This year Happiness traveled to Davenport to attend Davenport North’s competition called Big Dance. After our success at Linn-Mar, we were pretty confident in our show. Before we performed, I didn’t even have those pesky first year jitters! I was back to my semi-nervous self.
Davenport was a fairly small competition and didn’t have too much competition for Happiness. Lacrosse and maybe Jefferson was our biggest competition. We were pretty nervous about going against Lacrosse because we had heard they’re really good this year and after getting second at Linn-Mar, we were confident in our show, but there was that little doubt when we heard about Lacrosse. They have traditionally been good. I didn’t get a chance to see their show before we performed in the day rounds, but a few people in the group did and they informed us that they were pretty good, but not amazing. Someone we could beat if we really wanted to.
In our warm-up, our director gave us his regular speech about us going out there to do the best show we can. We can’t control the judges or the other groups, but to control the things we can. Happiness has always been known for our entertaining show. We always have the show that the audience enjoys watching the most. That’s what we need to strive to achieve. To have the best show, the one the audience watches and loves. Not have the attitude that we need to get first. That’s what Happiness has always been about and that’s what it’s going to always be about.
We went out there and did an amazing show. We ended up placing first in the day rounds by 18 points. It was a good feeling. We all wanted it to stay that way and not have a reenactment of Linn-Mar where we got first in the day rounds and second after finals. Our director gave another speech about wanting to know what it feels like to get first before March. Happiness typically doesn’t do as well in their first couple competitions. In past years it’s taken them a couple tries to figure out the formula for success. We all wanted a win this time.
We finally got a grand champion trophy! To top it all off we won a caption award as well for best choreography. It was such a good feeling to finally do so well, especially right out of the gate. We won by 15 points and it felt good.
Saturday, January 31, 2009
First Year Jitters
A couple weeks ago marked Happiness Inc.'s first competition of the season. This being my first year in Happiness, I was the most nervous I have ever been for anything in my life. I, personally, do not get too nervous for anything. Whenever I have to get on stage and do something, or read something like a paper or give a speech in front of the class, I’ll get a little nervous, maybe get a little shaky, but nothing too big. That was nothing like how I felt before my first competition as a Happiness member.
I was fine while we were doing hair and putting makeup on and even while our director was giving us a talking to, to get us psyched for our performance ahead. The moment it hit me was while we were waiting off stage for the group before us to get done. I am in charge of carrying the trashcans on stage that we throw our costumes in after we change. I remember wanting to hurl into it the whole time we were waiting. It was a terrible feeling to be nervous. I felt like my insides were all about to come out of me through my mouth. Luckily I had people by me to talk to so I could distract myself, but that only helped a little. The best part about it, however, was the moment I got on stage; I took a deep breath and calmed down almost completely. There was a lot of adrenaline still running through me, but that was expected and I could control it.
After the show, we found out our critique was our choreographer. Of course he had many things to tell us, most of them being bad. He told us he would place us between 6th and 3rd. Many of us were a little disappointed and beaten because we all felt we did an extraordinary show. We had to wait for a couple hours to find out the results, so there was a lot of chatter about how well we would do. As we waited patiently in the gym, we were just hoping to make finals because of what our choreographer had predicted. We were ecstatic when they called our name for finals. We all went back to our homeroom where our director cam back about 20 minutes later to inform us of the order we would be performing. This was when it really got exciting. Our director told us that the order was chosen by placements. First place would choose first and then second and so on. He told us after the MC said this he turned to our director and told him to choose. It took us a few moments to realize what he had just told us, but after that there was so much screaming and cheering and some crying and hugging. We had gotten first! It felt so good to have all the hard work pay off.
I was fine while we were doing hair and putting makeup on and even while our director was giving us a talking to, to get us psyched for our performance ahead. The moment it hit me was while we were waiting off stage for the group before us to get done. I am in charge of carrying the trashcans on stage that we throw our costumes in after we change. I remember wanting to hurl into it the whole time we were waiting. It was a terrible feeling to be nervous. I felt like my insides were all about to come out of me through my mouth. Luckily I had people by me to talk to so I could distract myself, but that only helped a little. The best part about it, however, was the moment I got on stage; I took a deep breath and calmed down almost completely. There was a lot of adrenaline still running through me, but that was expected and I could control it.
