
Hardy har har.
Another time, he tried to tell us about a Christian comedian he had seen in Michigan, but he struggled to come up with what it was that the guy had said that was so hilarious. Finally, he thought he had it:
"Dancing only leads to one thing. . . .
. . . kissing girls!"
We were a bit taken aback--what had he just said? Here we were, guys and girls sitting vis a vis to each other, and he pulled out this joke now and HERE? Still, some of us laughed, but the laughter had an awkward quality about it. Yeah, talk about awkward. :)
One day in choir Mr. C. suddenly asked us if we could guess where his tie came from. We were stumped. Why would he ask us a question like that? When given the hint that most of us had seen that tie before, it wasn't too long before someone ventured to guess that it was the one that the pastor from church last Sunday had been wearing. Bingo! The long and the short of it is that every ten years or so Mr. C. has complimented his pastor on his tie, and each time he does the tie shows up a few days later draped over his chair as a gift. So the Sunday before Mr. C. had told the pastor that he could drape that tie over his chair any time he wanted to! That's Mr. C. for ya. But I will admit he has good taste--the tie was a classy-looking blue striped one that I wouldn't have been ashamed to wear if I were a guy.
So what do you think we gave to Mr. C. for a thank present at the end of SF? Why, a silver and lime green striped tie MADE OUT OF DUCT TAPE and signed by each and every one of us! He was very much amused, and he tried it on right on the spot. We were hoping he'd wear it to the concert, but he wasn't quite that daring, and I can't say that I blame him.
We also had an opportunity to take advantage of Mr. C.'s devotion to the Cubs. During the final week of SF, somebody on my team (I think it was Nicole) suggested the idea of having everyone sing "Take Me Out to the Ball Game" instead of one of our choir songs. Immediately my team latched on to the idea, and after discussing how to do it and the effect it might have, Kitty and Lydia put it into action by spreading the word to the other teams during meal time. Before long everyone was buzzing with the news. Here came the appointed day. We all stood up on the stage where we practiced for the last few days before the concert. Mr. C. prepared us to start our one a cappella piece, "Do Not I Love Thee," which, by the way, we didn't end up singing for the concert because despite our best efforts (and we were not the least of SF choirs) it inevitably ended flat. He cued us to begin. But instead of the clear, solemn tones of the sopranos and altos singing "Do not I love Thee, oh my Lord. . . " there rose up a hearty rendition of "Take Me Out to the Ball Game." I even sang, "Root, root, root for the Cub team," though it was hard not to wince a little. The effect was satisfying. Mr. C. told us that the plan was cold and calculated.
Another time during this same week we were finding our standing positions. At first we just lined up there arbitrarily by sections, but then we had to do some shuffling because Mr. C. wanted us lined up approximately by height. I was shifted several times--from the back, to the front, to the second row, down one, down again, until I found myself in the second and middle row with a bass (the guy who likes origami) to my left. While some of this shuffling was going on, Mr. C. asked how many of us girls played volleyball. I raised my hand tentatively, along with some others.
"We should make a team. I bet we could do some damage," Mr. C. grinned.
A little later, Mr. C. expressed a wish: "What I would give to have you guys in a Christian school together!"
A voice piped up from the tenor section, "I'm sorry, we're homeschooled." It was Walker the Troublemaker, and the moment was just too precious. We cheered. Yay for the homeschooled us. :)
The second week of Sound Foundations was unlike the first week in many respects. No more stressful studying night after night and long dry lectures--now it was time for the fun to begin! Thus we started having Children's Choir. That is, technically we were supposed to learn how to TEACH children's choir, but in reality we learned that and were IN children's choir at the same time! After all, Mrs. L, our teacher, believed that the best way you remember things is by DOING them, so to give us ideas for things to do in Children's Choir she had us do them! This was jolly fun, and where I believe the real definition of maturity comes in. That is, maturity is knowing when it's okay to be immature! (according to the Grand Kayla's Dictionary Deluxe Edition) We had to leave inhibitions behind and just be kids again, which some of us found great pleasure in doing.
