XP
It's funny how quickly things change. One year ago I was a high school senior, biding my time and waiting to get out of town. One month ago I was weedeating in Oakdale Cemetary. And one week ago I was just trying to find my way through Wake Forest, trying to discover in what ways I could get involved and struggling to get all my homework done. It was last Wednesday that I hit the turning point.
One week ago I was singing with the WFU Gospel Choir. Roman, the tenor section leader stood next to me as the chior held hands and prayed. The next evening I sat through a mandatory freshman convocation called "Alcohol Speak Out." You can imagine how receptive the audience was. I had a tryout scheduled for Chir Rho, the all-male christian a cappella (again, I can't spell that term) group on campus, so I slipped out (more or less) unnoticed and descended into the depths of Scales Fine Arts Center. There I encountered none other than Roman, my section leader from the night before, who was completely unaware of who I was. I couldn't resist the oppurtunity.
"You don't know me," I said, "but we held hands last night." After one of the more awkward moments ever I explained that I was in Gospel Choir. I then proceded to completely screw up my tryout.
Well, the fates aligned and I got into Chi Rho. In case you're wondering, the name is derived from the first two greek letters in "Christ" and is represented in english, conveniently, simply XP. In a 16 hour period I went from pathetic audition guy to pathetic group member on a retreat in Lake Lure, NC. I won't go into all the details, but suffice it to say I am one awkward turtle. Furthering the strange rapid progression of our relationship, Roman and I shared a room.
When man is weak grace prevails. I had a blast over the weekend and in the ensuing days. Now, less than a week after deciding to audition, I have just returned from my first performance. Considering we had had only one practice, all went well I suppose. After we walked offstage a few of our members promptly prooceded to exit the building, but most of us stayed behind in the hallway; we could still hear the people clapping. The pastor of the the church at which we were performing had organized the crowd in cheering for an encore which presented two problems:
1) we had literally used every song we knew in the performance
2) three of our members had just left the building.
Christian ran out and returned with Tyler, but it was too late for Roman and James. Now back on stage with no idea what to do, Taylor turned to us and said, "How about 'Lion'?" He then turned and began to sing the solo to "The Lion Sleeps Tonight" as the rest of us composed our own harmonies in the background. To compensate for the lack of musical intricacy, Flavin, Taylor and Eric began making animal noises in the background. We certainly won no awards for that performance, but the crowd at least seemed to buy it.
For those who are interested, http://chirho.com has information on the group, where we're performing and how you can (hint hint) buy cd's to help support the ministry and our upcoming tour in europe. More on all of this later, but for now I've got to go collect my thoughts. Oh yeah, and do some homework. So maybe not everything has changed in a week.
One week ago I was singing with the WFU Gospel Choir. Roman, the tenor section leader stood next to me as the chior held hands and prayed. The next evening I sat through a mandatory freshman convocation called "Alcohol Speak Out." You can imagine how receptive the audience was. I had a tryout scheduled for Chir Rho, the all-male christian a cappella (again, I can't spell that term) group on campus, so I slipped out (more or less) unnoticed and descended into the depths of Scales Fine Arts Center. There I encountered none other than Roman, my section leader from the night before, who was completely unaware of who I was. I couldn't resist the oppurtunity.
"You don't know me," I said, "but we held hands last night." After one of the more awkward moments ever I explained that I was in Gospel Choir. I then proceded to completely screw up my tryout.
Well, the fates aligned and I got into Chi Rho. In case you're wondering, the name is derived from the first two greek letters in "Christ" and is represented in english, conveniently, simply XP. In a 16 hour period I went from pathetic audition guy to pathetic group member on a retreat in Lake Lure, NC. I won't go into all the details, but suffice it to say I am one awkward turtle. Furthering the strange rapid progression of our relationship, Roman and I shared a room.
When man is weak grace prevails. I had a blast over the weekend and in the ensuing days. Now, less than a week after deciding to audition, I have just returned from my first performance. Considering we had had only one practice, all went well I suppose. After we walked offstage a few of our members promptly prooceded to exit the building, but most of us stayed behind in the hallway; we could still hear the people clapping. The pastor of the the church at which we were performing had organized the crowd in cheering for an encore which presented two problems:
1) we had literally used every song we knew in the performance
2) three of our members had just left the building.
Christian ran out and returned with Tyler, but it was too late for Roman and James. Now back on stage with no idea what to do, Taylor turned to us and said, "How about 'Lion'?" He then turned and began to sing the solo to "The Lion Sleeps Tonight" as the rest of us composed our own harmonies in the background. To compensate for the lack of musical intricacy, Flavin, Taylor and Eric began making animal noises in the background. We certainly won no awards for that performance, but the crowd at least seemed to buy it.
For those who are interested, http://chirho.com has information on the group, where we're performing and how you can (hint hint) buy cd's to help support the ministry and our upcoming tour in europe. More on all of this later, but for now I've got to go collect my thoughts. Oh yeah, and do some homework. So maybe not everything has changed in a week.
posted by Nialator at 8:20 PM
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