Singing Songs for Students

I have to sing a song for music class today.

I'm thinking:
The Hill by Marketa Irglova
The Fear You Won't Fall by Joshua Radin
Older Chests by Damien Rice
50 Ways to Leave Your Lover by Paul Simon
Choux Pastry Heart or Like A Star by Corinne Bailey Rae
Far Far by Yael Naim

Or something else. Ha. Last Wednesday, we had our music midterm. Us students had to sing either Love Me Tender or Glory of Love, and our music teacher judged, ahem...I mean GRADED us on our pitch, tone, singing ability, etc....if we sang well enough, we passed to the next level (a.k.a. singing the songs you WANT to sing, singing in groups, etc....) I sang Love Me Tender. I was freaking out. I passed to the next level, and Mr. Gerhold (our music teacher) said I was great but he wants me to hold my notes a little longer so I can demonstrate my "wonderful vibrato."

I wanted to say, "Puh-lease, Mr. Gerhold. This so called 'vibrato' you heard was simply me SHAKING. Why was I having a 9.2 earthquake in my body? Oh, no reason except that, oh, maybe, um....I WAS TERRIFIED. Of singing. In front of my air-head classmates."

So. yeah. now you know. :)

A kind of poemish, proseish thing for you:

For so long, I've been afraid.
Afriad to fill these pages with anything but
Perfection.
The perfect words, flawless rhymes, and even immaculate grammar.
But that ends NOW.
Because I've learned that sometimes,
the right words are hidden
Beneath, in between, and occasionally a little bit the side of the imperfections.
And sometimes, it takes the countless hours upon hours of crossing out words, phrases, and whole lines to find the true essence of what you're feeling so strongly in your poor, poet's heart.
And sometimes you have to cross some stuff out so you can learn to read between the lines.
And ya know what?
It's okay to feel the way you do when you write something that is just so inexplicably perfect that it makes you want to cry and beat your chest in triumph at the same time.
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I wrote that on January 19, 2008. I started at 11:46 PM and ended at 12:00 AM.