JYSim for jobless-yokel Sim

Sim Jun Yi was born with congenital ventricular septal defect. He was not gifted and not trained in any kind of sports under the sky when he was young. He isn’t gifted in any kind of ability as well, such as solving pages of mathematics questions in a fraction of a second or memorising all Malaysia Airlines offices numbers worldwide. But there’s one thing he liked to do but was never really good at, and that was singing, especially of that in choir.
I was trained under Mr. Chin during my Standard 2-3-4 years. I wasn’t a very good student back then. Nobody gave me a prize when I participated in any form of singing competition, nobody ever invited me to sing in the grand opera ‘Turandot’ by Giacomo Puccini when it staged its premiere in Penang. The in-thing during that period (for children) was to sing in falsetto. And I never thought my falsetto was good.
Anyway, I went into my first choir as a tenor during my 5th year in Union Institution. That was right after my first week of my fifth year, and that choir was massive. I can’t remember our sound quality back then but children choirs almost always produce the best voices in town. We went to a competiton that mid-year and banged 3rd (although during those years the 1st, 2nd and 3rd prizes are usually those of Penang Chinese Girls’ Primary School (who accepts boys), Union, and Kwang Hwa Primary). My affair with choir started slowly then.
In fact my participation in choir saved my position in class. Back then you can add marks to your exam results if whatever competition you participated in won. And during my 6th year I was saved from dropping into the second class by 10 marks contributed by the choir. And I was so glad I can’t be rid off by our evil class tutor Mdm. Zhao. During our 6th year we got 4th place, but we were always the same merry group as I would now remember - practice sessions every Tuesday afternoon 2 to 4pm.
Stepping into CLHS I had already made up my mind to participate in our school choir. My first day was of fond and shocking memories. It’s a norm not to have teachers to be present during practice sessions, and the attendants were really little. Sometimes less than 10 people turn up and we would ask those with mobile phones to emergency-call other members to come. Sometimes the teacher came in, and we would realize that we forgot to photocopy our songs today, and he once stormed out of the room with us totally dumbfounded. In short, our CLHS choir was never on par with that of other schools. Nevertheless being a lifelong member I can certainly state they’re improving slowly but gradually as years go by.
My CLHS Choir added many fond and saddening memories to my high school life. We participated in events (and were never appreciated, due to our below-expectation quality), we were together all the time, we shared the poor fragile piano, and we went to competitions together (though usually as the losing team). However, due to political interference I was not even a high committee even though I spent all my 5 years in choir. I still remember the day I went home tearing to find Dad because I was only named a minute director in the club. Nevertheless, the heart of a young, innocent boy back then was easily recomposed and soon I was back, though not completely indulged.
A lapse of 1 year followed after that. I did not sing in any choir after I graduate from high school. I went to Italy, I traveled half the globe with KLM - the reliably cramped airline, and I spent idle times staying at home - and falling in love with my house and its shades of white and coffee-brown. I read a wide collection of books, and tried my fingers in piano again, though never truly successful as before, but I never sang. And I never missed singing.
Fast forward to September 06 I was the youngest freshman in perhaps whole of Taiwan - idle and so infatuated in studying I had no thoughts of any co-curricular activities my university education might offer me. I was empty - my days consisting of long hours in the classrooms, and later longer hours in the library or gross anatomy classroom (though I’m not doing any anatomy until I’m in Y3), and a quick shower in the bathroom and later sleeping in my dorm. I was unusual compared to other students, who deliberately participated in 5 clubs and councils and find himself running for one after the other - time completely dominated by (occasionally stupid) activities and (time-consuming) meetings.
I was dragged into our U’s choir by my friend who later took a gap semester out of the choir himself. Remembering my first practice things were so primitive compared to what we had in CLHS. We have to stand on the lecture stage in a common classroom while the piano - a refurbished Kawai, faces the wall, and the poor pianist has to always turn to his back to see if the teacher is on-tempo with his music. We sang hymns and Christian songs mostly at first, which I would later find out is useful for training harmonics. I skipped some practice sessions myself, sometimes, and find myself in complete confusion when they choose to sing the song in Taiwanese Hokkien. Nevertheless, my seniors were always good to me in choir (perhaps due to the low ‘reproduction rate’ of new members). We had a humorous teacher and we had perhaps most beautiful girls in choir.
This semester things began to sparkle as we prepare to participate in the Nationwide Music Festival. Every week I would anticipate our practice sessions as my weekends are usually dull, and I would get that ‘flying’ feeling minus the drugs during and after I sang. I loved attending practice sessions, though I lost my book once and I was always late because I wanted to savour the pancakes sold by a breakfast bar opposite of the school for breakfast.
Our choir was small, even if measured by the amount of people the band or orchestra have. But our competition remarks this year states that we’re a well-balanced and expressive group. I guess that’s how we’re special compared to others (though our score are still 1 to 3 marks behind other matured choirs).
And now as we all wait for our conductor-cum-teacher to come back from his trip to another part of Taiwan, I wait in anticipation of another practice session-cum-celebration of our success for this year’s competition. I guess choir is just a part of my life after all, and I would really like to make a vow never to leave our choir in the next 5 years, but I’d like to first see how Anatomy in Y3 would be before being punished by the God of Choirs for not fulfilling my vow.

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