So what did we do? We learned how to play the recorder, sang Hallelu-hallelu, jumping up as high as we possibly could; played follow the leader to the tune of Onward Christian Soldiers; played musical chairs; had hymn drills; learned songs in almost every possible way you could imagine to teach a kid a song; split up and performed short compositions by making noises with the few materials that we had; performed a skit to learn the unusual history of Hayden (did you know that his head was stolen?); played a "getting to know you" game where you had to find people to sign your paper (like we played at the Family Convention but a much simplified version); lay down on the floor with heads on stomachs to practice breathing (the guys got to do this:); learned how to sing in solfege; and much much more! Thus we came to a few hours of Children's Choir every day wondering what was coming next, and were delighted over and over again, while at the same time learning important concepts throughout the entire class.
Children's Choir also turned out to be another opportunity to work and perform as teams. For instance, our first day's assignment was to choose a hymn as a team and sing at least one verse in solfege, doing whatever else our creativity suggested to make the song enjoyable. For the purposes of easy singing in our early stage of learning, Mrs. L. recommended that we choose a song in the key of C, and since we were to "get" our songs on a first come, first served basis, my team opened the hymn book and picked the first song in the key of C that they laid their eyes on, and that was "A Mighty Fortress is Our God." So, making a long story short, we worked on it in the next twenty-four hours and then performed it for everyone else, as everyone else did for everyone else. But perhaps you may be wondering what solfege is. Allow me to explain: basically, it's what you hear from the Sound of Music in those terms "do, re, mi, fa, sol, la, ti, do." Not only that, but each of those notes is assigned a hand symbol to be held at varying levels in front of you, from your belly button to your forehead, depending on the level of the note. Therefore we took the notes, assigned the names to the appropriate notes in our hymn, and then sang and signed our way through it, like this: (to the tune "A Mighty Fortress is Our God") Do do do sol la ti, do ti la sol, do ti la sol la fa mi re do, etc."
As for the creative aspect of our presentation, somebody (I think it was probably Lauren or Mikaela) got the brilliant notion of finding an object that roughly resembled the symbols for each of the notes and have each person hold one and pull it out whenever that note was sung. So with a little creativity and imagination we summoned up these items: an orange for do, a door stop for re, a hymn book for mi, a hair dryer for fa, a blown-up rubber glove for sol, a headband for la, a lime green spray bottle without the bottle for ti (when turned upside down it was a pretty convincing ti :), and a plastic circular container of alfredo noodles (provided by Klara from the larder in a drawer in our room) for high do. See, creativity galore, I tell you! That's the most beautiful team B for ya.
We had a few other sessions besides Children's Choir (and choir and team meetings of course, which happened practically every day:), including The Roots of Rock Music and a most fascinating class called The Sound of God (where I learned wicked cool stuff like how studies show that the stars actually SING), but I'm going to fast-forward to Saturday, which was a big day for us. Why? Because of the other Children's Choir team assignment that I have so far failed to mention, and that was to teach a twenty-minute lesson for Children's Choir to some real live kids; that is, a team of SF students PRETENDING to be kids, but for some this proved much easier to do than others. This assignment, very obviously, was not something completed over night, but was the result of a culmination of careful preparation and planning, though some people on our team took it more seriously than others--such is the way of life. However, finally, we were ready--sort of. We had our lesson plan (which was supposed to be super detailed and designed for a full hour lesson, though we were condensing it into twenty-minutes) painstakingly worded, written out, and copied to have it scrutinized by all the other teams, and we had our jobs divided, our posters made, our song learned, our skit written (we were the only team that actually tackled one--Mikaela did a superb job writing it for us), and our lesson generally planned out. The only problem was that we had never successfully run through the entire thing, but it didn't matter anymore, because the hour was upon us. I had a rather haunted Friday night's sleep. It was my responsibility to open up the class and teach the song, and I found myself going over it over and over again, hoping that I had it learned and that I would have the right words to say to make our presentation clear yet enjoyable. It didn't exactly help that our team was scheduled to go dead last--now our miserable anticipation was only prolonged.
