For anyone that is reading this from the University of Pretoria, I do not mean to bad mouth the University I am simply sharing my experiences in South Africa, some of which have to do with the University. These are only my views; they do not reflect anyone else’s views of the University and should be taken as nothing more than opinion from experiences.
Now I’m sure that you are all very intrigued as to what I have to say. Well let’s start with an over view of how my first week of classes went. I am a bit overwhelmed because everything here is very new to me. I have many classes and am meeting many new people. This sounds great, but for me I am in the Music building all day. None of the other exchange students are in this building at any time, or even in this area of campus unless they feel like being nice and having lunch or coffee with me at Burgundy’s during the few breaks that I have. The way the BMus students [meaning Music undergrad major] work here is that they start off together in their first year of varsity [the abbreviation for university here] and they take all music classes [that’s right no Gen. Ed. Courses to get in their way, thank you very much Liberal Arts college] and they move on together. If you fail a course you take it again with the year behind you. So needless to say the BMus students here are very close to those that are in the same year as them. So when I entered my classes everyone knew that I was a new student, or different because they have all been together in every class for their whole time here and many of them sang together in the youth choir before they started here. So I was easily picked out as different and some took it upon themselves to inform me of everything, things I needed to know and things I could care less about. Others decided that I was different and they already had their group of friends and there just wasn’t room for another one. There were only a few people that I received this reaction from so if any of you are reading this, it was probably not you! But they eventually warmed up to me and the professors, once they realized that I was in their class [because I didn’t not show up on any of their attendance lists] were excited to have me there. All of the professors were very welcoming and seem to be very passionate about their subjects which in turn makes me excited for their classes. One professor however did not give me the best first impression. There could be many reasons for this, but I know none of them. When I was noticed for the first time by this professor I got the same reaction as the others. I got a face as if to say, “Who are you and why are you in this class? You were not here last year. I’m confused.” So I stood up from my seat and reached out my hand to be polite and shake his hand. I said, “Hello my name is Leah and I am an exchange student here from America. I will be here for six months.” He shook my hand with a disgusted look and said, “That is the last time that you will ever shake my hand.” And walked away. There was no welcome to South Africa, how are you enjoying it? Or From America well I hope that you will find yourself well here. Nothing just walked away. So I sat in this man’s class for two hours wondering what I did wrong and then it was over and I had no way of finding out because I did not know any of the third years at this time and I still don't know because I don't want to ask. But I'm just going to do the best I can and show this guy I mean business!
But what this is really about is the Choir that I was going to join. The Camerata is the choir that sings music that I am used to singing, classical stuff but they were full and auditions were in October so I couldn't join them. But I wanted to join them as well as the UP Chorale which sings indigenous music. Real South African music in Zulu and other such national languages [trivia answer there are 11 national languages in South Africa, there are none in America!] I went to the rehearsal on Thursday because I was told to show up. I didn't know that I would be doing an audition but the other people auditioning were pretty bad, completely tone deaf. But they were trying. The director however was very rude, a complete jerk if I may say so. Thank you Bruce for being the amazing director that you are. I truly appreciate the way that you handle the choir now that I have seen how you could be yelling at us and saying that we suck and are terrible and that you hate our voices. I know that you would never treat a student this way even if you did hate their voice and they were completely terrible! But I sang three notes for him, not warmed up at all and he told me that he hated my voice. He said that I had no tone and that my voice was weak. He said that I needed to sing out more. Ok well yes I do need to sing out more, but give me a chance to start singing and I will and how can you tell me that I'm tone deaf when you just listened to those guys!!! I said none of this to him but really wanted to. he was very rude through out rehearsal too. I sat through 2.5 hours of rehearsal not reading real music with the director directing music that he wrote in 3/4, directing in 4/4!!!! Not ok! i love rhythms and he messed them up big time!!! And many people weren't singing because they can't, they were just yelling!!! No dynamics!!!!! Also it's a huge time commitment and there is rehearsal on Saturday's which is not ok if I want to travel, and it costs over R800 to join and pay for uniforms and such. So I have decided to not put myself through the stress since I already have nine classes to worry about!!! I am learning to say no! Be proud of me!!!
Good bye UP Chorale you may be great for some people, but you're just not my cup of tea!
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