Showing posts with label singing. Show all posts
Showing posts with label singing. Show all posts

Saturday, December 25, 2010

Nerd Carolling Thanks You (final total)

So Nerd Carolling has come to an end. We were really happy with the results!

We had hoped to raise $100 from our two days of singing.

We made that in the first night.

After 5 nights of carolling, (3 more than we had planned thanks to an amazingly positive response) we raised...

$505.58 CAD

Sarah and I made the donation last night to Child's Play. People have also been giving online donations and telling us about them. So our real grand total is

$565.58 CAD

Thank you so much to the people who got excited and sent us around to a variety of people. You started a chain reaction that got us sent to so many different places in the city and got the word out further.

Thanks to Sarah and Emily for putting in their time and singing voices to making this possible.

A huge thank you to Jonathon Coulton (jonathancoulton.com) and The H.P. Lovecraft Historical Society (cthulhulives.org) who said we could use their music and basically made the whole thing possible. They have really great music, if you haven't done so already you should check them out.

This was a really fun project and we hope to be able to do this again next year!
Merry Christmas

Thursday, December 16, 2010

Nerd Carolling (first night)

We went out singing last night and already have passed our goal of 100 dollars for Child's Play (http://www.childsplaycharity.org). So now we're hoping to double it. We had so many people get into it when we started going around. Once they understood what we were doing it snowballed. We'd sing for one house and they would send us to two more houses.

Also people were really happy to give to Child's Play. Most had been wanting to for a while but didn't feel like it was worth it for their five or ten dollars. But we've also had people from other cities email us to let us know they've donated an amount and want us to sing for someone in Regina. So exciting!

Tuesday, December 14, 2010

Debate and nerd carolling

Ok so I was realizing that I'm not really letting my nerd flag fly. I mean how can I be a plain nerd if I don't talk about nerdy goodness? So first let me say that I judged debate last week and it was awesome! I had a wonderful time and got to see so many people and chat with them in a very open space. Ran into a guy (thankfully not literally) who was in my physics class in first year. It was really good to see him. He's now substituting at my old high school, funny in that small city way.

We had a really good time judging and listening to all the debaters. There were a few really hilarious moments. One in particular was a kid saying "Am I right?!" realized what he had said and followed up beautifully with "Yes. I. Am." Simply perfect. Sarah had a really great moment where a 14 year old kid clarified something for everyone: "Now I'm not a scientist...." yeah, we guessed that.

An excellent night and got me really pumped up for my real project that I wanted to talk about.

Nerd Carolling.

Sarah and I did this a few years ago but I was off the continent last year so it had to wait. Basically this is a simple concept that requires way more explanation than I expected. We (Sarah, Emily -when she gets back- and I) go around to various houses and sing to people. The people we sing to have either given us money or someone else has given us money to sing to that person. Like sending a singing telegram. We're singing nerdy songs, some to the tune of christmas carols and some that just need to be sung because they're so amusing. The money we collect is going to Child's Play Charity (http://www.childsplaycharity.org/)

We thought it would be a nice thing to do to encourage people to donate to help sick kids have something fun to do. We emailed Jonathan Coulton and The H.P. Lovecraft Historical Society. They both said we could use their music. Very exciting!

So our first day of singing starts tomorrow... er later today. I can't wait! I hope to get some recordings and put them up on youtube. Now just to find my camera.

Saturday, November 27, 2010

Thursday night -

Last of my yoga classes and wondering if I'm going to go next year. They give me vast amounts of compliments on my flexibility (which I love and is a huge boost to the ego) but I'm not getting anything from the stretches. I'm mostly finding myself feeling as if nothing is a challenge. But that will require more reflection on my own time. I'm here to tell the story of my night.

So I'm sitting there in my sweat pants and old t-shirt and feeling like I'm looking pretty rough around the edges. Then I get a text that turned my night around:

"Hookah. Suits. Now??!"

And I was off. Got showered and changed and got to the hookah lounge around 10. Everyone was looking fantastic and so many hugs came my way. So happy. I spent the evening bouncing from conversation to random statement that would catch my attention for a moment. It really did improve the night to be dressed up. We all seemed that much more focused, interesting and adventurous. It also helped that we were a very large group. I think we might have gotten to a total of 18 or 19 at the largest. We decided that dancing was the thing we needed. Off we all went, loosing people here and there. We eventually got together at the club. Our numbers had dwindled to 12 but we were all ready to dance our asses off. We ended up finding one guy on the dance floor. We all rushed in and joined him. Thus our instant dance party effect took hold. Two girls joined the floor, then another two and more and more. We were dancing with all we had. We looked and felt like an amazing wedding party.

I ran into a friend of mine from elementary and high school and caught up as well as you can in a few lines. "How are you? What are you doing these days? We haven't talked in ages. What is your number now?" All the while my friends keep coming off the floor for drinks, me handing out my community water cup to make sure people stay hydrated. I told her about our dance parties, she said it sounded like fun and then she gave me a huge compliment.

"You look like you're really doing good. It is always good to be around you, you seem to know how to get the most out of life." I was deeply touched. It is an exaggeration for emphasis to be sure but I felt the slight truth to the statement. We were having a lot of fun hanging out and all of us were experiencing a collective joy to the evening. After the 4th or 5th time of my group trying to get me back out on the floor I finally gave in to the pull of the music. After promising my reacquainted friend that we would catch up when she was out of the insanity of finals I dove back into the people.

When the last song had played we headed out. We were rather disappointed with the choice of country song to end the night, so as an alternative Sam and I lead the group in singing Barrett's Privateers outside in the snow. A guy came by and stopped to listen and joined in our circle to dance. Other people stopped and stood around to listen. When finally we finished one of the guys listening, who had started clapping along asked "What channel was that?" Chris in all seriousness, "7." We all dispersed and went home. An excellent end to wonderful night.

Friday, May 7, 2010

Karaoke!!!

Yes! I got my fix of Karaoke. There is a Norebang set up in town now! (Karaoke in your own room) I had been thinking of getting one started when I got back and apparently someone else had seen the need first. (thank goodness!) It was such a blast from Korea. The almost exact same set up with all the crazy random music videos from Japan and Korea playing in the background as you sing your English classic rock and pop songs. I got a high five from the guy running the thing for knowing how to work the massively elaborate controller. Made me rather pleased to have made use of something I learned on my trip.

Now this post is rather hard because basically ever memory from last night sends me off on musings of Korea... so lets give this a try.

1) The servers all had gaps in their knowledge of English.
Ok so there is a language gap. There seemed to be a need for a phrase book at times but things got sorted easily enough eventually.

2) The server to my friends for their meal reminded me of Martin.
Martin is one of the Korean translators that my friend Mike uses while he's in Korea. Basically the guy last night just seem to have the same smile and reactions that I would expect Martin to have... Like I was seeing a younger brother of his because he wasn't as nice as Martin... No one on earth can be as nice as Martin.

3) The Karaoke place was advertised on the street with a sign above the door with a big arrow and a 2.
Signs like that have led me to some of my most interesting experiences.

4) We rocked out!
Nothing really that different... just we rocked out hard. 2 hours of singing and then everyone saying "ONE MORE HOUR!" I realized that I can sing ABBA, Aqua, Chumbawamba, and Mika all with great ease. Pleasing, very pleasing.

5) I felt like I could catch a cab back to Mike's at the end of the night.
A flood of memories hit me as I left. I should be going back to Mike's, where is my code for the door?
And even now the little voice of his elevator is singing in my head:

"Chi chin da"
"Levela di da"
And then Mike and I burst into singing Whigfield's Saturday night.

I'm so happy right now.