Long story short? We made it through! Afterwards I found myself experiencing a curious amalgam of euphoria and "crushedness." This was mostly a result of going over all the student evaluations we received, and for the most part, people loved us! The skit was charming--we had included a little spoof of Mr. C. in our choir director character, only Lydia wore a Red Sox and announced that the Red Sox had won the night before (I prayed that they would just so we could be honest--and they actually did!:)--everyone loved it, though it went over Mrs. L's head. One guy said that "the purple girl was really enthusiastick" (the purple girl being me:) etc., but since these evaluations had to be honest and I knew our presentation wasn't perfect, we didn't get perfect reviews. We needed to involve the kids more, we needed to handle the kids better, etc. Though I must say that we did get a few brats who refused to cooperate and persisted in sitting on the floor and sniffing markers. The irony is that some people said we did a great job handling the kids (it was a mixture of ignoring some issues while Nicole, our appointed disciplinarian, handled others), so who knows how we really did. The important thing despite our many shortcomings was that Mrs. L. gave us an A. Maybe she gave everyone else an A too, but at least we got one, and that's all that matters.
I wish I had time to go into the other presentations. As it is, I'm getting dreadfully sick of this post not being finished, and since I know that if I don't get it done soon I probably will never finish it, I'm tempted to sum the rest of the time in a few words as possible. However, a few stories simply MUST be chronicled, and a few more events reported, since you have absolutely no idea what we did the for the third and final week of our course.
The first story that must be chronicled is one of the guys' team presentations. Their spiritual theme was how God never changes, and I guess to remotely illustrate this (or maybe because they really wanted to do it) they had their "kids" play a game. This was a game where there was a row of boxes turned upside down on the table, and they took volunteers to take one quick peek under one box. Without giving it away entirely, the volunteer (or victim) had to give a short clue as to what it was they had just seen. I believe the first object was a piece of paper, followed by a pencil and binder. Finally there was only one box left. From amongst the eagerly raised hands the guy they selected was one famous (or should I say infamous?) for his coolness and craziness. "Walker the Troublemaker" he had been dubbed by Mr. C., and so he will remain to each of his fellow classmates whenever we recall him and his mad passion for the harmonica, as revealed by his casual pleas to be able to play a solo with the choir or have a part written just for him with the orchestra. Anyway, Walker the Troublemaker strode up to the box, ready to be phased by nothing, until he took his brief peek in the gloomy recesses beneath the box. I would like to say that he turned white, but since I don't exactly recall what shade his complexion was before and after the incident I don't think I can honestly say that he did. Perhaps he gave a yelp, or a jump, or looked wildly about. Whatever he did, it was obvious that he was not just slightly disturbed. Something had scared him, and scared him pretty significantly. Our curiosity was piqued. What could be under the box to give this fellow such startlement? Eagerly we awaited his clue as to what he had seen.
"Uh, it looks like Kevin?" (referring to his friend and coadjutor to mischief, who was also on the team giving the presentation)
Amused yet intrigued, we waited for the box to be removed. It was, and once it was lifted I believe nearly every heart in that room leaped--not for joy, but from the briefest moment of terror followed by astonishment and hilarity. For what presented itself on the table was none other than a head, with its eyes grotesquely opened wide, and then this head began to move, following the movements of Walker the Troublemaker so that we could all understand his being disconcerted. Very quickly this head was identified as one of the other guys on that team, who is from PA and plays the harp, but words can scarcely describe the laughter and tears of mirth that were shed in that room filled with approximately 60 people. It was truly the most shocking moment during all of SF.
Before moving on I must mention that for one of the games we played during Childrens' Choir we had a hymn drill. One person from each team went up front and had to find certain things in our hymnal. And it wasn't just, "Number 321." But, "Find a hymn by Fanny Crosby." Or, "Find a hymn with a meter of 11, 11, 11, 10." Or, "Find a hymn based on Isaiah 50." (these examples are very rough) Once you found the hymn, you had to attempt to sing it in front of everyone, whether you had heard it before in your life or not. Uhuh. I made the mistake of choosing to represent my team, and I did poorly. How is one supposed to find all the many different indexes in a strange hymnal and sing a song you've probably never heard before? The one time I was pretty sure that I had beaten one of the guys to getting to a certain hymn, Mrs. L. didn't see it and called it a tie. Rats. But we both had to sing the first line separately, and I had to go first. Um, okay. No clue what this song is. So I did whatever a girl in my place would do--I winged it, and though I sang it playfully and I knew it was probably wrong, I'm pretty sure I got the idea. Unfortunately my competitor was a perfectionist. Picture a guy who is careful and exact and who is the most likely to point out to the choir director in front of everybody that the sopranos are singing something wrong. In fact, that's what this guy did. Yep, that's Caleb. He was musical too, oddly enough, and he carefully measured out his intervals before he sang his line note-perfect, making himself the winner. Grrr.
