One more for the road...

There were so many things I could write about when I talk about All University Sing. I think I've pretty much considered them all. The original plan was to post a video of our act so you can see why I've been practicing nine to fourteen hours a week for the past two months. (Someone in our group did the math, we practice two hours for every one minute of performance... if that isn't commitment I don't know what is). Unfortunately, a video may not be forthcoming this year.

I thought about writing a review of all the acts, but that might make my post as long as the actual four hour performance itself. I'm sure you'll all stop reading before you even get to the end. And... well, I suppose while I might be "mean" enough to criticize acts in person, I'm not so sure about posting them up on the internet.

Instead, I thought I might give you the next best thing to a video (as many pictures as I could find) and just tell you about what Sing has meant to me these past three years. I promise, I'll try to spare the cheese and keep everything low fat.



Four years ago I moved to Baylor. I had had no connection to Baylor, never made a premier visit, and didn't attend line camp. Oh how little I knew! That year at homecoming I didn't drag my parents to see Pigskin... or after Dark for that Matter, and I certainly had no idea what my roommate was doing when she went at sat in line for four hours to become a member of Sing Alliance. All I knew is that she was gone that semester... a lot and when she came back it was usually with some random object: a pair of lyrical shoes, some feathers, a dress with wood glued on it, and, finally a spear. Seeing as how she spent so much time with this group, I wanted to know what this Sing thing was for myself. One of the girls on my hallway was rushing a sorority and scored me a ticket for club night. Sing Alliance was the first act I ever saw. But it wasn't until the homecoming, my sophomore year after I drug my parents to Pigskin ("Holy Cow, you've got to see this!" I told them) that I walked away saying, "I've got to do that!" That November I sat in line for five hours in order to get a spot. I was the eighth person on the list.



I don't think I would be incorrect to say that the decision was completely out of character for me, at least that's how I've always thought of it. I decided to join Sing Alliance at a time when I was non committal about everything, which I chose to be because I was too committed in high school, I think. Sing Alliance practices full
time Sunday, Monday, Tuesday, and Thursday nights. Two hours every night except for Thursday when we practiced for three. Big Commitment. Also, I went to bed every night at 10:00 like a little old lady (and I'm perfectly fine with that. I like sleep). Sing Practices at the earliest 8-10 and the latest 10-12. Some nights I didn't get home or relaxed until closer to 1 am. Hello Naps. I had to seriously adjust the way I did things.

I've never regretted it. Well, ok. Sometimes. Sing Season is strenuous. It gets long and tiring, especially toward the end when your just cleaning and cleaning, and remembering about all of the test and thesis chapters due tomorrow. There are moments you sort of hate your life. "Holy Cow, why did I decide to do this again?" But that goes away. You see, Sing kept me from being too serious. It let me get up and jump around... act like I was seven again, and sing Disney songs with people who know every single word. It was my opportunity to leave my mark on a Baylor tradition so to speak. And when Homecoming comes around I'll look forward to seeing all the Pigskin acts, and take my kids to see them. I'll tell them my stories ( and show them my costumes). Because Sing has been a large, and very memorable, part of my Baylor career, and when it ends tonight, it's smooth sailing to graduation.

Let's go, Sing Alliance.

Sing Pick of the Week: Chi O's Gold Rush

I have to apologize that my Sing post is delayed. I have a good excuse, though. I promise. In fact I have 29 good excuses that happened to keep me up all night long on Friday. Last semester I was a GA leader for my church here, and though I couldn't continue to go this semester due to a class conflict, I went to the lock in. I got to talk about all sorts of things like how the best place to take a nap is daddy's lap, and what it would be like to be a cat princess, and how Goofy and Mickey probably live on the planet Pluto [ok, that last one is mine and the 3rd grader I was talking too looked at me like I was crazy, anyway] The point is, sleep deprivation aside, my 4th graders are simply more important than you. Sorry, the truth hurts.

But I'm here now!!!!!!

This weeks act is from 2009. Interesting story is that this was actually the back- up theme for this group. The way it works when two groups submit the same theme is that one group gets the theme and the other gets all the music. Most of the time, however the group that gets the music forfeits because its hard to fashion a new theme around the same music. That's what happened this year. Sing Alliance and Chi O both submitted coffee themes. Sing got the Theme, Chi O the music, but who wants to sing the Folger's song if you can't have a coffee theme. Gold Rush is the theme they used instead. In my opinion its one of the best second themes I've seen. So here you have it,

Chi O's Gold Rush:

Sing Pick of the Week: The Toys Are Back in Town

I currently find myself writing today's blog post from the warmth of my own bed. I should have had class at 10:10, but I didn't BECAUSE IT SNOWED LAST NIGHT! Yeah. I would normally take this time to rub that little fact in, but since most of you out there reading have snow also, I'll just say "enjoy it." All this aside, it is Friday and I promised to do my theme post on Friday- at least through the end of February.

Sing Pick of the Week: KOT's "The Toys Are Back in Town"

Having gotten all biased feelings out of my system with my Sing Alliance pick last week I'm fully prepared to post the golden little gems of which I was not apart of. KOT [Kappa Omega Tau for you non Greek minded folk out there] has some of the most amazing Sing acts. They have placed in the top three ever since I've been at Baylor and this act was no different. In fact, Toys took first place last year. It was rightly deserved. Why is it such a wonderful act. Well, among other things, the theme was incredibly creative, music was fantastic, choreography was spot on, but my favorite is the details. You can watch this act a dozen times and never see all there is to see. There are lego men, etch-a-scetch, airplanes and more. I'm also particularly excited because the video I found for you guys is really good quality save the first few seconds that might induce a little sea sickness. Yay!

Enjoy!

Buster or Charlie?

So I'm taking this class called the History of Motion Picture. It's really fascinating. These past few weeks we've started with the first 45 second film clips they used to show in old kinetoscope parlors and are somewhere in the 1920s. We've lecture on Tuesdays and Thursdays and each Wednesday we have film screenings. It's the screenings that I'm really enjoying because I'm getting to see all these films I've always heard about and aren't quite as easily rented as, oh say, Titanic. You know how you've always heard the story about how the first film audience freaked out when they saw a strip about a train coming toward the camera because they thought the train would run them over? We saw that clip. We've also seen The Great Train Robbery and Nosfertu, the earliest vampire movie. Coming up in the next few weeks we have a Marx Brothers film, Citizen Kane, Singing in the Rain, and several others.

Today I want to talk about comedians.

Have you ever seen a Charlie Chaplin film? I hadn't until we watched The Immigrant few weeks ago. It was ok, but I left feeling that something was wrong with me because everyone adores Chaplin, right? Well apparently, as was told us today by our professor, some people are Chaplin fans and others are Buster Keaton fans. I'd never known who Keaton was until last night when we watched a video called Sherlock Jr. but I'm definitely a Buster Keatonite. He's absolutely hilarious! He's much more physical with his comedy than situational and, as Dr. K. pointed out wasn't quite the victorian sentimentalist that Chaplain was. Sadly enough, Keaton's comedy didn't translate well after the silent era ended and his career came to a close in the late twenties while Chaplain made movies well into the 50's until he was expelled from the country by the UnAmerican Activities Council. Anyway, as many of you might not have heard of Keaton before, I though you might enjoy watching a clip from Sherlock Jr.