For me, American Idol has become almost a yearly revisiting of dreams. I've auditioned 3 times and its been a great experience every time because anytime you put yourself out there in life and do something hard, uncomfortable or possibly embarrassing - you learn. So without further ado, here is the story...
Wednesday, July 16th my Mom and myself drove up to San Francisco and made it up to the "Cow Palace" (where they were pre-registering people) at around 6:30 pm. After we registered we went to my Dad's cousin, Jana's house and had a delightful dinner and watched the first episode of "Project Runway" (which is one of my all time favorite shows! I think I secretly want to win American Idol so that I can ask to be a guest judge on Project Runway! )
The next morning we woke up at 4:50 and made it back to the Cow Palace at 6 a.m. We then waited in line for 3 hours before we got inside. Now, for those of you who haven't ever auditioned for American Idol it can be possibly one of the most tedious and annoying experiences because everyones seems to think that they are being auditioned in line by phantom judges and won't stop singing! Ahhh!! It's like being on a choir road trip with 10,000 choir members singing non-stop.
After we made it inside the Cow Palace we found our seats and proceeded to wait another 7 1/2 hours until our group was called. My mom and I brought a DVD player, so we passed some time watching a movie. It's really hard to concentrate though, when there are a tons of people singing in every corner, hallway and bathroom. And it really and truly feels like everyone sings exactly the same way. Going into this years audition I already knew that I was rolling the dice because I decided to sing a mainstream classical song, "Time to Say Goodbye." So after hearing everyone sing all day long, I was feeling rather confident because I was offering the judges something different.
Finally, our group is called and we all walk down to the floor to wait in line to sing for the judges. For those of you who don't know, you don't get to sing for Paula, Simon and Randy the first go around. It's not until the third or fourth audition that you actually get in from of those guys. So I ended up in a line in front of two ladies. There were twelve audition booths set up and I was in booth number 3. As I was standing in the line waiting for my turn I was so nervous that I thought my heart would beat its way up through my throat and that when I opened my mouth to sing it would pop out and land on the judges desk. Splat. That would have gotten their attention, right?! So finally, it's my turn. I step forward and say my name and the piece I'm singing. The judges nod and I go into my song. I feel myself singing the first bar of the song. It was good. Phew. So then I go into the rest of song, and although it's not quite as perfect as I practiced, it was definitely good. Then I get to the part where I go up high....and I nail it! Yay! But then, I get a signal from the judges to stop. Hmmmm... Was it good enough to get through and they didn't need to hear more, or did are they not looking for what I offer?? A second passes that feels like and hour and they call my group up to the table. There are four people in the group and they say, "Thanks you guys, we know this has been a long day but we aren't going to take any of you today." And that was it. It was over.
Was I surprised? No. I knew I was rolling dice on this. I knew that I'm not necessarily exactly what American Idol looks for. Was I sad? No. I was happy! I was happy that I went there and did it. I was happy that instead of having another series of scary, anxiety ridden auditions that I got to relax and see Michael sooner. (Although of course I would have been excited to go on obviously). I was happy that even though I didn't get through this audition that it helped me realize more of what I like to do and what I want to do with my voice.
So, am I going to continue posting videos online of myself singing? Yes! Over everything else, posting videos of myself singing has been the single most embarrassing thing I could probably ever do - and because of that I feel like I can achieve anything I want now.
So the next question is: Am I going to audition next year? I don't know. We'll see what next year brings for me!
In closing, I really can't adequately express my appreciation for all of you who took so much time in listening to my videos and posting your comments. This is cheesy, but I really felt the blog love! There are so many of you who were really helpful and wonderful and I hope that you continue to give me feedback. I love it! Thanks everyone!!
(us being silly. I love how the back of the room just decided that they weren't interested in making a funny face! haha!)
Last week, Michael and I were thrilled to be able to present for the Orange County PUG. My good friend Lauren Hillary is the PUG leader there, so it was really fun to get to see her AND her amazing office! It was also SO great to see Emily Engle (Pictage PUG coordinator extrodinaire!) who was so sweet to come all the way down to see us during rush hour traffic! Emily rocks!
It was so funny because we have SO many new friends on photoforthepeople.com and so I keep meeting people in the flesh that I've only seen online, which is always fun! For example, we went to sushi after the PUG meeting and I was sitting across from this nice guy named Wayne. Wayne was mostly talking to Michael and I was mostly talking to Emily & Lauren. Well, he formally introduced himself as "Wayne" before we left. When I get home I see an email from Wayne Toshikazu, this way cool guy that is always on our forum! I was SO mad that I didn't realize that the guy at sushi who introduced himself was the very same amazing guy that I see on photoforthepeople.com and my blog! So from now on, if there are any of you who I see online but have never met in person, make sure to let me know!!
p.s - I just wanted to make sure that if you don't get a chance to check out our Photo Blog please do! Michael does the most beautiful posts and I'd hate for some of you guys to just come and check my silly blog that has iphone pictures and screen grabs and not get a chance to actually see our REAL work!
