A few days after the house show four musicians--Roy, Natsumi, Emil, and Zora--were gathered in a rehearsal room on campus. Since she was not a music major, it was Zora's first time in the music department's famous rehearsal rooms.

Zora was buried in a mix of anxiety, intimidation, and anticipation. Her fingers felt cold, and she had taken much longer to tune her guitar and set the levels on the guitar amp to her liking. It was a beautiful Vox AC30 guitar amp, which exuded a warm tone that she knew she couldn't afford, but was made available to music majors upon request. 

The space was intimidating. In addition to her borrowed Vox amp, the other musical equipment--the amplifiers, the speakers and monitors, the microphones, and the PA system--all looked expensive and top of the line. The room itself was spacious, not at all like the makeshift practice spaces she had played in with her previous bands. This was no cold basement or musty storage space. The walls and even the ceilings were covered in high-end soundproof foam. 

Additionally intimidating were the movements and interactions of the other three musicians. They had long tuned their instruments and set their levels, and were already joking around with one another while fiddling around with their muted instruments. Zora could tell that there was already a stable rapport between the three, even though they seemed to be an unexpected combination of friends.

After the other three noticed that Zora had finished setting up, Emil looked at her and asked if she was ready to begin. Zora quickly looked at the three before answering. Roy seemed a bit unconvinced, bordering on agonistic. Natsumi looked indifferent, as if waiting to see how things would unfold. Emil, however, remained cheerful, an encouraging smile stretched across his face. If it wasn't for Emil, Zora sighed to herself. 

She had heard a little bit about what had unfolded after Emil's invitation to join the band. After his shocking declaration that she join the band, Roy and Natsumi dragged Emil to the side and seemed to have a difficult conversation. Roy would angrily storm off and Natsumi would chase after her. Emil would rush over to Zora and ask her for her number, which she absentmindedly gave to him. Emil quickly thanked her and rushed off, after Roy and Natsumi.

Still perplexed and feeling awkward, Tam and Zora would continue to talk to Anton for a bit. Anton looked irritated the entire time, which made Zora a little bit cheerful. Eventually Anton would be stolen away by some of his so-called "buds" and what Tam referred to as hipster "groupies."

After Zora and Tam returned to their apartment, the two didn't really talk much about Emil or the others. Zora decided not to invest too much into it, believing Emil to be a bit of a weirdo who impulsively blurted out something that he shouldn't have.

Zora was therefore surprised when Emil called her the following morning. Zora would ask him about the conversation during the house show, and whether everything was alright with him and his bandmates. He was cagey initially, going noticeably quiet on the other end of the phone. But as if finding some hidden confidence, he collected himself and stated that everything was fine, that there were some discussions that happened that cleared up the misunderstandings, and that they all agreed that they wanted to try out practicing with Zora that week.

Zora was a bit disappointed at first. While Anton was recruited and pursued, it sounded like she still had to try-out for the band, to prove her abilities. Still, it was an opportunity she couldn't pass up.

She had felt that her art had hit a creative wall, that she was even reconsidering whether pursuing art beyond the major was even worth it. Music, and specifically singing, was what kept her going everyday, which enabled her to cope with the uncertainties of the future, the nagging regrets of the past.

Singing, even if the lyrics weren't literally how she was feeling at the time, enabled her to express her emotions, and to lift her head out of the drowning impasse she felt as she approached her final year in college.

Over the next days over AIM they were able to agree to jam together on Thursday evening, when most of their classes had wrapped up. Before Thursday, Zora made sure to diligently practice her guitar and vocals. Although she was confident as a rhythm guitarist, she wasn't necessarily that great at improvisation.

The other three seemed more like pure musicians, and Zora dreaded having to be forced to improvise in front of them. Still, it seemed that what they wanted was someone who could collaborate with them in the creation of songs, not just someone who follows others.

In fact, Zora still wasn't quite sure what kind of music they played, which added to her anxiety in the rehearsal room. According to Emil, they were still trying to figure it out, and it would largely depend on the kind of vocalist that would join.

Still, Emil described their goal was to create a band that played danceable, rhythm-heavy music. It would be largely influenced by the post-punk and funk music from the late 1970s through the 1980s. Zora found this surprising. After all, Roy was known for her jazz prowess, and everyone knew about Natsumi's avant garde framing of orchestral music.

All-in-all Zora really didn't know what to expect before coming to the rehearsal studio. But if there was any consolation, it seemed like the other three also didn't know what would happen. Feeling a tiny bit of confidence in this shared uncertainty, Zora's muscles loosened, and she felt a tingling of anticipation spread across her fingers.

With a wide smile, Zora looked at Emil and said: "I'm ready."