I'm a Rockstar.

Wednesday, June 2, 2010

Wow. What an awesome day. It started off fairly standard with teaching at Aysha’s. My morning class (the advanced class) had just finished their budgeting assignments, so now it was time to teach them something new; I thought Powerpoint would be fun and relevant. So after teaching them the basics of Powerpoint, I gave them an assignment: to create a presentation on something they were interested in or enjoyed talking about. They really got into this, choosing topics ranging from “How to Start a Fire” to “Causes and Solutions to Teen Pregnancy.” I was impressed with their maturity and hard work; they got creative and added colors, images, and effects as well. Once I get a way to move the presentations to a flash drive or something, I’ll see if I can post them.

After the morning class, I realized I didn’t have a decent lunch to eat (groceries were running low at the Smith household), and as if I had just asked for a meal from the heavens, Aysha appeared and asked if I would like some lunch. I happily agreed, and she soon returned with eggs, sausage, toast, and coffee. My mouth is watering just thinking about how good it all was.

Once I was fed, I got back to my afternoon class and taught them the budgeting that I had taught the morning class the previous day. We struggled with one of the old computers in the lab (it’s running Windows 98 and has a whopping 16 MB of RAM – for you non-computer-geeks out there, that’s an incredibly small amount of memory) randomly resetting or freezing, so I was determined to fix that the next day. The class received the information well, and also seemed to understand the budgeting well.

After dinner that night (another Philly classic – bean curry), we had the weekly ProjectsAbroad social. This week, it was at Melting Pot (oddly enough, where I had been last Wednesday). Desiree, our normal morning driver that takes us to our internships at 8:30 AM each morning, drove me and 13 other volunteers over there that evening. Wednesday was open mic night, and I had a feeling I was going to get a piece of that stage tonight.

I signed up to get on the stage, and after the reggae band from last week and another cool jazz band who covered Maroon 5’s “Sunday Morning,” I was up. I got up there and started out with my go-to performance song, John Legend’s “Ordinary People,” on the piano, with me providing vocals as well. Not to brag, but.. The crowd ate it up. I had a backup band that the venue provides playing drums and bass with me, and I felt like a rock star. I followed up with my other go-to, “If I Ain’t Got You,” by Alicia Keys. It was a hit as well, but I had exhausted my two-song limit (open mic people get two songs) so I got off stage to a roaring audience (I say audience, but it really was more of a 20-30 person posse; this is a club/lounge setting, remember).

However, I wasn’t done yet. They started cheering “One More Song! One More Song!” and practically forced me back up on stage. I couldn’t really think of any other song to do that was polished enough to perform, but I got up and did “Be Without U” by Mary J Blige relatively successfully (it had hiccups for sure). I then finally relinquished the stage.

The feeling I got after that was amazing. People in the club started coming up to me telling me that I was an inspiration, that I had soul, asking me how long I had been singing (“But I’m just a computer engineering student!”), and things like that. A guy in the club came up to me and told me he was managing Cape Town’s World Youth Day (conveniently in Lavender Hill, where I work) in about a week or two, and wanted me to perform there. I tentatively agreed. My first gig, and I’m not even a formal musician!

For the record, there are videos and photos of this whole ordeal out there with one of the volunteers. I’m currently trying to procure this media.

Later that night, one of the owners of the Melting Pot’s recording studio (apparently they have a recording studio) took me to the side and showed me their sound booths and equipment; apparently they want me to come record with them, haha. We’ll see about that; regardless, it was really cool.

When we finally left the Melting Pot, we ended the night with a late “McDrive” (my friend Hester’s term for a Mcdonald’s drive-through; apparently this is the normal term in all of Holland. I like it.), just like a good night at Duke would have ended. It was, in a word, amazing. This Cape Town thing isn’t half bad, I’ve realized.