After the show, we found out our critique was our choreographer. Of course he had many things to tell us, most of them being bad. He told us he would place us between 6th and 3rd. Many of us were a little disappointed and beaten because we all felt we did an extraordinary show. We had to wait for a couple hours to find out the results, so there was a lot of chatter about how well we would do. As we waited patiently in the gym, we were just hoping to make finals because of what our choreographer had predicted. We were ecstatic when they called our name for finals. We all went back to our homeroom where our director cam back about 20 minutes later to inform us of the order we would be performing. This was when it really got exciting. Our director told us that the order was chosen by placements. First place would choose first and then second and so on. He told us after the MC said this he turned to our director and told him to choose. It took us a few moments to realize what he had just told us, but after that there was so much screaming and cheering and some crying and hugging. We had gotten first! It felt so good to have all the hard work pay off.
Wednesday, January 28, 2009
show choir
This particular post is going to be set up to point out many flaws in being in show choir. Now, don’t get me wrong, I love show choir competitions. You’ll never meet a more interesting, fun, loud, obnoxious, and hilarious group of kids than the ones you meet at show choir competitions. And I fit right in with all of those kids. The only downside is all the time and energy it takes. We usually have to be at the school between 5 and 7 in the morning for each competition to board a bus and ride an hour or more to a strange school that I almost always seem to get lost in. after we arrive, we must sit around for several hours and think of mind numbing ways to entertain ourselves, such as carry a stereo system into the school which has a USB adapter for us to plug an iPod with obnoxious, bass-booming music on it. This noise fills the hallways. Normally this would be fun and completely okay with me, but after our first show, most of the time, all I want to do is sleep. Take a little nap to get going again for finals, but when that horrible music is blaring, it’s a difficult task to accomplish.
The days are always extremely long. Most of the time, we must wake up around 6 in the morning to get ready to board a bus where we will stay for an hour or longer. We are not allowed to sleep on the bus because when you sleep, gunk gets built up in your throat and it takes a few hours of talking and using your vocal cords to loosen that and get rid of it. This is the moment when the monotonous task of entertaining ourselves. Fortunately, the group is good at finding ways to do this that doesn’t get us in trouble, but sometimes is doesn’t work out so well.
The most common show choir food is a walking taco. This is pretty good, but most of the time I want something more substantial and healthy. There are
usually foods like carrots and apples to eat, but I would like a meal that isn’t just junk food. This, unfortunately, isn’t usually provided. There’s always plenty of food to sooth a sweet tooth and junk-food-lovers, but not enough of the good stuff. I’m assuming this is because of cost and demand of it, but for those who like to eat the good stuff, I think they should provide more of it.
The days are always extremely long. Most of the time, we must wake up around 6 in the morning to get ready to board a bus where we will stay for an hour or longer. We are not allowed to sleep on the bus because when you sleep, gunk gets built up in your throat and it takes a few hours of talking and using your vocal cords to loosen that and get rid of it. This is the moment when the monotonous task of entertaining ourselves. Fortunately, the group is good at finding ways to do this that doesn’t get us in trouble, but sometimes is doesn’t work out so well.
The most common show choir food is a walking taco. This is pretty good, but most of the time I want something more substantial and healthy. There are
usually foods like carrots and apples to eat, but I would like a meal that isn’t just junk food. This, unfortunately, isn’t usually provided. There’s always plenty of food to sooth a sweet tooth and junk-food-lovers, but not enough of the good stuff. I’m assuming this is because of cost and demand of it, but for those who like to eat the good stuff, I think they should provide more of it.
The Art of Being Clumpsy
Have you ever had one of those weird off days when you’re just really uncoordinated? You trip over your own feet or just on a regular flat surface when there doesn’t seem to be anything there that might have even partly caused you to trip? Or maybe you’ll be walking down the hallway and trip and cause two other people to stumble at the same time? This is how everyday of my life goes. I like to call it the art of being clumsy.
