And yet another one of us is tying the knot… and moving out of the country too. *sighs* As happy as I am that one of my dear friends has finally found the right person for her to commit herself to a marriage, it’s also bittersweet that she will be leaving all the hustle and bustle behind, for a seaside town in Malaysia. This is “settling down” in the truest sense of the word, if you ask me. Gone are the worries of surviving in a fast-moving consumerist city. Now, she simply has to contend with diapers and wifely duties.

Part of me is envious that she’s able to so easily choose the simpler life. I know many people who yearn for that (myself included), but have never taken that bold step to abandon the globalised world and go back to basics. And as much as I’d love to be free from the stress of living up to societal norms, I really don’t know if I’m able to forsake the convenience and accessibility of life as I presently know it. For instance, just spending a day without my mobile phone can be somewhat disorienting. Don’t get me wrong. I’m not surgically attached to my phone. I simply can’t see myself choosing to go without it for an extended period of time. Especially not after I’ve experienced the type of ease it avails to me. Can you?

It really is quite hard to let go now that I’ve sunken my teeth into the technological fruits (Apple & BlackBerry). Perhaps when I’m older, and less in need of staying so “connected”, will I be able to retreat into my quaint little abode. But before that, please don’t judge me as I continue to be sucked in to everything that is the 21st century.

Whenever the girls and I do some karaoke, we’d make it a point to select a long list of songs from 90s boybands, throw in a number of rock ballads, probably a current hit or two, and some other tunes for us to wail along to. Then, we’d do our best impersonations, complete with over-the-top dance/rock star moves, and completely take the mickey out of each of them. Is any serious singing done? Probably just for five songs. And well, I guess we always put in a lot of effort to get Bohemian Rhapsody and Don’t Speak right. So I guess we can count them in our “repertoire”?

I know of some people who take karaoke soooo seriously that they’d probably walk out of the room as soon as I sing that first line of Wannabe. I don’t know man. Isn’t karaoke supposed to be fun? I mean, the whole setup of a karaoke outlet – from it’s private rooms, to the completely irrelevant accompanying video, down to the poor lighting – is designed in such a way that it allows us to unleash our inner cheesy pop stars, right? No? It’s just me?

Well, in any case, if you’re anything like me and my girls who enjoy nothing more than to mimic the boybands of yore, allow me to suggest some of our favourites, so you won’t have to waste too much time scrolling through the pages of songs, next time you hit the karaoke spots.

1. Dancing Queen – Abba (great starter piece; loosens you up rightaway)
2. Same Old Brand New You – A1 (catchy tune, and the choreography is really easy to pick up!)
3. Everybody (Backstreet’s Back) – Backstreet Boys (the chorus is always a crowd pleaser)
4. Flying Without Wings – Westlife (minimal choreography but totally fun to make fun of!)
5. Bye Bye Bye – NSync (gets a tad repetitive after awhile though)
6. I’ll Never Break Your Heart – Backstreet Boys (great pop ballad to get all dramatic on)
7. Barbie Girl – Aqua (needs no explanation, I’m sure?)
8. Boom Boom Boom – Vengaboys (feel free to jump to this one)
9. Spice Up Your Life – Spice Girls (you’ve gotta do this with at least 2 others)
10. Sweet Child Of Mine – Guns N Roses (a must if you enjoy wailing)

It was supposed to be a Good Friday filled with back-to-back episodes of Glee and celebrating a birthday. Yet, the innate musicality that runs in my family caused us to abandon our original party plans all because we unanimously agreed to learn the Glee version of a Bill Withers’ classic after some gentle prodding from one of the cousins. Brennan was convinced that we would one day perform either for a family gathering, or for a church function. And seeing as we’re a family with absolutely no qualms about singing in public, we immediately gathered in my room and embarked on Project: Lean On Me.

We (or, rather, Brayton) tried to figure out the harmonies first based on a preview page of the sample sheet music we got off the Internet, but after seeing how devoted we were to getting our melodies perfect, we promptly purchased/downloaded the rest of the sheet music, and gleefully – ha! see what I did there? – got down to learning our parts. It was an extremely serious session, with all of us displaying plenty of dedication as we eagerly took instructions from our 17-year-old conductor extraordinaire. Unfortunately, the song was a LOT more difficult than we thought, so we only managed to learn up until the end of the first chorus. All within 3 hours. LOL. You see, only 2 of the cousins can sight read. So um, yeah. :p

What I loved most about the whole experience was the exciting revelation that God may have a bigger purpose for us to fulfill. Not only has He blessed us in such a way that He has given us similar gifts, He’s even gone so far as to give each of us different vocal ranges so we could perfectly fill up the various SATB roles (Soprano: Rachel, Alto: Me, Tenor: Brennan, Bass: Bjorn & Ian, Soloist 1: Beth, Soloist 2 & Conductor: Brayton). Naturally, His blessings brought about indescribable feelings of pure bliss as we sang together as a family.

The 7 of us don’t get to come together very often, so I’m not sure when exactly we’ll finish learning the song. But I’m confident that the end product will be pretty decent, and dare I say, good, even. But yes, we’ll try to do a recording so you can judge. For now, I’m just deeply thankful that we all have this amazing connection with each other, that can simply be attributed to our love for God and music.