Dear Hillary

Competition

February 7th and 8th, 2015

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I'm combining these because I'm lazy lol

Oh and brace yourselves. It's long.

So it took four (five if you count how slow the bus was going on my gosh) hours to get to Plymouth, and I was pretty excited. The school that we were performing at was HUGE. I come from a pretty small school, but this was just insane. Everyone was in such awe that my teacher was embarrassed.

We got our own little sign on the door of a classroom with our name on it; Music of the Knight (our mascot is the knight lol) We practiced our songs abit by standing in a circle and seeing how well we could blend and 'move' together with looking at each other. That was a little hard, but then we looked at each other.

One of our biggest goals was to smile, and I had been trying my hardest. I smiled best when we looked at each other. We had so much fun, and I wanted to change all of our choreography to be us in a circle.

So we sat in the auditorium and got our placement for sound checks, and everyone was kind of nervous. I was excited to see what people would say about us.

After our sound check, which went pretty great, we headed to our hotel, where I met up with my mom until it was time to leave again.

Our outfit was all black and green accents. The guys all got matching green suspenders, which was ADORABLE. and the girls wore some green things. I wore black skinny jeans, a nice, black blouse of sorts and a black scarf with black flats. That was what was comfortable for me. I knew heels and a skirt would look nice, not on me but still, but I would be sweating and dancing. I didn't want to be in a restricting skirt.

So we performed after a few groups. We were fifth in line, which was a pretty good number. I think we did amazing, and I honestly, even though I'd been dreading this moment for months, I had so much fun. Performing is a different level of fun. I pushed down every trickle of nervousness and I think I really improved from earlier in the year.

So we went out to watch the other groups, and they were pretty good. One thing different was they all used a percussionist and all of their songs were modern. We sand Stand by Me, Fields of Gold, and Your Smiling Face. All great songs, btw. But they were all older.

So after the judges left to talk with one another, a college acapella group performed. Don't get me wrong, they were great, but their songs weren't that upbeat and I fell asleep xD After a few numbers, they asked the percussionists to come up on stage for a 'Perc-Off.' This was SO COOL. they had 15-30 seconds to spit whatever beat, and it was sick. The guy who won was amazing. I don't know how they can do that.

Then the judges were back and they called us up on stage once more. Best Choreography, Best Solo, Best Percussionist, and a few other awards went out. We received none. Third place was announced. Not us. Second. Not us. By this time I knew we had lost. First. The people who won were right behind me. My ears are still ringing.

I knew we wouldn't win, but I thought we would get some form of praise. On our scoring sheets, which I didn't see, we got like a 231 and the winners got 339. They said our songs were too aged. This made me livid.

Music, acapella especially, should not be about just pop songs and choreography and percussion. It should be about blending and style and beauty and music. Learning to sing songs with out instruments!

I was pretty upset, my hands hurt from clapping, my feet ached from being on them all day, and my head was pounding.

The other girls who weren't staying with their parents had a room and they said they weren't sleeping. I knew that wasn't happening. XD

That day had felt so long that I wanted to pass out. I tried hanging out with them for a while, but I was really tired and they were being really inappropriate and making me feel uncomfortable so I left.

I woke up the next morning and I was so tired. I had breakfast with everyone before the headed out, and then my mom and I did the same. A bad snow storm was coming and we wanted to stay ahead of it.

We drove by the ocean, and it made me feel so happy. I was born on the pacific, and I finally got to see the Atlantic. It was special.

We drove home, stopping at some outlet malls to get me a few things. I got some skirts from Dress Barn and some boots from Famous Footwear.

I came home and have been sleeping since. It felt like such a long weekend but it went by so fast. I kinda didn't want it to end.

Overall, it'll be a good memory.

Thanks so much for reading, and I'm sorry we didn't win. That would have made it a lot more interesting. I just hope my teacher isn't mad at us for losing tomorrow. I also hope there's a snow day tomorrow :D

I love you all, especially you Hillary! Thanks for reading this when no one else does. I know you really care and that makes me so happy.

Another day, still didn't win. Pitch Perfect for life man.

Mel xx