Yep, it’s that time again: I went blue and I’m loving it! My undying thanks to Jazzmatazz for enduring the four-hour operation 🙂 You did an awesome job, kid! Thanks a ton*!

Pictures will be forthcoming.

* Note: That does not make you exempt from due revenge for your little antics tonight!

When I finally got to bed last night (grr drunkards down the hall…), I felt a certain calm about me; Black Forest was behind me and, with it, a lot of stressing out.

I’ll start with the first night (Friday), though. The lineup was fairly extensive, ranging from a bunch of solo acts, a duet here and there, and some full-fledged bands. Unfortunately, I missed about the first hour or so because I was writing my business midterm over at Laurier (grr Friday night exams), so I didn’t catch the first few acts. I heard that Rodney did an awesome job on a Chopin (pronounced ‘Show-pan’ – not ‘Chop-in’ for the non-Classical music people). Thankfully the show was taped! A random assortment of SPUCers got on stage between then and the final two acts.

A couple of full bands finished off the night: Antigen and INTRANSIT. The only bad thing that I could say about Antigen was that Sev’s high-frequency vocals were too loud, so it was almost piercing to hear.. otherwise, they were great! They managed to sell a buttload of merchandise afterwards, too. I really enjoyed INTRANSIT (who has one of my Embassy buddies, Corey, in it!) because they had a really diverse set and it was pretty up-close and personal. They said that there was a lot of local talent in the K-W region, and these guys are definitely one of them!

Then it was stress-out night… er.. Saturday night. Generally speaking, Saturday draws a larger crowd than Friday, possibly because the Friday-night party crews are taking a night off. I was really looking forward to performing in front of a large crowd. And by “really looking forward to”, I actually meant “really not looking forward to at all.” Ugh.. talk about nervousness times a bajillion! It wasn’t so long ago that I was apprehensive about playing at Chapel, which has maybe 20 people, at best… over a hundred people was probably a tad out of my league!

This night featured a couple of acts who are long-standing traditions at Black Forest: Sibling Rivalry and our very own SPUCstreet Boys. I was really surprised about how quickly the place filled up; there was only standing room ten minutes after the show started! Duets were the story for the first hour or so: April and Jess, Adam and Jeremy, etc.. I was not really paying too much attention because I was slated to be on stage at 8:45. From what I heard directly, and from others, they were really good. Then, from backstage, I see Rodney give me the nod and.. on we went!

The six of us (Rodney Milligan, Andrew Grieve, Patricia Trudell, Dave O’Grady, Mike Elg, and myself) stormed on stage and set up as quickly as possible. Meanwhile, the MC took the liberty to stall by talking about members of the band and how one of them happens to appear on the front of a “popular St. Paul’s t-shirt.” That punk. After we make sure that the mics were working, we started our set:

1. Evanescence – Bring Me To Life. Patricia did vocals, Mike was doing the rapping part, and I did backup for Patricia while handling the electric. Rodney was manning the piano, Mike was on bass, and that left Dave behind the drumset. I couldn’t hear myself for the first half of the song, so I could only hope that I was singing the right notes.. having an amp blaring behind me does something to my hearing, I guess. Eventually, I moved a lot closer to the mic and I think I heard myself, which allowed me to ensure that I was in the right key haha. All in all, it was a solid start.

Between songs, I introduced the name of the band: Stale Brownies. It was sorta kept on the downlow but, somehow, word got around and we saw some signs out in the crowd hahaha… It was nice to see some token support hehe. Thanks to whoever made those signs 🙂

2. Coldplay – Clocks. Andrew came on stage to do vocals for this one, and Patricia moved to the keyboard. I did some backup vocals. Aside from a little volume blip on my part (I really should have plugged the amp into the DI.. oh well), the song was smooth.

With everyone on stage, we went around to name the members while Dave and Mike did a little jingle… oh those silly FASS guys.. 🙂

3. U2 – With Or Without You. Rodney jumped to keyboard and Patricia sang backups. I don’t really remember much of the song, but that means that I also don’t remember anything that went wrong with it. So, I will assume that it, too, was well done.

Now Andrew took a minute to recover his voice and we needed to stall for a bit. So we randomly had a little fun with a song called “Big Rig”.. I pulled out an acoustic and Patricia sang a silly little song counting the wheels of a big rig (all 18 of them) in a bunch of different ways. The best was in Roman numerals: “i, ii, iii, iv, v, vi, …” Very impressive stuff! I think it got the crowd into the show a bit more, too!

4. Muse – Apocalypse Please. This was somewhat of a random pick. I started listening to Muse before Christmas and this song was.. epic. Rodney and I agreed that, if we could pull it off, the song would be amazing to perform. Rodney went back to the piano and did backups, and Patricia hopped off stage. I had the pleasure of playing one note on the electric, but I had some fun with the keyboard and backups, too. Good times!

