I remember winning "Most Improved" in our college choir.

If you've been reading my blog for awhile, you'll remember Mr. Janz. He was conducting us through Handel's "Elijah" for Masterworks Choir at Trinity Western University. This was going to be a big deal, a performance with professional soloists, an orchestra...we were excited and nervous to take on this mammoth challenge.

It seemed that Mr. Janz was constantly singling me out. For the first part of the semester, he would stop the music and say something like, "Did everyone hear how Paula did that? It was wrong. Paula, let's try it..." and I'd have to work the part out in front of everybody until it was right. Mr. Janz, as all good musicians should be, was a perfectionist. Couple my crush on him with my own perfectionism, and you can imagine how humiliating this whole process was for me.

But by the end of the semester, he would stop the music and say, "Did everyone hear how Paula did that? She was the only one who did it right!! Now, Paula, sing it for us so everyone can hear how to do it." (In case you haven't guessed, I sing loudly whether I know what I'm doing or not...) And when it came time to vote for "Most Improved", apparently I was the obvious choice, the only one brash enough to make my mistakes and improvements in full view of the class.

I still wonder if he ever got married. Ahem...

2002-09-05 - 6:58 a.m.

I remember my bright yellow high-top sneakers. I bought them right before I went to university, and soon everyone on campus could tell who I was even from two blocks away. People would call out, "Hey, Paula!" and wave madly, and I would have no idea who they were because they were so far away, and their shoes were ordinary.


My music professor, Mr. Janz, loved my sneakers. He was fairly young, very single, and I had quite a crush on him. He would drive around campus in his little car, listening to Beethoven as loud as most people would listen to the Ramones. He often commented on my sneakers. Maybe it was a safe way to connect, pupil to professor, just leaving it at the shoes.


I wonder if he ever got married?