Hey everyone. I'm a first-time poster here, in my second year of FPS at the senior level (junior in high school). I was just posting about the Ohio FPS State Bowl
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I'm from Ohio! Man, oh man, that whole ten teams thing was sad, sad, sad. I know at least for my school, we have tons of intermediate and junior people because that's when you do it as part of the gifted program, but then that program ends and you have to keep it up on your own in high school, which most people don't do.
This year I wrote a scenario as well as was on a team. While I don't want to announce my home town to everyone and their mother on the Interwebs, we're a senior team and won first for skits (four minutes of Broadway medley, so it was basically the best thing known to man) and second for packet. That was the first time since sixth grade I've qualified for IC in FPS, and I am sooooo pumped. I've gone for CPS three times, but I want to see the other side of competition. I won second for scenarios as well, which is fine and good with me. I've never wanted to do IC scenario competition. Write a story in two hours with three strangers is very much not my thing. I did get to go to IC when I was in sixth grade for the sole purpose of keeping my friend (there for scenarios) company and being in an older team's skit, and it was a blast. I love skits.
Unfortunately, though, three of the four people on our team are graduating this year and IC is the weekend of graduation, as it tends to be every year for multiple schools. We're really hoping we can figure out a way to fly back early that's not too expensive. It's ridiculous that our team did so well, as we had two new people on the team, one of whom we'd never done a packet with.
Oh I know you, too! I thought I recognized your team as being from Solon when you were doing your skit, but I wasn't sure. I always see all these people at States that I know I recognize from other bowls, but I have no idea who they actually are.
I liked your skit quite a bit. (And it also made me glad that we didn't do "Tomorrow" in ours, which was a definite possibility. ;) We were surprised there weren't more Rent songs, actually, considering the movie's release.)
What was your CPS project, again? I was zoned out from exhaustion, which happened way too often and I didn't even realize they were awarding Senior skits until they had called the third place people, when the beginning of the description was read, so I was seriously confused for the rest. I'm sure it was awesome, especially since you won first, so congratulations!!!
Ah. Our CmPS project was "Quilting Our Community Together." XD It's somewhat very very girly but I do most of the computer stuff. I do quilt as well, though...
I'm glad that both teams get to go to IC though. ^^; There are no hard feelings now, which I was worried about, knowing there were only two senior teams for it.
And, pointing that out, I was the only male in both of the CmPS teams... XD
Haha. I'm very glad you didn't do "Tomorrow," too. The whole time we were worrying that someone else would. I really wish we wouldn'tve been forced to go last, though... we wanted to go first.
And your skit was very very awesome! I thought that most of the skits were very good... lol, the Star Wars themed ones were great. I actually considered doing that. lol.
Ok, it's totally awesome that you quilt, so be proud! ;) I'm remembering more of what it was, now. It's quite cool.
Our other Senior team didn't get to go to IC, or place for skits. They were the ones where the girl just totally blanked at the end and the rest of her team for some bizarre reason didn't help her out with the words. It made sense though, after we talked to them. They had just finished writing that song and no one knew it very well. I felt awful for her.
There's no skit order that's good all around; although I was glad we were one of the first ones to go after the group that left for Prom. We heard them talking in our hotel lobby about how they weren't going to care about skits since it was their last time, which seems to me to be a perfect reason TO care, but there you go.
Thanks!! I don't want to sound braggy and irritating, but I have to say that I loved our skit, too. ;P We knew we wanted to do Broadway going in to our packet, and once we finished we were immediately writing songs before we were even allowed out of our room. Perhaps we take skits a little too seriously, but there you go. You're right; most of them were really awesome. We considered Star Wars, too, especially since the first time someone said Stith allowed, they said, "Sith." The drawings in that one before ours were amazing.
We felt so bad for the girl who blanked. I was right in front of her and was trying to look encouraging, but she just looked like she felt so bad....
That doesn't make sense to me either, our last bowl meant "care lots." By the way, where were you staying? Our hotel was 40 minutes away, ugh, just outside of Canton, and there were obviously no other FPS people there, because it was so out of the way. It wasn't really a big deal, though.