5. Stale Brownies – Over the Rainbow. Our one ‘original’ for the set. Basically, it was a parody, poking jabs at some of the things about the college. It was just Patricia and Rodney on this, and I think this one garnered the best reaction from the crowd. I re-wrote the lyrics to it to make it more humourous, less political, and less bitter.. if you’re interested in getting your hands on the lyrics, too bad! 😛
6. ABBA – Waterloo. We wanted to end it off on an upbeat song, and this one was fun, random, and upbeat. We got the crowd clapping and I think we had a good time with it. I goofed up one beat over the course of the song, but I don’t think anyone noticed. Yay! 🙂

All things considered, I was happy with the performance. After all, the group only practiced twice, each for an hour. It all came together at the end, and it was definitely an experience to remember.

So for the past month, Brandon has been talking about love at the Embassy. This has always been a bit of an “ehhh” topic for me, mostly because I don’t feel comfortable talking about it and because it stresses me out. Every year or so, however, I end up rambling on and on about it, and I think my time has come again.

I was talking with John (my first roommate in residence) a few days ago, and he identified five things about which I think: food, sleep, music, expensive toys, and relationships. Personally, I think that this is a fairly comprehensive list, mostly because that last item is rather broad. In fact, the scope of “relationships” is huge; for example, my relationship with God encourages me to have certain moral standards which, in turn, govern the way I aspire to live my life. And that’s just one piece of a very, very big pie!

There is, of course, another side of relationships that I don’t tend to discuss: those with other people. To be more specific, those of the opposite sex. Some just might call them “girls.” I seem to recall writing about this some time ago, and I’ll probably repeat some of what I wrote then. I’ll apologize for being redundant, but I guess it could go to show how little some things have changed.

When I was growing up (gee, I make myself sound so old… blah), I always figured that I would be married and have a stable career by the time I was 25 or 26. By the time I was in my early thirties, I’d have a family and things would be golden from there. Well, I’m 21 now and, in order to have any reasonable relationship, I’d probably need to allow a few years before I would marry anyone. So, if I were to stick to my plan, I better start acting soon, huh?

Well, no, not quite. To do so would put me at a very vulnerable disposition: if I am actively searching, I think that I’d be especially prone to letting myself think that there’s something there when there really isn’t. It’s something that I’ve probably discussed with a handful of people by now, and I still feel very strongly about it. I’d be setting myself up and putting myself at risk of making compromises just so that I could meet my goal. So as tempting as it would be to go out looking for someone, I think I’ll exert a bit more patience.

It has been quite a while since I’ve had a girlfriend of any sort… years, in fact. This begs two questions: first, why it has been such a while and, two, if I am okay with it. I suppose that the answer to these questions are fairly complicated. As some of you might know, things with me are generally not simple and often undergo a lot of scrutiny and processing before anything happens. This is no different.

There is a lot of say about why it has been years since my last serious relationship. Part of it has to do with what I mentioned before: I have been trying very hard to not look for one. Another factor is the time issue. As an undergraduate student at UW, my life can get busy in a hurry. This is especially true since I’ve decided to serve God with a lot of the time that I do have, too. (Thanks to the Embassy for conveniently placing a black hole for time right in front of me!) So, the tiny bit of time I have left doesn’t seem quite enough to have a meaningful relationship. Some have argued that I’d make the time for it, and I think that I’d agree. I’m just not sure which of school or God would take a cut. Then, there’s the whole issue of setting a very high standard for myself. If there was any chokepoint, this would be it. This imposes some hefty expectations which do very well to test my patience. I’ve lamented before about how I worry that I set the bar unreasonably high, but the consensus has always been that it’s the only way to go. Fiddlesticks.

So onto the second question: am I okay with my present situation? This answer is also complex, since it depends on the circumstances. There are times when I feel very free and uninhibited because I don’t have a girlfriend. I see the amount of time that others fret about their relationships, and I breathe a sigh of relief as I am generally isolated from it. Then, there are the days when I’m longing for one, and those are long, long days. I see the amount of time that others boast about their relationships, and I breathe a sigh of despair as I am also generally isolated from it.

But I keep telling myself, “Be patient, Justin. The time will come, and it will all be worth it.” It sounds like a pretty pat answer to me, but I have to cling to it nonetheless. I’d be opening myself to a whole world of danger if I didn’t.

Before I close, I would just like to address one last thing. An self-admittedly nosey person asked me the other day if there was anyone in whom I was interested. I declined to answer, citing that I felt uncomfortable about it. The more I think about people and whether or not I would want to pursue anything with them, the more likely I am to overthink about it, too. Then there’s the risk of playing the “what if” game, which is a whole other can of worms. But I will answer her question here: there are a couple of girls who I think have wonderful personalities, great potential, and would be particularly amazing friends, but there is nobody that I am seriously interested in for something else.

As for right now, I’ve still got a lot of work to do on the one Relationship that matters. (I hope the capitalization makes it a little bit more obvious which one it is.)