"BREAK"? Yeah, yeah, I know...
Sorry guys, not a fic. Instead--BAND MATTERS! Today was State Solo and Ensemble. Basically, for all non-bandies, this means that we prepare a solo piece on our instruments or an ensemble (a group of people playing) to perform and be judged on. To go to State, you have to make Superior (1) at District. I did the hardest level solo ( a Level 7) this year for clarinet, panicked, and got an Excellent (2). But I was also playing bass clarinet (which I hate doing, but seem to do it frequently) in the clarinet choir ensemble so no worries, I was at State.
Well, for one, I had to get up at 4:30 in the morning to be at school by 5:45. So I'm stumbling around my house trying to get my stuff together (clothes to change into after the performance, homework to do in down time, my iPod, etc.) so I can get out the door and drive to school. I have to say, I'm not very together early in the morning--I brought tennis shoes and jeans to change into but forgot another shirt and socks, of all things, so I had to go around in my dress shirt and my ballet flats all day. But what I find interesting is the way people climb up your back when you're driving at 5 in the morning. Um...there's nobody on the road. Pass me if you don't like the fact that I'm only going 5 miles over the limit (BTW, I think I violated like, 5 different traffic laws driving to school this morning because I was hardly awake...)
Anyway, I made up sleep on the bus while Pablo sat next to me playing Elite Beat Agents on his DS. I've never actually seen this game before, but he used to rant about it alot. You save the world by dancing, of all things. It was pretty hysterical--as you guide your characters through their dance moves, you get to watch these people dressed up like mafia do some funky 70s-style dances (I was watching the YMCA-cheer-on-a-basketball-game session before I fell asleep. I still don't understand the game, but it was amusing nonetheless)
Clarinet choir performed at 10:30. We got there at 8, got off the bus at 9 (it's not like we had anything better to do), but we couldn't find a place to warm up so we could hear ourselves play. The warm-up room was full of freaking percussionists banging away. Why do you need a drum to warm up? Go play on the goddamn sidewalk or something, it amounts to the same thing--save us all the headache and loss of hearing. You're just playing rhythms! Anyway, we got moved to four different locations by the people running the show because they didn't like where we were rehearsing (even though they were the ones moving us around) before Justin (our student condutor and leader) finally had to give up trying to get anything done. We were all tired and frustrated and felt like strangling the various drummers and we didn't perform as well as we could. BUT IT DIDN'T MERIT A GOOD (which is like getting a C)! Even if Robin and Ashley only came to one rehearsal and nobody could actually stay for the full rehearsal and I had to come in to play bass clarinet because our actual bass clarinet player is terrible beyond all belief and Malcom had to play prima donna as usual with Chelsea his faithful retainer backing him up on all his misbehavior/come late to rehearsal/not actually do anything. So it doesn't surprise me that we got this rating (although I think we played better than just a Good) because my section is fucking out of control and I don't know why I haven't quit to go be a saxophone (oh, wait, because they're just as bad) or quit altogether.
BUT! There was a silver lining to this cloud. For one thing, the mysterious oboe boy was there. I met him at All-State band last year and was pretty much in love with him. He's cute! And I did not realize this until today, but I thought there was a reason I found Irie Shouichi attractive--he's the anime version of oboe boy! (Oboe boy's name is Alex, but we just call him oboe boy and everybody who knows about that story knows what that means) I pretty much had a fangirl/hormonal teenager moment and proclaimed to Pablo that my one true love (LOL) was here, the one I intended to marry someday. ("What about the pianist from All-State Jazz Band this year?" my friend Adrienne asked later when she heard the story. "The one whose children you intended to have when we were at the concert?" That's a typical sort of musician comment; he was so talented, the best way I could express my admiration for his talent was to tell Adrienne that I wanted his children; musicians generally make comments like this or in a sexual vein when we find somebody talented. ANYWAY! "I'm still going to have his children" I told her "I'm just going to marry oboe boy afterwards") According to Pablo, my taste in men is screwed up. I won't deny this; both my ex-boyfriend and oboe boy are cute in that nerdy way, and are extremely awkward, which seems to be my weakness until I actually start dating them and then I get frustrated.
Oboe boy and I had talked a lot at All-State, and I recognized him right away. But he didn't remember me! I felt slighted, but that was also understandable. That sort of relationship is only possible within the context of All-State band, not real life. Have I matured? I doubt it--I'm just getting wise to my own game. I need to find somebody in that nerdy cute way that is not so damn awkward and doesn't roll over at the slightest sign of my temper and then I'll be good to go.
I didn't hardly get any work done, but that doesn't matter because tomorrow is a field trip and I didn't have that much anyway. But somehow I got shot in the nose with a damn nerf gun on the bus back home. Ryan Stiffey (who annoys me so much I want to take a baseball bat to his head everytime he is within 10 feet of me. He also parked so damn close to me at school I couldn't pull out until he moved. And he insisted on sitting there for ages before he got his rear in gear) was not aiming for me, but he managed to ricochet it off the seat in front of me TWICE and hit me in the nose and in the chest. I almost marched back there and punched him, I was so tired and angry with him by that time. And we didn't get back to school until 6:30 at night!
SO, uh...today kind of sucked. Which is unusual for State S & E. And I was reminded consistently throughout the day why I consider quitting band so much--most of them are really just absolute jerks. There are so many more stories I could tell, but I don't want to. Leave it at this--there were some fun moments, but it was long and tiring and the people in my band are intolerable.
