Screaming without a voice

I attended an Eid event today and I have to say I'm quite disappointed by it. We had to fork out GBP10 per person for just a couple of performances and a meal. The event lasted three hours consisting mostly of waiting around for things to happen. It was disorganized, boring and its saving grace was the fabulous food.

I know all this sounds harsh, especially since it's my good friend who organized the event. Maybe it's because I'm comparing it to last year's; we had a quiz, a fashion show, an auction and several performances aboard a cruise ship. However, we just had vege lasagna last year, so the Lebanese dinner just now was waayyyy better. But all in all, I thought for 10 quid, it just wasn't worth it. When we went back home after the event, we were all bitching about how bad the event was.

But you know what? I feel more guilty about not helping them in the first place.

It wasn't as if my friend didn't ask for help; she e-mailed people asking if anyone's interested in performing. In the end, she only got two performances for the whole event. If I had known that, I would've volunteered in a heartbeat! All throughout the event I was mentally kicking myself in the back for not offering to sing. Besides, it's one of my dreams, right? Just because I've fulfilled it once doesn't mean I couldn't do it again. I kept thinking that I could've done something - anything! - just to colour the event a bit more.

Then there was the event organization. Our consensus was that they didn't know how to organize events properly. But come to think of it, if we think we can do a better job, then why didn't we pitch in before the event? We could've went to the meetings, tell them the event's gonna suck if you only put two performances in a 3-hour event, and then we'll get a completely different outcome altogether.

But did I do any of these things? No. I read the e-mail thinking, "Oh, she's probably got enough people by now," and then proceeded to delete it. When I was asked to attend the meetings, I just declined and said I was too busy.

And here I am talking about how poor the event turned out to be when I just stood there and did nothing. It's like I've been given a voice, but I chose not to use it. So who's gonna hear me scream after that?