Your skit was awesome! There was no way anyone was going to beat you, and you definitely worked hard for it - Mrs. M told us that Mrs. F told her that you guys were up until 2AM writing it? We had ideas Friday but went to bed. Anyway, I'm still really pleased with our skit. It was fun! We had Oompa Loompa songs stuck in our heads afterwards. We wish that we had got second, though - not that the second place skit wasn't good or funny, but Brett, who is obsessed with Family Guy, recognized right away that the barbershop quartet and that whole scene was right off of a Family Guy episode....
Congrats on second, too! Our plan to go one-two turned into two-three, but, c'est la vie. I'm sorry I didn't stop over and tell you that, but we scooted out of there pretty quickly.
Our comment-posting timing is clearly lacking, here, as I said a whole bunch of things to you at the same time you did this. ohhh... that is how it goes.
I guess they did just finish the song a few hours before, so I can understand, but I still felt awful. She kind of kept looking back at us, too, and I had no idea how to help her. I was just thinking as hard as I could, "Just yell 'I WILL SURVIVE!' and RUN!" but she didn't get the message.
In any case, we were staying in a Holiday Inn Express in Alliance; a team actually got kicked out of there around midnight because they were just a bunch of kids with no coach/chaperone making all sorts of noise, so then the security guards were all bitter at us. And we were NOT jumping. The guy in the room below us just must have been a bitter old man. Lyssa fell off the bed once, but it was not jumping.
Thank you!! We take skits a little too seriously, I think, but we always have been up late writing them. That Shakespeare one last year was even worse. We were so pumped about it that there was no way we could have gone to bed leaving it unwritten, not to mention we knew we had to have it done so we could run through it. It was probably completely written by about 1 or 1:30, but we practiced, showered, and made a few props until around 2:30. (Two of our number fell asleep, but it was written at that point so it didn't make a difference. The actual Under Pressure prop was definitely conceived around 2:00, and then we had paperclip chains hanging over the towel rack to keep them from tangling as they did when we went to perform; I'm surprised it actually worked like we wanted it to.) We were singing it all morning while getting ready and in the car in the way over and as we made props and ate lunch and yikes. It's been stuck in my head horridly, too, to the point where I sang through the whole thing in the shower this morning...
I definitely liked yours better than the singing one (especially now that I know they ripped it off Family Guy. I'm not a fan of Family Guy, and that's not recgonizable as a parody to most people so now it just seems lazy...), but you never know with skit judges. If anything else, your costumes killed theirs. The Oompa Loompa hair was amazing.
Incidentally, Katie (she was the scientist that wasn't me and didn't have glasses. I know you've met her but I'm not sure you remember her name) kept wanting to ask one of your number to our prom, but I could never quite figure out which one it was. I don't think it was Brian. She kept saying the tall one, but they all seem kind of tall to me. I'll have to ask her again and get back to you. She was sad to be reminded of how far away you guys live. ;)
Glad to know you did scoot out quickly and I wasn't just blind and unable to find you. I saw Brian hanging around after most of the people had left (we are always the last ones to leave...) but not the rest of you.
We had just finished writing our songs, so we were mumbling them feverishly under our breath while other people were performing.
We stayed in that hotel last year, it was nice. It's a miracle that no one reported us for noise, but thankfully the room we were hanging out in was surrounded by our other rooms. Brett and Keith were acting like four year olds and doing flips and, um, humping the beds. FACEPALM. There are serious drawbacks to being the only girl!
It's kind of weird that you guys used the song "Under Pressure," because Brian totally thought of that, and when he saw your prop, he was hoping you'd also sing it! I'm going to really miss doing skits. Where else is it OKAY to be creative like that? And to be that excited about it? I'm going to need to find a creativity outlet next year. Thanks about the hair. We had a banner crisis right before we left - which is another story entirely! - and in the commotion we forgot a few of the props, so we had to stop at a Target, and I specifically bought a green bowl so that if Willy Wonka worked (we had been brainstorming skit ideas, and it was a possibility) we could use it for hair. Keith's Oompa Mullet was the best.
