The Greatest Benefit That Choir Gave Me

I am a very shy person.

The statement above is a total understatement. I am completely and truly an introvert and I really hate interacting with human beings. Standing in front of people and speaking is one of those human interactions that I hate.
I have severe social anxiety and cannot start a conversation with anyone. I usually keep to myself in public settings and try to remain unnoticeable. Even though I am usually successful in being invisible, I always still get the feeling that everyone is staring at me and judging me for things that don't make any sense.
For example, I walk past a group of people who are most likely nice, normal people.
As I walk past them, a string of negative thoughts run through my head.
"Oh my god, I look so stupid. Why can't I walk correctly?" "See I told you not yo wear these pants today. They probably think you look so stupid." "Don't do that that with your hands. You look like an idiot."
Negative thought after negative thought runs through my head, all directed at myself.
"Please don't notice me," I think whenever I walk past anyone. "But they probably think I look like an idiot," is my next thought.

Don't get this wrong. I am NOT a pushover. I will fight back if needed but I just don't want to feel the need to fight in the first place.

I hate classes where the teachers bring the attention to me. They think I'm lonely or something in their class and so they want me to interact with others to "make some friends" or so I won't be so "lonely."

I don't want to talk to anyone! Not even you!

So please just teach me or whatever and leave me alone unless I ask you a question. Trust me.
If I need something, I WILL ask. But if not, please go away.
I really am not trying to be mean or anything. I understand that you're just trying to be nice to me and you want me to do well in your class, but honestly, the nicest thing you can do for me is leave me be and let me do my work solo instead of forcing me into groups of people that usually half-ass all their work and drop it all on me anyway.
I also hate having to stand in front of people and present a project about a topic that I truly do not care for.
I don't want to be seen. It aggravates me and makes me so anxious. I don't want to feel like I'm being dissected by the people watching me and have them judge every piece of me.
I know it seems like I'm being over-dramatic, but this is how I truly feel.

I am terrified of being the center of attention because the center is always being judged.

"Oh, that person is funny." "That person is so outgoing and friendly." "That person is such a great entertainer."

I am absolutely none of those things.

As a child, I hated being the center of attention. I didn't want to speak or sing in front of anyone. Not even my own family. Singing was something I loved, but I had no confidence in myself. I was okay with singing in front of strangers because they didn't know who I was and so they couldn't hurt me. Whatever they said, I wouldn't care because they're complete strangers. But my family could hurt me. My greatest fear was them pointing out my weaknesses and bringing them all to light so that everyone else could see too.
This IS something that they like to do quite a bit. Especially my mother and my oldest sister. They like to tell family friends, acquaintances, and random others about my weaknesses and things that they don't like about me. They've been doing that my whole life and it's turned me into who I am today.

Joining choir was one of the best things that I could have done. It brought out a confidence in me that I didn't know I had.
The choir teacher was very considerate of people's feelings and he did not allow rude comments about anyone's singing skill. It was a safe environment for me to do something that I really enjoyed.
Through this class, I was able to tap into this hidden confidence that has grown quite a bit. Slowly over the four years of being in choir, I became more and more gutsy.
I finally had the courage to sing a song for my friends and they continue to cheer me on when I tell them about performances, send them song covers, or achieve something new in my vocal lessons.
After that, I became brave enough to sing in front of my family. They give me a lot of support with my love for singing. It really helped bring up my confidence even more.

Choir revealed the first stepping stone of boldness inside me that I didn't even know existed. This has aided me so much in other aspects of my life. I cannot tell you how grateful I am to my high school choir teacher and to my choir members.

Honestly, writing this is making me emotional. I might've shed a tear or two while writing this

I'll end this now.

What's Our Part Again?

For harmonies, the teacher would go over our part one by one. He'd go over it once or twice and then expect us to know it at the snap of a finger. Harmonies can be difficult if you've never sang any before. They're especially difficult if it's a familiar song that you've sang a thousand times. Then the melody can sneak up as you're harmonizing and then suddenly you're asking, "What's our part again?"
I had a difficult time remembering some of our parts even as a senior in choir. What annoyed me most was that the teacher wouldn't realize that nobody in our section knew the part and there was only one person singing it. Maybe the reason sopranos seem so loud is because there's altos singing along with them.
We'd go over our part once and then three days later have a sectional. The problem was that there needed to be more than one sectional on certain songs but the teacher would only have that one. It made it really difficult for the people who were not used to harmonies to remember all of them. I have the feeling that if we'd just gone over them more often we would've been better as a section. That way the other sections would've stopped glaring at us whenever the whole choir was stopped so we could be told to sing louder.
Judgy eyes staring at us is really not helpful when learning. Especially since it's singing and many people are afraid of being judged for the singing. Usually we're a quiet group of singers and the thought of singing in front of other human beings is really scary. The fact that we didn't really know the part probably made us even less confident. Now we had to be afraid to be heard and afraid that we didn't know what we were doing.
I just wish that the teacher paid attention to these problems. A lot of problems would be solved if they took the time to fix them instead of pretending they don't exist.