Chapter 3- Hollywood

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هوليوود

   It's now Janurary.I've waited a few months to come on the show. I remember watching the auditions episode again. I seemed nervous. The crew came to film me at my house before I auditioned. You know, on audition shows they pick people with "interesting" or "sad" life stories to go film you talking about it and interview your parents.

   I wore my best hijab that day. It was my first interview, so I was a bit nervous. I kinda got emotional telling some parts of the story. Good thing I wasn't wearing makeup.

   I always get emotional telling some parts of my life. For example, the year Beirut first got bombed. It was scary and horrible. No, I wasn't faking the crying for people to feel sorry for me. It just always ends up that way.

   Now, I'm in Hollywood waiting to sing for America. Thankfully, the show won't be live. It starts being live when it gets to the top 24. I hope that I'll be part of that.

   The shooting has now begun. I'm one of the last to sing, so I get to watch most of the singers.

   I sit through some awesome performances. Some are better than others, but overall they were all good.

   It's my turn now. I'm wearing a dress with sleeves of course. It's blue with sleeves to my elbows.

   "I'm going to sing 'El Dunya' by Massari." I say when I go on stage. That song has Arabic lines in it, but it's mostly in English. The song talks about Arabs being misunderstood in the West.

   Massari was born in Lebanon, but moved to Canada. I guess his life story relates to mine somehow.

   Since the song is mostly rap, I decide to sing the rap out.

   Alhamdulilah, the judjes love it. They think that I have one of the best voices in the whole competition.

   Once elimination comes, I'm so relieved to be going to the next round, group singing. It's the toughest round in the first week I think.

   "You wanna be in my group?" Mike asks me backstage. On previous seasons, the contestants got to choose who's in their groups.

   "Sure." I reply.

   "How's it been?" he asks.

   "Good, I've been waiting for this time forever."

   "Congratulations for getting in!" he says happily.

   "Mabrook to you too!"

   "Speaking of that, can you teach me about your culture sometime?" I'm glad that he's interested in my culture.

   "I'd love to. How about we after we make the top 24?" I grin.

   "Sure. I believe that we'll make it."

 

   It's now group night and we have the whole night to practice. Mike, Shelly, and Rick are in my group.

   Shelly's eighteen. She has beautiful red hair with freckles on her face. Her eyes are a pretty blue-gold color. She grew up in Chicago, Illinois. Her family's French, so she's first generation American.

   Rick's seventeen. He has black hair and brown eyes. He's Puerto Rican-American growing up in Houston, Texas.

   All of them are taller than me, except Rick's about an inch taller than me. I'm five feet, five inches tall. Shelly seems five feet, seven inches. Mike seems like five feet, eight inches.

   We quickly think of a song. We decide on "Just Dance" by Lady Gaga. She's quite popular now.

   I'm acting like the singing arranger, arranging which part each person sings. Shelly's the choreographer. She knows how to dance, all right. She can dance and sing perfectly, good traits to have in the show business.

   I'm elected to sing the highest part of the song since they say I have the highest voice in the group. I just go along with it even though I highly doubt it.

   Practice is great. We whip right through it and we're down with the routine.

   Most of the groups are having major drama, but we're doing just fine. I guess we all came to be friends.

   Shelly and I have this thing where if we want to talk about the guys or have a "private" conversation, we speak French. It's her first language. It's so funny to hear the guys repeating, "What are you saying?"

   I learn some new things about Mike also. We're talking about ethnicities.

   "What are you Mike?" Rick asks.

   "I'm Irish-American. I'm third generation American. Since my parents know Irish very well, I decided to learn how to speak it myself."

   "Are you the only one that's not America, Alina?" Rick asks.

   "I guess so. I'm glad I know English well."

   "French too." Shelly adds and we both laugh.

 

   It's now morning and I'm wide awake. It's eight a.m. and I'm still tired from my three a.m. bedtime. I finally got a chance to talk to my relatives in Lebanon because it was daytime there.

   I prepare for the group singing that's happening in half an hour. I'm very, very nervous because I could be going home today. When I prayed earlier, I didn't just pray for myself, I prayed for our group to da a fantastic job and for no one to go home.

   Our group meets quickly to rehearse one last time. I'm surprised that none of us have forgotten anything. We're all confident that we're gonna be awesome.

   I hate to say this, but I think I like Mike a little more. He has a great personality and has a good sense of humor. Like my mother said before, I should see what the future brings.

   It's now time for our group to sing. I'm excited as we go on stage.

   The music starts to play and we start our routine. We have a blast. It's so fun singing and dancing. I get the feeling that Allah has brought me here for a reason. I would enjoy this for the rest of my life on Earth.

   After we finish, the crowd applauses like crazy. We've just impressed people. The judjes are awesome. They like us so much that they say that they want to sign us now. Ellen DeGenres (the judge in Paula's spot this year) also comments that it is against the rules, but they might break them. We all laugh knowing that she isn't serious. She throws in another joke too.

   Inshallah, I'll make it all the way.

  

Author's Note

if anyone's curious, here are the names mentioned so far (expect chapter 4 soon. i have 8 chapters done in my notebook, so please bear with me.) (read the arabic writing from right to left):
Alina: أليناor الينا
Hussein: حسين
Khadijah: خديجا or خديجة
Amal: أمل or امل
Ahmed: أحمد or احمد
Rahim: رحيم
Mila: ميلة or ميلا
Matthew: ماثيو
Rabia: ربيعة or ربيعا
Ziad: �™ياد
Mike: مايك
Ryan: ريان
Randy: رندي
Kara: كارا
Joe: جو
Simon: سيمون
Shelly: شيلي
Rick: ريك
Ellen: إلين or الن

Reviews

[Huggy Bear]

Very interesting chapter you have here:)

[Coyote Poetry]

I have the Quran in English and to the other side of the page Arabic. The language is beautiful. I believe would be very difficult to learn to write properly. A very good chapter. The characters are coming alive. To be in a show like American Idol would be very difficult. Great description and story line in this chapter. A excellent chapter.
Coyote