Green Apple Splatters

Wednesday, September 15, 2004

Choir in grade five, and why I quit by grade six.

Trust me, one of the many reasons I quit choir was because for the most part I couldn't sing worth a lick. The main reason though, was the crazy choir master. Crazy- as in old school crazy. Like, stab you in the gut crazy if you took a breath, or took too long to blink your eyes.
I also think it had something to do with the fact that she was crazy, yes, definitely had something to do with that.
She had also been in a coma for a few months and was paralyzed for months afterwards when she taught me in grade 2 (more on that later). And she had an ugly, socially inept son who was in a gifted program and her other son was hyper active who she'd bring to class when they had PA days. She'd have the gifted kid mark our shit (homework) Way to put pressure on your son Ms. N-S, and way to make other kids hate and fear him.
As well she told me inappropriate stories/things to me, like I should stop yawning or she'd kick me out of class to learn me a lesson. I was 7. I was tired, I feared her, what the hell am I suppose to do to stop yawning when we're lying on the rug being read stories? I WAS SEVEN!! Or when I had her as a teacher in grade six, telling me about cheating on her finance with someone she met on a safety patroller convention in Ottawa (more on that too). As well, she died her hair black and the dye went into her brain and made her, you guessed it, crazy.
Ok, well, I could write about her forever, but this story is about only ONE choir incident. There's more, but this is my favourite.
We were having a section practice, so the alto's were all instructed to stand at the front and she would go through our part. Bear in mind the alto section was still pretty high in octave, it was full of pre-pubescent boys. Ok, so, at one point we're sing our little innocent hearts out, and Smythy Pants freaks out and says one of us is out of tune, because clearly, while she was crazy, she was also a super musically gifted person (cough, cough). Smythy Face concluded I was the one out of tune and yelled at me to stop. Yelled at all of us to stop well making a face like she'd just eaten something sour and waving her arms around frantically (she was crazy, maybe she thought she could fly). She has us each individually sing our lines. While I'm not musically voice gifted, when need be I can carry a tune, espically if I'm afraid she'll ripe out my esphogus or the the threat of being stabbed in the gut by a crazy choir master... So I sang my four little lines and was satisfied the crazy lady, and we were instructed to sing all together again. Smythy Freak was much happier and sad "Thank God I stopped the practiced and singled you out Laura, because you were so out of tune, now it's better."
Both times, while singing in the group, I was MOUTHING THE WORDS. MOUTHING THE WORDS. BOTH TIMES. MOUTHING THE WORDS. I can NOT emphasize this enough, I WAS MOUTHING THE WORDS. Good work you crazy diseased "c" word, way to pick up on my being out of tune, pointing me out, yelling at my out of tune-ness, and being a complete fuck. Way to be muscially gifted for picking someone out for being out of tune while MOUTHING THE WORDS. Thank you. 18 years later and it's still seared in my brain. At least it makes a good story. As will all the other ones!!!

Posted by Loba @ 10:57 a.m.

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I would like to hear more. More about her crazy ways, because I really don't believe she was crazy like you say. gotta go, i hear big John L coming
-bew-

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