Unicornio Rhian

Homecoming Parade

In case you're not reading this on the day that it happened, it's Saturday, October 13th, 2018. I'm a freshman in high school.

If you didn't know, today is Kentucky State University's (KSU) 2018 homecoming. Today was the homecoming parade, which I got to march in! I'm not sure if I mentioned this before, but I'm in the Western Hill High School (WHHS) Band.

I had to wake up on 7:00 AM, even though it's a Saturday, and start getting ready for school like I would do any other day.

My brain was very confused this morning. My mom woke me up at 7:00 AM by turning on my light like she would on a normal school day. Believing that it was an ordinary school day, I started to get up. Then I realized that it was 7:00 AM on a Saturday and I was awake.

I was confused for a moment, but I remembered that I had a parade to march today. We wear clothes under our band uniforms and if you went outside today (in Kentucky), you'd know that it was FREEZING outside. I wore some leggings and my WHHS Band t-shirt. The shirt is short sleeved, but that didn't bother me.

I grabbed my phone, keys, a comb, 2 hair ties, clarinet, and binder full of music. The call time (the time needed to be present at the meeting place) was a little before 7:45 in the band room. I arrived at 7:50, but thankfully, wasn't the only one. We were supposed to start getting dressed in our band uniforms at 7:45, so I hurried to slip on mine.

After getting dressed, I put my clarinet together and got out my music. Then it was time to get our gloves. You know what the best part of being a woodwind instrument player is? The fingertips of our gloves have to be cut out so we can correctly cover the holes when we play. It's GREAT (note the sarcasm)!

Soon, it was time to start heading out towards the buses.

As soon as I stepped outside, I was freezing! Then we loaded the buses. We had 2 regular sized school buses, a smaller bus, and a bus specifically for instruments (percussion and tubas). The buses were crowded because there's a little more than 100 people in band. A lot of people had to sit 3 to a seat, even though most of us had instruments in our hands.

We arrived, got off the bus, and felt cold again. I began moving around and felt warm. I was completely fine, but my fingers were extremely cold.

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(2019 Update)

Long story short, it was freezing cold, the only part of my body that suffered were my hands, I had to constantly blow warm air through my instrument so it wouldn't freeze, and we performed "Holla Back Girl" and danced together as a band!

*Sometime later (December)*

We also performed at a Christmas parade at the same place. The route was shorter, it was much colder, my entire body was freezing, and my hands suffered worse. It was so cold that even with warm air, I could barely get any notes out (especially the higher ones).

That was also the day that my charger was stolen (possibly accidentally) from the band room.