My choir here (LUK) sings all kinds of beautiful songs in all kinds of beautiful languages, and it's wonderful! Except for the fact that I don't really speak any of these beautiful languages.. and most of the people around me do. (#americanproblems) Furthermore, the entire rehearsal is conducted in Dutch! (not surprising since I am in Belgium..) So I'm constantly asking the people around me not only to translate what our conductor is saying, but oftentimes I also have to ask for pronunciation help in the songs we're singing.
I bet they all draw straws to decide who has to sit next to me.
Anyway... Every once in a while, we sing a song in English! It's always really exciting for me because not only can I pronounce the words correctly, but I also understand what I'm singing about! It's a huge deal. Well, we got to sing an English song today in rehearsal (yay!) and the director had to ask ME how to pronounce a word! Instantly, a hundred heads snap toward me in apt attention. Great. I am, I think, the only native English speaker in our choir.. kind of crazy to think about. But there it was.. my moment to shine! Now you're wondering, what was the word? Laud. LAUD. Why couldn't it have been something simple, that people actually use in normal, day-to-day conversation?? I think the only time that I've ever heard the word "laud" is in the Christmas carol, What Child is This. Seriously.
My director was pronouncing it so that it sounded like she was saying, "loud," and I didn't think that was right.. So I proclaimed, "I think it's "l-ahhh-d".." (I hope you appreciate my phonetic spelling). To that, everyone just kinda nodded their heads muttering my pronunciation to themselves.. I felt so powerful haha. We quickly finished that song and continued with a Russian piece, so my moment of understanding quickly passed, don't get too excited.
AND THEN it was a girl's birthday.. so naturally, she brought treats to share - hooray! Okay, I know I keep raving about this 'speculoos' stuff, but seriously.. it's so good. And she brought these special, speculoos cookies that were super soft and tasty and dreamy and delicious. I kid you not. I only took one.. to start with. But then rehearsal ended and she had boxes on boxes leftover.. so I figured it was okay to take another, right? But she still had so many leftover cookies that she was walking around the room with the boxes begging people to take more. Okay, I thought, I can take one back for Claire! The birthday girl asked me what I thought about the cookies.. and so I raved and told her how fantastic I thought they were. That's when she ran away and returned seconds later with.. a box just for me!! I tried to refuse, but she insisted! In her words, "You're American. You need this more than I do." Well, alright then. An offer that I simply couldn't refuse.
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| You don't even know. Best cookie ever. |
That's about it for my absolutely riveting choir adventure.. I know you're all on the edge of your seats. It might sound boring to you all, but I don't know.. I had a blast at my rehearsal tonight, and it's wonderful because choir has allowed me to meet even MORE amazing, Belgian students! Joining a club, such as choir, here in Leuven definitely wasn't something that I was planning on doing when I first arrived and it for sure hasn't made my time management any easier.. but I'm undoubtedly happy that I did join choir here: more wonderful friends & more wonderful Leuven memories.
And for anyone who cares.. our Christmas Concert is on December 18th!! It's bound to be a super good time and TOTALLY worth the thousand-dollar trip across the ocean... right? Just kidding :) But I'll tell you all about it when I get back home!
Okay, that's enough choir nerdyness for now.. happy Friday!
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