The hallways during passing time are always extremely crowded and packed with people going every which way, trying to get to their next class. That, however, isn’t a good excuse for what happened to me one day. I was minding my own business and having a pretty intense conversation with a friend I was walking with. I wasn’t watching where I was going as usual and looked at my friend because she was imitating something that had happened to her earlier in the day. During this whole transaction, I didn’t realize the velocity of the person walking in front of me was at a slower rate than mine and slammed into their back and knocked their balance off. As if that wasn’t enough, the unfortunate soul I so carelessly budged, grabbed onto their friend to catch their balance before they fell and dragged their friend down with them as they fell. It was so embarrassing and I felt terrible about it. The only thing I could think to do was to excessively apologize and watch the two of them laugh hysterically as they stumbled to their feet. Luckily it was in a part of the hallway where there wasn’t much traffic going on at the time, but there were still people walking by, shooting judging glances my way. The only thing I could really do to act like it wasn’t a big deal was to laugh with the two I had knocked over. It all happened so quickly and we suddenly had to go our separate ways so we wouldn’t be late to class.
I rushed to my next class where one of my best friends was sitting and told her all about it. We laughed for a while over it and I got teased a little, which I expected, and then it was over with. Everyone will forget about it soon, but I’m sure I’ll remember it for a very long time.
The hallways during passing time are always extremely crowded and packed with people going every which way, trying to get to their next class. That, however, isn’t a good excuse for what happened to me one day. I was minding my own business and having a pretty intense conversation with a friend I was walking with. I wasn’t watching where I was going as usual and looked at my friend because she was imitating something that had happened to her earlier in the day. During this whole transaction, I didn’t realize the velocity of the person walking in front of me was at a slower rate than mine and slammed into their back and knocked their balance off. As if that wasn’t enough, the unfortunate soul I so carelessly budged, grabbed onto their friend to catch their balance before they fell and dragged their friend down with them as they fell. It was so embarrassing and I felt terrible about it. The only thing I could think to do was to excessively apologize and watch the two of them laugh hysterically as they stumbled to their feet. Luckily it was in a part of the hallway where there wasn’t much traffic going on at the time, but there were still people walking by, shooting judging glances my way. The only thing I could really do to act like it wasn’t a big deal was to laugh with the two I had knocked over. It all happened so quickly and we suddenly had to go our separate ways so we wouldn’t be late to class.
I rushed to my next class where one of my best friends was sitting and told her all about it. We laughed for a while over it and I got teased a little, which I expected, and then it was over with. Everyone will forget about it soon, but I’m sure I’ll remember it for a very long time.
Dreams
Have you ever had that reoccurring dream where you’re either walking and trip, or maybe skating and fall? Or maybe the infamous dream where you fall off a cliff. Maybe a loved one pushes you? I find these the most annoying and obnoxious dreams ever.
In mine, I’m always either ice skating or rollerblading. These are two activities that I typically choose to not take any part in due to me being extremely clumsy. In the dream, I’m usually all by myself just strolling along nicely, something that wouldn’t happen to me in real life. As I’m minding my own business, for no apparent reason that I am aware of, I trip or fall and as I’m falling, I trust my hands our in front of me to catch myself and jerk awake! It’s a pretty scary feeling to wake up from jerking forward. I’m always disoriented and confused when I get out of that dream.
This dream usually occurs when I’m riding I a car and I fall asleep (don’t worry, I wasn’t driving). I was supposed to be keeping my mom awake One our trip to Kansas to visit some family. I was doing a terrible job and accidentally fell asleep in the passenger’s seat. When I jerked awake from my dream, I almost threw myself out of my seat and, as my mom put it, scared the living daylights out of her. She was worried and asked if I was okay. I politely replied yes after the couple of seconds had passed that I took to calm myself and get a bearing on my surroundings. I proceeded to tell her why I had woken up so suddenly and she suggested maybe the dream means something.