And I remember Katie! That's funny, because they're always trying to get numbers...I don't know who she might mean, because they're all kinda tall. I'll have to hear who she means before I give you the scoop on them. :)
Brian wanted to talk to the evaluators. I didn't realize he was going to hang around for a minute or I would have, but our coach this year really knows nothing about FPS and didn't want to stay like Mrs. M would have. :( I wanted Mrs. M to be there, but she had to leave before awards.
I was totally singing to myself the whole time, despite having gone over it again and again. We all were. Hah. Ohh skits.
There were people like us on our floor, but apparently the guy below us wasn't too great. Whatever. The hotel was really nice, though, but not as fun as last year. We stayed at the one connected to the lame mall. Awesomeness. One of the good things about an all-girl team is there's no messing with not having the same hotel room when writing skits. But Katie and Lyssa had "something" going on on that bed as it started getting late that we won't discuss. ;) Not really, but you know. It gets late...
We may or may not have named Under Pressure that because we were possibly going to use the song. As in I was writing it and just announced, "I'm naming this thing Under Pressure so we can sing the song in our skit!" We hadn't completely decided on allll Broadway then, so it seemed like a good idea.
Skits are seriously the most amazing thing in the world. I'm so pumped that we may get to do another one, because finishing our's yesterday felt so depressing. The end of an era! Woe!
And I did love your banner, by the way. So much cooler than ours. Everyone hates ours. I don't know why we don't make a new one.
Ahahahahaaa.. Now, see, she totally should have talked to him! I think it's the one who looks sort of Asian, but I'm not sure. And they all are tall, come to think of it.
I'm sure I have more to say, but I absolutely must sleep.
Haha. I got my own room at the hotel (the one that was attached to the lame mall. :P The Comfort Inn.) because I was the only male. :P But then we all came into my room for the skit, so I ended up sleeping next to a bed full of props. XD
Hahahaha, thanks about the banner. Here's what happened - we had a nice, normal felt banner like everyone else that we've used for the last couple of years, but when Mrs. M left her old room over the summer, she took it with her. The woman who is teaching in there now is our former middle school gifted teacher, who, although she is extremely nice, is - to quote Brian - "bat shit insane." Well, Mrs. M left the banner on said crazy teacher's desk with a bouquet of flowers last fall, with extra felt for us to fringe it if we wanted. I'm certain she did. She's always on top of things. We forgot to go pick it up earlier last week, so when we remember Thursday night, we decided to just swing by the elementary school and pick it up as we were leaving. Mr. Coach called just to make sure she was there, and she announces to him that no, she doesn't have the banner! She never had the banner! So, we make a zillion phone calls trying to track Mrs. M down to ask her about it. We finally do, and she's sure it was there. We go over, and Brian and I go in to talk to Crazy Teacher. It was ridiculous. I think the only things she said to us while we were in there were "Nope nope nope nope absolutely not don't have it don't know what you're talking about nope nope nope." We rooted around in boxes, played more phone tag, had the school secretary check in the basement while I manned the phones...no dice. We gathered up some materials to throw a new one together, but we finally decided it wasn't worth it...we kind of had to convince Gene Rust to use it. We were like, "Look! We're using our problem solving skills!"
The sort of Asian one is Keith, who is half Korean. Ha ha, I was hoping it wouldn't be him! :p We're friends, but, um, there are a lot of things I don't like about him...he can be kind of a cheat and a jackass and lazy and acts like a four-year old. Of course, I just spent 48 hours+ with him, so my tolerance has worn extremely thin. :p
yeah, we thought of star wars, but we figured that everyone would do that. we kept calling it sith syndrom too. we meant to throw in a joke about "stith happens," but we forgot.
This year I wrote a scenario as well as was on a team. While I don't want to announce my home town to everyone and their mother on the Interwebs, we're a senior team and won first for skits (four minutes of Broadway medley, so it was basically the best thing known to man) and second for packet. That was the first time since sixth grade I've qualified for IC in FPS, and I am sooooo pumped. I've gone for CPS three times, but I want to see the other side of competition. I won second for scenarios as well, which is fine and good with me. I've never wanted to do IC scenario competition. Write a story in two hours with three strangers is very much not my thing. I did get to go to IC when I was in sixth grade for the sole purpose of keeping my friend (there for scenarios) company and being in an older team's skit, and it was a blast. I love skits.