The winner of this game was able to receive a prize of their own choosing, to be bought by Mrs. L. One of the guys' teams won (I don't remember if it was Caleb's, but I don't think so, which is a small comfort), and what they chose was kept a profound secret. But we found out the next day. When we lined up after our presentations to play follow the leader down to the next floor where the dining room was, we arrived there and learned that they had asked for ice cream to be bought for all of the SF students! Thus that team won their prize and their popularity.
The following week was orchestration and conducting week, as well as music evaluation and orchestra. We learned the rudiments of conducting and even got to practice it on the whole orchestra, followed by a critiquing from our peers and our instructor. *Gasp* Our instructor! Mr. F., how could I forget?! How can I describe him briefly? He was probably the most dynamic of our teachers, and he taught most of our classes that week. Hmm, he had amazing expressions, floppy black hair, and a get talent for keeping us laughing, without losing the art of teaching us well. He reminded me a little bit of Mr. Adams. Does that describe him well enough? I doubt it, but you get the briefest gist of this amazing native of CA.
Anyway, (forgive the overused word but it just seems too perfect to say what I want to say) our conducting would get critiqued. Everything was under the scrutiny of everyone else, and you felt very exposed. Your posture, your expression, your ability to lead instead of to follow the orchestra, your ictus, your ability to be followed with ease, your head bobbing, yes, even your MOUTH was to be watched by everyone because it would be a horror of incalculable proportions if you were found to be counting with your lips. Not all feedback was negative--there were enough merciful people in the group to balance out the acutely observant, but still, the pressure was heavy.
On one of these occasions one of my friends, Katie, who plays the flute, raised her hand to compliment another girl (who had been conducting) on her "decent expression." Haha. I repeated this phrase with a laugh, and a couple of other people chuckled with me, not in ridicule of my friend but just the--well, FUNNINESS of it. I mean, a decent expression? As opposed to an indecent expression? So when my turn to conduct came (and this was quite optional, by the way, but I knew it would be good experience so I did it) I asked while I was up there if I had a decent expression. Not everyone got it, (this was a day or two later, since we had chances to conduct every evening), but at least I did and that was all that mattered to me. :)
Orchestration involved each bedroom of people (in our case, Klara and me) choosing a hymn and writing out by hand a simple arrangement for the whole orchestra to play. Easier said than done, but after getting "This World For King Jesus" approved my Mr. F. (he was so intrigued by the Warrior Songbook that he asked for a copy and my parents brought one to him when they came out to the concert), Klara and I toiled away at it throughout the week. There wasn't time to do more than a verse (no chorus), so at Mr. F.'s suggestion that was all we shot for and it turned out to be a wise decision. Still, I think we were pleased with the results when Friday afternoon came around and everyone sight-read through everybody's orchestrations. Ours began with piano, trumpets, and harp in the introduction, followed by the violas carrying the melody for eight measures, then the first violins for four, and the oboe (yay Kitty!) finishing it up with a simple duet with the clarinets at the words "When Jesus shall reign on this earth."
I mentioned we had to do our orchestrations by hand. Have you any idea what this involved? It meant painstakingly writing out all the clefs (treble, bass, and alto), key signatures (including the transposed ones for B-flat instruments), and time signatures on line after line. We had to line up every measure all the way down the score, numbering each and every measure. Of course we pencilled all the notes as well, and when that was done and double checked and triple checked we darkened everything with ink. Then we had copies made, then had to cut up the copies and paste the lines of each part on one page so that one page had just one part on it (our piece was full of rests for a lot of people since we never had more than four parts playing at once--in fact, the first violins had about four measures of glory:). Then we had to make copies of THOSE, with the correct number of copies for each part. Finally we had to tape the original score together into a book for Mr. F., finishing up with a cover sheet. I put my calligraphy marker to good use, but I didn't try to make it too fancy--I just wrote in plain calligraphy with no curls and perfect alignments. Once finished I started to despair at its lack of perfection, but Klara, being the dear friend that she is, said that it was good enough and took it from me and turned it in before I could object! Freedom. . . this was the night before it was due. A few minutes later I was telling my friend Michelle about it (what would I do without Klara?!) and told her how I felt like I hadn't done the greatest job on our cover sheet, but would she like to see it? So I ran over to the teachers' mailboxes to retrieve our assignment, only to find with horror that it wasn't there!