I believe dreams are a collaboration of all the different occurrences that happened throughout a person’s day and some worries they might have suppressed. I think it’s just a way for the brain to try to sort them out in your subconscious. I don’t think dreams can tell the future. They can only jumble up things that have happened in the past. You brain my very well be able to put together the things that have happened and predict the future and you might get lucky and be right once in a while, but I don’t think they can foresee exactly what’s going to happen in the future.
In mine, I’m always either ice skating or rollerblading. These are two activities that I typically choose to not take any part in due to me being extremely clumsy. In the dream, I’m usually all by myself just strolling along nicely, something that wouldn’t happen to me in real life. As I’m minding my own business, for no apparent reason that I am aware of, I trip or fall and as I’m falling, I trust my hands our in front of me to catch myself and jerk awake! It’s a pretty scary feeling to wake up from jerking forward. I’m always disoriented and confused when I get out of that dream.
This dream usually occurs when I’m riding I a car and I fall asleep (don’t worry, I wasn’t driving). I was supposed to be keeping my mom awake One our trip to Kansas to visit some family. I was doing a terrible job and accidentally fell asleep in the passenger’s seat. When I jerked awake from my dream, I almost threw myself out of my seat and, as my mom put it, scared the living daylights out of her. She was worried and asked if I was okay. I politely replied yes after the couple of seconds had passed that I took to calm myself and get a bearing on my surroundings. I proceeded to tell her why I had woken up so suddenly and she suggested maybe the dream means something.
I believe dreams are a collaboration of all the different occurrences that happened throughout a person’s day and some worries they might have suppressed. I think it’s just a way for the brain to try to sort them out in your subconscious. I don’t think dreams can tell the future. They can only jumble up things that have happened in the past. You brain my very well be able to put together the things that have happened and predict the future and you might get lucky and be right once in a while, but I don’t think they can foresee exactly what’s going to happen in the future.
Busy Busy Busy
When referring to school, January and February are the worst two months of the year. There are no breaks when the two built in snow days are already used up. Everyone seems to fall into this “slump” that’s hard to get out of.
It starts with the attentiveness of most students. It begins to falter as the month rolls on. There’s no motivation. Not strive to get to that next break to hang out with friends 24/7 and just have fun. Amongst all of this, there is still work to be done. It seems teachers feel the students suffering from lack of fun and staring at something other than the inside of a school for two months isn’t enough. The load of work seems to increase within these months. This is also the busiest time for me. I’m involved in Happiness and the show choir season has just begun, therefore, almost every one of my Saturdays is taken by competitions. Therefore, there is no time in my Friday and Saturday schedule to do anything but sleep and compete. This makes it extremely tough to get the massive amounts of homework done over the weekend that is assigned.
That’s only my weekend. While have a job and participating in extracurricular activities, one doesn’t have much free time to begin with. Then after the load of homework that is dumped in our laps is added into the equation, I’m left with slim to none. This means many late nights after all my activities to rush and get homework done. Most of the time I leave some of the easier things to do in a class the day of and hope we don’t have a pop quiz or activity where I can’t sneak in some time to get it done.
When adding my weekends to my weekdays, I have no time for anyone besides people in show choir. The only spare time I have to hang out and have fun are the mind numbing hours we need to find random things to do in the hallways of a strange school. This can be entertaining sometimes, but it gets old pretty quickly. All I ask for is some consideration through these long two months when it comes to school work. Is that too much to ask?
I’m not in any way trying to blame all my time management problems on others. I know it’s my choice to be in show choir and work and do everything I do, but it would make life a little easier if school work could stay within the 8 hours I already give to it.
It starts with the attentiveness of most students. It begins to falter as the month rolls on. There’s no motivation. Not strive to get to that next break to hang out with friends 24/7 and just have fun. Amongst all of this, there is still work to be done. It seems teachers feel the students suffering from lack of fun and staring at something other than the inside of a school for two months isn’t enough. The load of work seems to increase within these months. This is also the busiest time for me. I’m involved in Happiness and the show choir season has just begun, therefore, almost every one of my Saturdays is taken by competitions. Therefore, there is no time in my Friday and Saturday schedule to do anything but sleep and compete. This makes it extremely tough to get the massive amounts of homework done over the weekend that is assigned.
