A Wedding and Other Things
Yesterday, Stevie and rose_kolodny were married. It was a fairly small ceremony which made good use of university facilities. Sacha, needless to say, looked absolutely stunning in her highly traditional but gorgeous white strapless dress with sparkling veil; I'm not sure Stevie stopped grinning all day.
I sang during the ceremony for them; a Guided By Voices song called "Hold on Hope". I got a number of compliments afterwards, which is always nice, although I'm never sure whether people think it was *actually* very good or whether they just think it's jolly brave of me to stand up in front of people and sing. Singing is one of those things where it's very difficult to judge your own standard, for several reasons: your voice sounds different inside your own head to what it does outside (ever listened to a recording of yourself?), there's not really an objective way to judge your standard as even things like singstar only really judge whether you're hitting the right note at the right time rather than whether you're getting the tone and expression as well, and it's the kind of thing where you'll get equally praised and berated for the same performance -- in my family, at least, no-one would hesitate to complain about my singing at any opportunity, meaning it's hard to know if it's actually any good.
But I've gotten to the stage now where I like singing and I am confident at least that I can stand in front of people and consistently sing the right words at the right pitch in an acceptable tone, so I'm happy to sing for people if they ask me to. Actually, I really enjoy it. So singing yesterday was really good, and I was pleased that I was asked.
Ceilidh dancing was fun too, it seems like ages since I've been to a proper ceilidh. It's not, my brother-in-law had ceilidh dancing at his wedding a few months ago, but it was also part disco so it didn't seem quite as pure a ceilidh as yesterday did. I was also much impressed with the quality of the speeches. Father of the bride, groom and best man all spoke confidently and well, with just the right amount of sentiment and humour. All in all very successful I thought.
I'm back at work tomorrow. Not sure how to feel about that. Last week I made a few resolutions which were designed to test my stamina and my ability to get out and face the world again, and I managed them with no problems. All indications are that I'm fighting fit once more. But I still have a highly negative perception of my job, and I have a feeling that will make life difficult for me when I go back. Oh well, with any luck I'll be too busy with actual work to worry too much about all the associated crap, and I do have an escape planned in the near future which should help. Still, I just have to think about the email backup in my inbox to break out into a cold sweat!
I sang during the ceremony for them; a Guided By Voices song called "Hold on Hope". I got a number of compliments afterwards, which is always nice, although I'm never sure whether people think it was *actually* very good or whether they just think it's jolly brave of me to stand up in front of people and sing. Singing is one of those things where it's very difficult to judge your own standard, for several reasons: your voice sounds different inside your own head to what it does outside (ever listened to a recording of yourself?), there's not really an objective way to judge your standard as even things like singstar only really judge whether you're hitting the right note at the right time rather than whether you're getting the tone and expression as well, and it's the kind of thing where you'll get equally praised and berated for the same performance -- in my family, at least, no-one would hesitate to complain about my singing at any opportunity, meaning it's hard to know if it's actually any good.
But I've gotten to the stage now where I like singing and I am confident at least that I can stand in front of people and consistently sing the right words at the right pitch in an acceptable tone, so I'm happy to sing for people if they ask me to. Actually, I really enjoy it. So singing yesterday was really good, and I was pleased that I was asked.
Ceilidh dancing was fun too, it seems like ages since I've been to a proper ceilidh. It's not, my brother-in-law had ceilidh dancing at his wedding a few months ago, but it was also part disco so it didn't seem quite as pure a ceilidh as yesterday did. I was also much impressed with the quality of the speeches. Father of the bride, groom and best man all spoke confidently and well, with just the right amount of sentiment and humour. All in all very successful I thought.
I'm back at work tomorrow. Not sure how to feel about that. Last week I made a few resolutions which were designed to test my stamina and my ability to get out and face the world again, and I managed them with no problems. All indications are that I'm fighting fit once more. But I still have a highly negative perception of my job, and I have a feeling that will make life difficult for me when I go back. Oh well, with any luck I'll be too busy with actual work to worry too much about all the associated crap, and I do have an escape planned in the near future which should help. Still, I just have to think about the email backup in my inbox to break out into a cold sweat!