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Yesterday, just after they announced the final winner, I had to go to English class. And not only that, that winner was in my class...and the moment she walked into the classroom her friends (and that's like, half of the class) wanted her to sing for the class...while I could only turn away and weep...for I know that I was deserving of singing beside her.
I tried to talk to some of the organizers yesterday, and others overheard me, but no, I was not criticizing the system. I know the system. I've watched American Idol and other shows like that.
So today I asked my English teacher if I could have a chance to sing for the class too, just because it was only fair to me - and it would redeem myself a little. But on a practical level, as he said to me, it wasn't the best idea, for somehow it would seem to indicate - to the winner's friends in the class - some intention to usurp her title.
Then they just had to call the four finalists down to the office by name to pick up their prizes. I couldn't take it anymore. No, not because I wanted a prize, but because of that recognition I was denied again.
This is me. People have told me for much of my life that I have a beautiful voice. I have musical talent. And I'm not afraid to perform.
People just don't know what it meant for me to sing a song onstage from the heart. It's so easy just to sing any song you know, which is what I'm sure almost everyone did, but it's so much harder to get up there and sing a song that means something to you, that you want to share the meaning with the audience.
Yes, people can try to cheer me up, saying that it's enough of a feat to get up there and be brave enough to do it -- but that's not out of the ordinary for me. Having taken piano lessons for 12 years I'm used to performing in recitals and competitions. It's not new, like it was for Joyce, for example.
And as one of the organizers (also my friend) told me today...I wasn't supposed to have been there at all. I was meant to be cut at the auditions. And only the desperation I expressed moved her to coerce the panel to let me in. Yet the rumours also say that the same thing happened for the girl that I felt didn't deserve to be a finalist as well...it's so much about connections.
My friend was very reluctant to tell me what that margin between the 1st place ties and the 3rd place contestant was for Wednesday, because I told her that I was so sure that I had to have placed 3rd that day. And the truth there, and I really shouldn't be saying this in public (for it was meant to be a secret), is that I was dead last. She told me, but that's because I asked.
Now I don't understand anymore. How could it be, that I could feel so loved, but yet not actually be loved at all?
I feel that I need to redeem myself. In a perfect world I would get those 4 finalists together with me, and we would go sing for a different school, and let them judge us. That would take away the popularity factor. Else we would sing for not the audition panel, but all of the music teachers and teachers who are musicians (like Mr. Baldwin) in the school, and they would judge. Because not only do I want to redeem myself, I feel an incredible need to be seen relative to those 4 finalists, so the audience can see for themselves the injustice they have dealt to someone who perfectly deserved to be in the top four. Yes, it would mean humiliation for someone, but in my imagination it would be the only way to set things right.
But this would never be done. These are things to be left only to the imagination.
I cried for four hours last night. I don't know why I couldn't sleep. It was just that something wasn't right in this bubble of a world around me and I can't stand it being that way.
In the meantime...
I know that all of the other losers have gotten over their loserness...and I know I'm really being thought of as an @$$ over in the organizing committee. But always, it is not about winning. I would never have won anyway. Honestly, I would have been happy with myself if there had been someone who was better than me in my round, and he or she gets the result he or she deserved (for example, this year's winner was singing in my round last year, and she got 2nd place overall), but that's not what the case was here. What this became for me was an opportunity to fight for what I believe in, to show that this is what a person who believes in justice does; to show that this is what a person who values talent and skill does to defend her standing. And I will never rest...until I face either utter defeat, or have reached a compromise.
I cannot let these things pass so easily as others do, because it is the intent, the why I decided to enter this contest. It was not to impress my friends, or to have fun - it was to express myself in the only way I have been previously successful in doing so - through music. And to show the vulgar masses what talent they have ignored for the sake of superficiality.
I tried to talk to some of the organizers yesterday, and others overheard me, but no, I was not criticizing the system. I know the system. I've watched American Idol and other shows like that.
So today I asked my English teacher if I could have a chance to sing for the class too, just because it was only fair to me - and it would redeem myself a little. But on a practical level, as he said to me, it wasn't the best idea, for somehow it would seem to indicate - to the winner's friends in the class - some intention to usurp her title.
Then they just had to call the four finalists down to the office by name to pick up their prizes. I couldn't take it anymore. No, not because I wanted a prize, but because of that recognition I was denied again.
This is me. People have told me for much of my life that I have a beautiful voice. I have musical talent. And I'm not afraid to perform.
People just don't know what it meant for me to sing a song onstage from the heart. It's so easy just to sing any song you know, which is what I'm sure almost everyone did, but it's so much harder to get up there and sing a song that means something to you, that you want to share the meaning with the audience.
Yes, people can try to cheer me up, saying that it's enough of a feat to get up there and be brave enough to do it -- but that's not out of the ordinary for me. Having taken piano lessons for 12 years I'm used to performing in recitals and competitions. It's not new, like it was for Joyce, for example.
And as one of the organizers (also my friend) told me today...I wasn't supposed to have been there at all. I was meant to be cut at the auditions. And only the desperation I expressed moved her to coerce the panel to let me in. Yet the rumours also say that the same thing happened for the girl that I felt didn't deserve to be a finalist as well...it's so much about connections.
My friend was very reluctant to tell me what that margin between the 1st place ties and the 3rd place contestant was for Wednesday, because I told her that I was so sure that I had to have placed 3rd that day. And the truth there, and I really shouldn't be saying this in public (for it was meant to be a secret), is that I was dead last. She told me, but that's because I asked.
Now I don't understand anymore. How could it be, that I could feel so loved, but yet not actually be loved at all?
I feel that I need to redeem myself. In a perfect world I would get those 4 finalists together with me, and we would go sing for a different school, and let them judge us. That would take away the popularity factor. Else we would sing for not the audition panel, but all of the music teachers and teachers who are musicians (like Mr. Baldwin) in the school, and they would judge. Because not only do I want to redeem myself, I feel an incredible need to be seen relative to those 4 finalists, so the audience can see for themselves the injustice they have dealt to someone who perfectly deserved to be in the top four. Yes, it would mean humiliation for someone, but in my imagination it would be the only way to set things right.
But this would never be done. These are things to be left only to the imagination.
I cried for four hours last night. I don't know why I couldn't sleep. It was just that something wasn't right in this bubble of a world around me and I can't stand it being that way.
In the meantime...
I know that all of the other losers have gotten over their loserness...and I know I'm really being thought of as an @$$ over in the organizing committee. But always, it is not about winning. I would never have won anyway. Honestly, I would have been happy with myself if there had been someone who was better than me in my round, and he or she gets the result he or she deserved (for example, this year's winner was singing in my round last year, and she got 2nd place overall), but that's not what the case was here. What this became for me was an opportunity to fight for what I believe in, to show that this is what a person who believes in justice does; to show that this is what a person who values talent and skill does to defend her standing. And I will never rest...until I face either utter defeat, or have reached a compromise.
I cannot let these things pass so easily as others do, because it is the intent, the why I decided to enter this contest. It was not to impress my friends, or to have fun - it was to express myself in the only way I have been previously successful in doing so - through music. And to show the vulgar masses what talent they have ignored for the sake of superficiality.