Unfortunately, though, three of the four people on our team are graduating this year and IC is the weekend of graduation, as it tends to be every year for multiple schools. We're really hoping we can figure out a way to fly back early that's not too expensive. It's ridiculous that our team did so well, as we had two new people on the team, one of whom we'd never done a packet with.
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I was the kid who sang "Tomorrow" during the skits. XD
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I liked your skit quite a bit. (And it also made me glad that we didn't do "Tomorrow" in ours, which was a definite possibility. ;) We were surprised there weren't more Rent songs, actually, considering the movie's release.)
What was your CPS project, again? I was zoned out from exhaustion, which happened way too often and I didn't even realize they were awarding Senior skits until they had called the third place people, when the beginning of the description was read, so I was seriously confused for the rest. I'm sure it was awesome, especially since you won first, so congratulations!!!
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I'm glad that both teams get to go to IC though. ^^; There are no hard feelings now, which I was worried about, knowing there were only two senior teams for it.
And, pointing that out, I was the only male in both of the CmPS teams... XD
Haha. I'm very glad you didn't do "Tomorrow," too. The whole time we were worrying that someone else would. I really wish we wouldn'tve been forced to go last, though... we wanted to go first.
And your skit was very very awesome! I thought that most of the skits were very good... lol, the Star Wars themed ones were great. I actually considered doing that. lol.
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Our other Senior team didn't get to go to IC, or place for skits. They were the ones where the girl just totally blanked at the end and the rest of her team for some bizarre reason didn't help her out with the words. It made sense though, after we talked to them. They had just finished writing that song and no one knew it very well. I felt awful for her.
There's no skit order that's good all around; although I was glad we were one of the first ones to go after the group that left for Prom. We heard them talking in our hotel lobby about how they weren't going to care about skits since it was their last time, which seems to me to be a perfect reason TO care, but there you go.
Thanks!! I don't want to sound braggy and irritating, but I have to say that I loved our skit, too. ;P We knew we wanted to do Broadway going in to our packet, and once we finished we were immediately writing songs before we were even allowed out of our room. Perhaps we take skits a little too seriously, but there you go. You're right; most of them were really awesome. We considered Star Wars, too, especially since the first time someone said Stith allowed, they said, "Sith." The drawings in that one before ours were amazing.
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That doesn't make sense to me either, our last bowl meant "care lots." By the way, where were you staying? Our hotel was 40 minutes away, ugh, just outside of Canton, and there were obviously no other FPS people there, because it was so out of the way. It wasn't really a big deal, though.
Your skit was awesome! There was no way anyone was going to beat you, and you definitely worked hard for it - Mrs. M told us that Mrs. F told her that you guys were up until 2AM writing it? We had ideas Friday but went to bed. Anyway, I'm still really pleased with our skit. It was fun! We had Oompa Loompa songs stuck in our heads afterwards. We wish that we had got second, though - not that the second place skit wasn't good or funny, but Brett, who is obsessed with Family Guy, recognized right away that the barbershop quartet and that whole scene was right off of a Family Guy episode....
Congrats on second, too! Our plan to go one-two turned into two-three, but, c'est la vie. I'm sorry I didn't stop over and tell you that, but we scooted out of there pretty quickly.
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I guess they did just finish the song a few hours before, so I can understand, but I still felt awful. She kind of kept looking back at us, too, and I had no idea how to help her. I was just thinking as hard as I could, "Just yell 'I WILL SURVIVE!' and RUN!" but she didn't get the message.
In any case, we were staying in a Holiday Inn Express in Alliance; a team actually got kicked out of there around midnight because they were just a bunch of kids with no coach/chaperone making all sorts of noise, so then the security guards were all bitter at us. And we were NOT jumping. The guy in the room below us just must have been a bitter old man. Lyssa fell off the bed once, but it was not jumping.