"Klara, what did you do with it?" I exclaimed in mock panic.
"Um, maybe she put it in the 'orchestration drop-off' box," suggested a guy named Kenyon who was standing nearby (and who reminded us a lot of Dennis P!). I looked, and sure enough, directly in front of me (on top of the mail slots) there lay a box marked in big bold letters "ORCHESTRATION DROP-OFF BOX." I felt insanely brilliant. Not really caring though, I retrieved my prize.
"Maybe they should make the letters smaller so you'd see them easier," Kenyon told me. I think I laughed and told him that his logic "made sense." Maybe.
Hmm, are there any more interesting stories I'm forgetting? Probably, but here's a couple elevator incidents:
One time (I think it was after breakfast) a bunch of us piled into one of the two elevators at the training center, preparing to do what people do in elevators on the first floor--that is go up. The place was fairly packed as we waited for a few more to squeeze in, and in the process the elevator complained (or beeped) at having to wait so long.
"Maybe that means we're too heavy," Klara said at my shoulder. She was joking, and I knew she was--I might have laughed. But another guy nearby (we were all kind of near I guess you'd say) just might have taken her seriously.
"I don't think so," Jonathan said (by the way there were about four guys there with that name). "We're not over 3,000 pounds."
A few seconds later we arrived at the fifth floor, where the guys all filed out.
"Well, now we're not over 3,000 pounds," Mikaela laughed. It cracked me up in just the right way, and I was still chuckling over it several minutes later in our room. I even got to use Mikaela's quote another time we were on the elevator when the guys got off, and all the girls giggled and Kitty told me I was funny. I confessed that the quote was not original to me.
On the last day I was in the elevator with another girl and Kevin, who couldn't get the heat sensitive button for his floor to light up. Kevin, as I mentioned earlier, was another (in)famous lad who was a pal of Walker the Troublemaker. He is, by the way, also the little brother of some people who went to SF with Craig. Craig even remembers tapping on the walls next door to amuse his friends' little siblings, including Kevin and my friend Abigail. Anyway (there I go again), Kevin asked us to try his button to see if we could meet with any more success than he had to get it to respond. Having none, I suggested that he lick it. Then, suddenly fearful that he would be just the sort of person to take my advice, I told him that I was totally kidding. All I got was a really weird look. Thus, I think I succeeded in making it into his book of strange people, and I was not unflattered by it.
Oh yes. String orchestra. Hmm. We got our music one week before the concert and I discovered that I had "made" first violin. That was in some ways satisfying, but then I came across another dilemma: when to practice? Somehow time was not something we had much of as we rushed from one class to the next, and when you couldn't practice after the 9 o'clock in-room curfew, I was practically at my wit's end to squeeze any more than a possible half-hour or so on my lunch break. You must remember that this was also the same time that we were toiling on our orchestrations. Also our songs were due early that week. We had an hour of orchestra practice each evening (Mon-Thurs) which proved both a challenging and an educational experience. Educational? Indeed. Why? Because this was the first time in my life where I had to truly learn the art of faking. It was an exceedingly difficult art to accept for my perfectionist self who wants each and every not to be melodiously perfect, but that was simply impossible. At least, it was impossible for someone at my stage of learning; somehow or other there were enough really good violinists to still play adequately beautifully. On the other hand, please don't misunderstand me--I did not by any means fake the entire thing. In fact, I played all of "The Wayfaring Stranger" with near ease. It was "Sound the Battle Cry" that gave me trouble. A song that was already fast had to be arranged more difficultly by being strewn with sixteenth notes and high runs, and what made it worse was that we played it faster than even Mr. E., the director of SF, had heard it. This meant a tempo of abominable speed--abominable it seemed to me, but I know that I wasn't the only person who struggled. However, there were enough people who had played it before, not to mention some really good players, to make it suitable. The thing is, my teacher has never encouraged playing things really fast. She has always been of the opinion that it is better for a piece to be slower and sound really good that for it to be really fast and sound terrible--not that she has never had me play fast, but at least you see where I was coming from. After stressing and practicing, and crying and practicing (but as you must remember there was hardly any time for this to be had) I gave it up for lost and just played a group of notes here and there--joining in at all the places with quarter notes and eighth notes. Oh, and the resounding double stops at the end were my absolute favorite because I could play those well, and at least I could feel like I was doing something. And that was my SF orchestra experience.
