31. Sing to an audience

Countless nights of Karaoke while drunk was all the experience I had and probably the extent of my courage. It wasn’t until my first teaching job at an all-boys high school that I had the opportunity to sing in front of a large audience. It was the school’s annual festival and they needed a female teacher and a male teacher to perform as a special guest appearance. A male teacher and two other teachers in his math department planned for to dance to a girls KPOP song and I was left with no volunteers from my female co-workers. I thought- YOLO! So, I chose “If I Ain’t Got You” by Alicia Keys. Ha Ha Ha… It was the first time I sang in front of an audience, especially an audience close to a thousand people. I was shaking and full of fright, but I put on my best poker face and sang as best as I could. I don’t know if I was good or not, but it didn’t matter! These kids were just intrigued to see their teacher sing! Whew. They made me sing again the next day because it was a two-day festival. They also made me sing the next year. I sang a Disney song from Pocahontas that no one knew, and I totally bombed it but I was still in YOLO mode and now I’ve repressed the memory. Thankfully, this landed me a one-day job at a wedding as a wedding singer! One of the teachers recommended me to his friend who was getting married, and I sang Alicia Keys at the wedding, was paid, AND given a lot of gifts for my appearance. No opportunities have come up since then, but it is definitely good to know that I am not tone deaf or completely a broken record.