I am a Pioneer

The Final Elimination

October 12th 2012:

Today we were given a pretty straightforward challenge. It was a general evaluation, where we would perform on stage in front of JYP, who would judge us and eliminate one person from the show. As a result, we are now all busy practising and preparing for our evaluation stage performance. We are being provided with backup dancers, full stylist teams and stage decorations for this segment, which is quite helpful. I am currently trying to decide which song I want to use for my performance. I am stuck between using Advice, or Criminal which I had written and produced for Taemin in my previous life, otherwise, I might use one of the two Kang Daniel songs that I produced. I was leaning towards the Taemin songs mainly due to their performance aspect. I had confidence in my vocals, but I also wanted to put on a good show, with an impressive dance. At the same time as this was all happening, teasers and trailers for the show were finally being released to the public. The show was set to start airing around mid-November. The teasers were awesome. The background showed a medieval battlefield, with each trainee dressed up and standing in front in some sort of pose. My image was not among the teasers, however, which I found disappointing, but I knew that JYP was probably going to release it on a later episode. The trailers just showed some of the footage from the first few episodes, so I wasn't too bothered by them. I got a few messages from Na-Yeon and others asking me about the show as my name appeared in the trailer on the list of contestants. All contestants were also finally given social media accounts and were told that we were to post once a week for the duration of the show.

The other thing that had been introduced to us was the popular vote. Apparently, following the airing of each episode, the public is to vote on their favourite contestant, which will add 100 points to our final standings in the rankings when elimination is being considered, otherwise, it just shows our public renown. The others were all having fun, posting on their accounts. Following the teaser releases, our accounts had slowly begun to amass a following. I had already reached just over 600 followers only 4 days after the teasers were released on all my SNS accounts. I had posted twice already and was already receiving comments with questions surrounding the show. Unfortunately, I couldn't answer most of them.

3 weeks have gone by since the teaser drop and the beginning of our next challenge. I am currently inside one of the larger dance rooms with my backup team. We are currently practising the performance for Advice, which is the song that I decided to re-produce for this stage. I decided to go with Advice, as it not only has an advanced dance, but it can show my vocal range, with some good low notes and an insanely high note during the chorus, as well as incorporating a little bit of rap. Although I'm not a strong rapper, I want to show JYP that I can do it and that with practice I could become better. My outfit and style had already been decided for the performance. My har has been growing out as a result. They are planning on having it grow to just above my shoulders. They also want to dye it black with green tips. Similar to the look Taemin went for when he had released it in my previous life. I wanted to keep it as close to the original performance as possible. That was why I was going to try and recreate his comeback stage from his Mnet countdown performance in this timeline. Of course, there was a lot of spying going on amongst the contestants. I had almost been caught during my rehearsals multiple times by a few trainees, including Seol Young, who seemed intent on trying to find out what I was going to perform. Luckily for me, he has been stopped at the door every time by a staff member. I guess JYP had instructed them to be extra vigilant for me.

Another week later, and it was near the end of October. The day had come for our performances. We were all taken over to a studio where we were given separate waiting rooms where we were to get ready without spoiling our performances for the others. A camera and TV had been set up in the room so we could watch the performances and react to the camera. As I was having the final touch up of my makeup, the TV finally turned on, and EVE spoke, welcoming us to the evaluation stage. The screen cut to show JYP arriving at the studio and taking a seat at his judging table. He kept a serious expression the entire time. He sat down and picked up a microphone. He gave us a few pieces of advice and reminded us to leave everything out on the stage. We were to perform as if our lives depended on it. We were all then provided with a tablet. We were asked to select the person that we wanted to see perform first. After waiting a couple of minutes the results came out.

1: Chu Jin-Ho (8 votes)

2: Seol Young (3 votes)

3: Hayashi Roh (2 votes)

As a result of this, I was voted as the one that everyone wanted to go first. However, JYP surprised us with his reaction. "The person who will be going last in the evaluation stage is Chu Jin-Ho!" he then announced. I was a little surprised and confused at this because I was sure he had asked for us to vote for who we wanted to go first. He then revealed to us that the order of the performances would be decided by relay. Meaning that whoever went last was to pick who went first, and then the first performer would pick the second performance and so on. I then made my choice and sent it to JYP to announce. I then sat back and got ready to watch the performances.