The last couple of days of SF rolled around. Now was the time to take action on thanking the many people who had worked so hard to make our time a success. The biggest one was Mr. E., and as another girl team leader (Emily) and I realized that people hadn't fully waken up to the fact that we needed to do something, I discovered a curious sensation: the power of getting 57 other people to take action. She and I conferred with one another, and to me was appointed the task to ask Carolyn, our friend from Singapore with practically perfect handwriting, to make a card. Soon we were having people sign it, passing it from team to team. Emily asked somebody to present a money gift to Mr. E., and we proceeded in having each team leader collect it from their team mates. It all worked, and I was awed by the realization that I had had something to do with making it happen.
A very busy Friday came, and the evening concert drew nigh. I was happy to have my parents there, and, other than the dread I felt regarding that abominably fast piece, I was looking forward to the concert. In glancing at the handout sheets of music for us to sing for and with the audience, I discovered with a pleasurable jolt that II Corinthians 3:18, my Scripture song, had been printed out along with one other Scripture song and four other regular songs that other students and friends of mine had written. My song was one of the ones chosen to be sung at the concert! Wow. But I must say that simple though my song was, it came to me far too easily to be anything but God (since writing a melody had half terrified me), therefore He must be the one who should get the glory for it. Still, it was rather an exciting honor.
The concert had arrived. We zipped through our orchestra pieces. We sang the songs that we'd written. We lined up on the stage and under the expert hand of Mr. C. we sang through our program: "Now Let Us All Praise God and Sing," "We Walk by Faith," "My Savior Died Upon the Cross," "Here I am Lord," "All the Earth Rejoice With a Gladsome Voice" (I had sung this fun one before--which was great because it made me look like a really good sight-reader when we first went through it:), "The Lord's Prayer," "Before the Throne of God Above," and finally "Fairest Lord Jesus."
During "The Lord's Prayer" I had an uncomfortable moment when I realized that my music had gotten mixed up. However, I remembered what Mr. C. had said earlier:
"Girls--I don't want you touching your hair. And if you have so much as an itch on your nose I don't want you to touch it until the end of the piece. I don't want anything irregular."
Shuffling with music seemed like something irregular, so I commanded my poise and just sang a page or two from memory--we had to watch Mr. C. for almost all our cues anyway, and fortunately, the words were easy to remember.
As we stood up there, I was struck yet again with the awesomeness of standing united in song with other believers as we poured out our praise to our God. There weren't just a few of us--nay, there were 61 of us, standing shoulder to shoulder, one big mass singing beautiful words of truth, and the important thing is that we all believed it. Now that is what I would call cool.
And that is basically my Sound Foundations experience. I got a certificate, much knowledge, new friends, and many happy memories.
The next morning we left in Fairwood's 12 passenger van, packed (mostly with all of Kendra's earthly possessions) so full that it was truly a work of art and gave great credit to my Daddy's skills. I left Indy, SF, and the people there with mixed emotions. I was glad to have the work behind me and to be going home, yet I was sad to leave, and very depressed to leave so many wonderful people that I may never see again. But then I remembered something: I have friends at home too! Wonderful, dear friends; friends that I've known and loved for much if not my whole life, and though I miss my new friends, I am not altogether friendless. One can never be friendless when you have a true Friend, especially when there are so many others at home who share that Friend. And that is a comforting thought.
********************************************************************************************
P.S. The problem with writing such a tremendously long post is that once you've written it you are so sick of it that you no longer want to bother with going to all the trouble of editing it. So if you found parts of this post confusing or ungrammatically correct, I apologize and beg you to remember that this post has been so long in progress that I no longer really care. Remember, I am not Craig . . . maybe it's too obvious to forget.