Thank you!! We take skits a little too seriously, I think, but we always have been up late writing them. That Shakespeare one last year was even worse. We were so pumped about it that there was no way we could have gone to bed leaving it unwritten, not to mention we knew we had to have it done so we could run through it. It was probably completely written by about 1 or 1:30, but we practiced, showered, and made a few props until around 2:30. (Two of our number fell asleep, but it was written at that point so it didn't make a difference. The actual Under Pressure prop was definitely conceived around 2:00, and then we had paperclip chains hanging over the towel rack to keep them from tangling as they did when we went to perform; I'm surprised it actually worked like we wanted it to.) We were singing it all morning while getting ready and in the car in the way over and as we made props and ate lunch and yikes. It's been stuck in my head horridly, too, to the point where I sang through the whole thing in the shower this morning...
I definitely liked yours better than the singing one (especially now that I know they ripped it off Family Guy. I'm not a fan of Family Guy, and that's not recgonizable as a parody to most people so now it just seems lazy...), but you never know with skit judges. If anything else, your costumes killed theirs. The Oompa Loompa hair was amazing.
Incidentally, Katie (she was the scientist that wasn't me and didn't have glasses. I know you've met her but I'm not sure you remember her name) kept wanting to ask one of your number to our prom, but I could never quite figure out which one it was. I don't think it was Brian. She kept saying the tall one, but they all seem kind of tall to me. I'll have to ask her again and get back to you. She was sad to be reminded of how far away you guys live. ;)
Glad to know you did scoot out quickly and I wasn't just blind and unable to find you. I saw Brian hanging around after most of the people had left (we are always the last ones to leave...) but not the rest of you.
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We stayed in that hotel last year, it was nice. It's a miracle that no one reported us for noise, but thankfully the room we were hanging out in was surrounded by our other rooms. Brett and Keith were acting like four year olds and doing flips and, um, humping the beds. FACEPALM. There are serious drawbacks to being the only girl!
It's kind of weird that you guys used the song "Under Pressure," because Brian totally thought of that, and when he saw your prop, he was hoping you'd also sing it! I'm going to really miss doing skits. Where else is it OKAY to be creative like that? And to be that excited about it? I'm going to need to find a creativity outlet next year. Thanks about the hair. We had a banner crisis right before we left - which is another story entirely! - and in the commotion we forgot a few of the props, so we had to stop at a Target, and I specifically bought a green bowl so that if Willy Wonka worked (we had been brainstorming skit ideas, and it was a possibility) we could use it for hair. Keith's Oompa Mullet was the best.
And I remember Katie! That's funny, because they're always trying to get numbers...I don't know who she might mean, because they're all kinda tall. I'll have to hear who she means before I give you the scoop on them. :)
Brian wanted to talk to the evaluators. I didn't realize he was going to hang around for a minute or I would have, but our coach this year really knows nothing about FPS and didn't want to stay like Mrs. M would have. :( I wanted Mrs. M to be there, but she had to leave before awards.
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There were people like us on our floor, but apparently the guy below us wasn't too great. Whatever. The hotel was really nice, though, but not as fun as last year. We stayed at the one connected to the lame mall. Awesomeness. One of the good things about an all-girl team is there's no messing with not having the same hotel room when writing skits. But Katie and Lyssa had "something" going on on that bed as it started getting late that we won't discuss. ;) Not really, but you know. It gets late...
We may or may not have named Under Pressure that because we were possibly going to use the song. As in I was writing it and just announced, "I'm naming this thing Under Pressure so we can sing the song in our skit!" We hadn't completely decided on allll Broadway then, so it seemed like a good idea.
Skits are seriously the most amazing thing in the world. I'm so pumped that we may get to do another one, because finishing our's yesterday felt so depressing. The end of an era! Woe!
And I did love your banner, by the way. So much cooler than ours. Everyone hates ours. I don't know why we don't make a new one.
Ahahahahaaa.. Now, see, she totally should have talked to him! I think it's the one who looks sort of Asian, but I'm not sure. And they all are tall, come to think of it.
I'm sure I have more to say, but I absolutely must sleep.
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The sort of Asian one is Keith, who is half Korean. Ha ha, I was hoping it wouldn't be him! :p We're friends, but, um, there are a lot of things I don't like about him...he can be kind of a cheat and a jackass and lazy and acts like a four-year old. Of course, I just spent 48 hours+ with him, so my tolerance has worn extremely thin. :p
I was so tired last night. I'm still so tired!
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