Holding on to the mic, my palms were sweating. I could hear my heartbeat in my ears; it was deafening. I was going up in less then a minute and the contestant before me was amazing; I felt dubious of myself and I believed I would not live up to my expectations, more so to my father’s expectations.
Being a single dad was tough on him; he had difficulty in the areas where he had to teach me how to be a lady and talk to me about the inevitable “boy problems”. The only area where he felt comfortable teaching me was singing; he is my vocal teacher. He was a musician in the early eighties and started teaching music at the National University of Singapore two decades ago. Therefore, I was really anxious but at the same time excited to go up on stage to do something I love.
Up there on stage, I was blown away by the lights, cameras and the number of people who turned up for the auditions. It was baffling; it was so much more then I had anticipated from watching the British television series, “X Factor” on television. After introducing myself to the judges I patiently waited for the music to play so as to start singing. I was nervous singing in front of the biggest people in the music industry- there were ancient butterflies in my stomach! However, when the music started playing I felt more calm and collected, and so I began to sing.
The song I was singing had a lot of emotion to it and I believed I expressed it well. At that moment, it felt so peaceful. Time seemed to stand still as I brought forward what my father had taught me over the years during my singing lessons. I strongly believed I hit all my high notes well and this was supported by the judges at the end when they told me that they loved it and I was fantastic and did a really great job auditioning. In the end I was put through the next round of the competition and I was ecstatic; I was over the moon and was jumping up and down on stage. Rivulets of tears streaked down the contours of my face with my hand over my mouth as I could not believe what had just happened.
Back stage, my father was weeping copiously. When we saw each other, there was this moment of pure joy as he opened his arms for me to embrace. A wave of sublime happiness swelled up around us as we realised that our hard work and passion for music came through and I could tell he was really proud of me. He had this tinge of mirthful smile plastered on his face when he took a good, long look at me as he firmly gripped my shoulders. I could tell it was the epitome of his career as a music teacher and more importantly, a father. (501 words)
