Lehigh Choral Union

I was supposed to write this for a Lehigh student blog, but the job never really materialized. I have one more post in the can that I will share. Enjoy!

During the summer after graduating from high school, I was recruited through e-mail to try out for Lehigh Choral Arts. I had been in a school chorus since fourth grade, so this appealed to me as an activity that I should continue once I entered college. I did not know what exactly to expect in the audition for choir, but I thought I could follow the conductor’s lead to get into the University Choir.

Unfortunately, I had a harder time than I did when entering high school singing the scales, as I usually do not like to sing on my own. My audition was short, which I did not consider to be a good thing. As I learned later from choir members, I should have come prepared with a song, similar to an “American Idol” audition. I found out later that night along with everyone else that I would be singing in the Choral Union.

At first, I was disappointed, but this meant that I got to spend the first weekend of school sleeping in my room rather than being away on a retreat with the rest of the choir. I feel like this time was crucial to developing some of my first friendships at Lehigh and experiencing time around campus. Sure, I would have made friends in choir, but it was also important to know other people in my hall and freshman orientation group, along with having the same experience of the days before classes as most other freshmen.

While I thought that I would be disappointed to not be in the “better” choir like I was in high school, it has turned out to be a good time. The Choral Union is made up of a small number of Lehigh students in comparison to residents of the Lehigh Valley. This was not desirable to me as a freshman because I wanted to meet more people around my age. However, I have always been one to relate better and have deeper conversations with my parents’ friends and other older adults. Thanks to a change in policy, Choral Union members and choir alumni were able to travel with the choir on their biannual trip outside of the country, so I was still able to experience and sing in China and Portugal at the end of my freshman and junior years, respectively.

Summer class

The professor was not kidding when he said that 15 weeks were compressed into five during the summer, in this case for Applied Microeconomics. The first of two tests in on Wednesday at 8:30 p.m. after only two weeks of the course. Unfortunately for me, my Wednesday afternoon is already booked with doing set-up in Allentown for the Force, so I wil have to get all studying finished by Tuesday night. This should be fun!

I'm looking forward to being able to watch game five of the Stanley Cup Final after missing games one, three, and four; I watched some of four the next day on NHL Network. This has been a good series to cap off a good playoffs overall, which I have missed by being in Portugal, doing work, and spending time with good friends. Good thing that two of those things were time well-spent with others rather than watching television by myself or with my dad.

Journey from Patterson to Edgewater Park

Late Saturday afternoon, I had to journey from Patterson, NY to Edgewater Park in the Bronx for Lauren's 22nd birthday party. My parents needed me in Patterson even for such a short time just to help out moving stuff around the property. I was driven from Patterson to the Southeast train station on Metro-North where I caught the 4:13 train. I had to switch to a local train at North White Plains, leaving at 5:11. The conductor announced that only one door would be opening at my destination station, Williamsbridge, where I arrived at 5:37. It was like disembarking from a ship as this long and narrow platform extended from the one station platform to the front door of the train and passengers walked single-file to exit onto the platform. I then walked along Gun Hill Road where there were many hostile drivers who would honk at practically nothing and I was the only white person around, aside from one Mustang driver. When I reached Bronxwood Avenue, I sat at the Bx8 bus station on my 12-pack of beer and waited for the 6:08 bus which would take me to Edgewater Park, where I arrived around 7:00. It was funny how the demographics on the bus changed as the bus traveled southeast in the Bronx.