Winning and Losing...

I have both bizarrely good and frustratingly bad news for you, dear readers. As is customary, I shall entertain you with the bad news first.

I have bad luck with interviews for The Gateway. For my first interview, I was assigned to interview the famous rock band Yellowcard - I wasted a precious hour of my life waiting for them to call the Gateway office so that I could question them, only to have them not call, for inexplicable reasons. Very frustrating. Despite my misgivings, however, I took on a second interview - one for a choreographer who was having his special youth-oriented dance show performed in my city.

I wrote up my questions and e-mailed his publicist a full three days before my deadline. Of course, he (the choreographer) says he'll get back to me. And guess what? I waste my entire weekend (and most of today's afternoon) waiting for some guy to call me like a lovestruck, thirysomething lonelyheart. Of course, he never calls, just sends me e-mails of condolences of how busy he is and how fragile his schedule is, never pausing for a moment to consider just how precious my time is and how thoughtlessly he is wasting it.

You're an artist, for pete's sake! You arrogant bastard! How do you think your show is going to get any publicity if you have no regard for the press who volunteer their free time to make you look good? Of course, I am fully aware of how ridiculous my side of the argument is, but where else can one rant articulately about nothing in particular than in one's blog?

Needless to say, regardless of the perfectly reasonable explanations he has for ruining my weekend and clawing my article to shreds, I still think he's an ass. A stupid, prideful, silly little dancer/choreographer who is so "focused on youths" that he ignores the youth (namely, me) who is trying to make a name for herself through his words! I spit on you! Moron! I'm supposed to vote for my province's premier today, and how can I do that if I have to wait on you?
For the bizarre good news, I won first place in a singing competition. One my friend's friends saw posters advertising a singing competition, and eventually I caught wind of it and signed up. It was hosted by the South East Asian Students Association (SEASA for short), and one could basically sing anything they wanted to. I, in all of my innocence, believed that all sorts of people would show up to participate. I felt actually rather nervous and underprepared. I mean, I wasn't the big fish in a little pond of Catholic French-speaking highschool students anymore. I was in University! Surely, among the 30 000+ students there must be some who can sing! Who else could have auditioned for Canadian Idol when it coasted into my city?

I, along with one other girl who mumbled unintellibly along to a cassetteplayer playing "The Way You Make Me Feel" by Michael Jackson, was one of the only white people there. Everyone else got up and sang in Chinese, Vietnamese, Korean, Japanese (I'm assuming, I can't really tell the languages apart firsthand) - one person did sing in Finnish, for some strange reason - with karaoke music blaring on the speakers in the background.

I, glowing in all of my Catholic Irish/Scottish/Polish paleness, got up to the stage alone, without music, and sang "Have Yourself a Merry Little Christmas" right off the top of my head. I won first place, an elaborate trophy, and a bookmark with SEASA written on it. Enscribed on my trophy were the words "South East Asian Student's Association Singing Competition 2004 - First Place". Full to the brimful with pride, I sailed home on the bus, where my parents soon opened my eyes to the guilty humour of the situation.

How, exactly, could I put in my resume that I had won the South East Asian Student's Association Singing Competition, when the full majority of the competitors had all been South East Asian? I'd imagine any interview would go something like this:
The Employer reads: South East Asian Student Association Singing Competition Winner. He looks up, and sees a nervous caucasian girl whose speaks as if everyone around her is slightly deaf. He looks down again. Then looks up again to examine her more clearly.
Employer: "Hmmmmm....something's not right here....."

My parents, of course, all thought this was very funny, but I felt guilty. A felt like a colonist - or a white rapper who wins the prize away from all of the black rappers (Eminem, with his rare talent, is exempt from this metaphor. Not so fast, Vanilla Ice...). This was a competition hosted by a club that was obviously intended for its own members. As my mother put it "They couldn't very well disqualify you because of your race, that would be illegal." Everyone else had put time and effort into their performances, and then I swept in, in all of my white upper-middle-class glory, and performed, acapella, a song that I was still memorizing the words and music for an hour before the competition started.

Let's just hope I don't get called back to do an encore for the South East Asian Student's Association Singing Competition 2005.