Also, I came home to discover that Dad discovered a nest of mice in his shop and accidentally vacuumed some of them up with his super-vacuum shop-vac and pretty much fried their brains and killed them as they swirled around in a vacuumy, airless death. I'm not sure what to say to this, but my little sister is furious.
Well, for one, I had to get up at 4:30 in the morning to be at school by 5:45. So I'm stumbling around my house trying to get my stuff together (clothes to change into after the performance, homework to do in down time, my iPod, etc.) so I can get out the door and drive to school. I have to say, I'm not very together early in the morning--I brought tennis shoes and jeans to change into but forgot another shirt and socks, of all things, so I had to go around in my dress shirt and my ballet flats all day. But what I find interesting is the way people climb up your back when you're driving at 5 in the morning. Um...there's nobody on the road. Pass me if you don't like the fact that I'm only going 5 miles over the limit (BTW, I think I violated like, 5 different traffic laws driving to school this morning because I was hardly awake...)
Anyway, I made up sleep on the bus while Pablo sat next to me playing Elite Beat Agents on his DS. I've never actually seen this game before, but he used to rant about it alot. You save the world by dancing, of all things. It was pretty hysterical--as you guide your characters through their dance moves, you get to watch these people dressed up like mafia do some funky 70s-style dances (I was watching the YMCA-cheer-on-a-basketball-game session before I fell asleep. I still don't understand the game, but it was amusing nonetheless)
Clarinet choir performed at 10:30. We got there at 8, got off the bus at 9 (it's not like we had anything better to do), but we couldn't find a place to warm up so we could hear ourselves play. The warm-up room was full of freaking percussionists banging away. Why do you need a drum to warm up? Go play on the goddamn sidewalk or something, it amounts to the same thing--save us all the headache and loss of hearing. You're just playing rhythms! Anyway, we got moved to four different locations by the people running the show because they didn't like where we were rehearsing (even though they were the ones moving us around) before Justin (our student condutor and leader) finally had to give up trying to get anything done. We were all tired and frustrated and felt like strangling the various drummers and we didn't perform as well as we could. BUT IT DIDN'T MERIT A GOOD (which is like getting a C)! Even if Robin and Ashley only came to one rehearsal and nobody could actually stay for the full rehearsal and I had to come in to play bass clarinet because our actual bass clarinet player is terrible beyond all belief and Malcom had to play prima donna as usual with Chelsea his faithful retainer backing him up on all his misbehavior/come late to rehearsal/not actually do anything. So it doesn't surprise me that we got this rating (although I think we played better than just a Good) because my section is fucking out of control and I don't know why I haven't quit to go be a saxophone (oh, wait, because they're just as bad) or quit altogether.
BUT! There was a silver lining to this cloud. For one thing, the mysterious oboe boy was there. I met him at All-State band last year and was pretty much in love with him. He's cute! And I did not realize this until today, but I thought there was a reason I found Irie Shouichi attractive--he's the anime version of oboe boy! (Oboe boy's name is Alex, but we just call him oboe boy and everybody who knows about that story knows what that means) I pretty much had a fangirl/hormonal teenager moment and proclaimed to Pablo that my one true love (LOL) was here, the one I intended to marry someday. ("What about the pianist from All-State Jazz Band this year?" my friend Adrienne asked later when she heard the story. "The one whose children you intended to have when we were at the concert?" That's a typical sort of musician comment; he was so talented, the best way I could express my admiration for his talent was to tell Adrienne that I wanted his children; musicians generally make comments like this or in a sexual vein when we find somebody talented. ANYWAY! "I'm still going to have his children" I told her "I'm just going to marry oboe boy afterwards") According to Pablo, my taste in men is screwed up. I won't deny this; both my ex-boyfriend and oboe boy are cute in that nerdy way, and are extremely awkward, which seems to be my weakness until I actually start dating them and then I get frustrated.
Oboe boy and I had talked a lot at All-State, and I recognized him right away. But he didn't remember me! I felt slighted, but that was also understandable. That sort of relationship is only possible within the context of All-State band, not real life. Have I matured? I doubt it--I'm just getting wise to my own game. I need to find somebody in that nerdy cute way that is not so damn awkward and doesn't roll over at the slightest sign of my temper and then I'll be good to go.
I didn't hardly get any work done, but that doesn't matter because tomorrow is a field trip and I didn't have that much anyway. But somehow I got shot in the nose with a damn nerf gun on the bus back home. Ryan Stiffey (who annoys me so much I want to take a baseball bat to his head everytime he is within 10 feet of me. He also parked so damn close to me at school I couldn't pull out until he moved. And he insisted on sitting there for ages before he got his rear in gear) was not aiming for me, but he managed to ricochet it off the seat in front of me TWICE and hit me in the nose and in the chest. I almost marched back there and punched him, I was so tired and angry with him by that time. And we didn't get back to school until 6:30 at night!
SO, uh...today kind of sucked. Which is unusual for State S & E. And I was reminded consistently throughout the day why I consider quitting band so much--most of them are really just absolute jerks. There are so many more stories I could tell, but I don't want to. Leave it at this--there were some fun moments, but it was long and tiring and the people in my band are intolerable.
Also, I came home to discover that Dad discovered a nest of mice in his shop and accidentally vacuumed some of them up with his super-vacuum shop-vac and pretty much fried their brains and killed them as they swirled around in a vacuumy, airless death. I'm not sure what to say to this, but my little sister is furious.