That’s only my weekend. While have a job and participating in extracurricular activities, one doesn’t have much free time to begin with. Then after the load of homework that is dumped in our laps is added into the equation, I’m left with slim to none. This means many late nights after all my activities to rush and get homework done. Most of the time I leave some of the easier things to do in a class the day of and hope we don’t have a pop quiz or activity where I can’t sneak in some time to get it done.
When adding my weekends to my weekdays, I have no time for anyone besides people in show choir. The only spare time I have to hang out and have fun are the mind numbing hours we need to find random things to do in the hallways of a strange school. This can be entertaining sometimes, but it gets old pretty quickly. All I ask for is some consideration through these long two months when it comes to school work. Is that too much to ask?
I’m not in any way trying to blame all my time management problems on others. I know it’s my choice to be in show choir and work and do everything I do, but it would make life a little easier if school work could stay within the 8 hours I already give to it.
Sunday, January 11, 2009
New Music
The best feeling ever is when you stumble upon a new, really good band. I love being able to just surf the web and find almost anything you like. This happened to me the other day. It’s almost like that first breathe of fresh air after being stuck in a stuffy classroom all day. It’s extremely refreshing to find something new. When I find something I really like, I get a little obsessed with them for a while. I listen to them almost every time I listen to music until I know all the words to all their songs and finally decide to move onto another band. It’s always nice to get new and exciting things to listen to.
Hell Week
Tomorrow marks the beginning of the infamous show choir "hell week". This is the week before our first competition, traditionally held at Linn-Mar. This week is to make sure we are prepared to compete and do our best. It is especially important this year. There are 12 groups competing at Linn-Mar that typically make it into finals. There are only 7 spots in finals. Therefore, there is a pretty great chance that we may not even make it into finals. I can’t think of any year that Happiness did not make finals. There’s a lot of pressure from alumni as well to do well because last year Happiness placed second after finals at Linn-Mar. They all say we have a reputation to uphold. It’s going to be a pretty stressful week.
Our planned schedule for the week goes as followed. Monday we are planning on starting practice at 6:30 until whenever we're done. This could mean we end practice around 11 or later. Tuesday we're planning on the same schedule. That's two nights in a row we'll have a close to a 5 hour practice. Then on Wednesday, our choreographer is coming to clean and give us pointers from 3:30 to 6 before our dessert concert on Thursday. The dessert concert is a concert in which all three show choirs, Chanteurs, Protégé, and Happiness, perform their 20 minute long show after the jazz choir, Moonlight, performs a couple of their songs. The dessert concert is a great way for alumni and family and friends to see the shows without following us around to different schools. It makes it easier for everyone. It’s also a great dress rehearsal for the choirs to run the whole show in front of an audience without the judges and get some feed back. Thursday night we have been instructed that we get 10 minutes to go say hi to family and everyone and let them tell us how good we were, and then we are expected to be back on the stage. There, our director will promptly tell us all of the things we did wrong and how to fix them. We will spend as much time as we need to after this to go over all of the mistakes he spotted until we get them right. Seeing as the concert starts at 7 and will not get over until around 8:30, this could very well go until 11 just like Monday and Tuesday.
Protégé is competing for their title Friday night and instead of having a practice, we are to go support and watch them. It will be a nice break from all the practice. While we are cheering, however, there are some rules we must abide by. First rule, there is to be absolutely no shouting of anyone’s name performing. It has been deemed as distracting and we don’t want to hinder our groups in any way. We must stop cheering when the group is singing, aside from the 5 seconds we are allowed to cheer and clap right after a soloist is done, is the second rule. The third and final rule we were told to follow is that we need to cheer loudly for the other groups, which includes our mass cheers such as “jump shake your booty”, without hurting our voices. We need to find the balance. We can cheer the proper way, by using our diaphragm and not our throats, but that would be the logical way to cheer so no one ever does it. It’s going to be very hard to get through the whole week without hurting voices or bodies before our first and hardest competition this season.
Our planned schedule for the week goes as followed. Monday we are planning on starting practice at 6:30 until whenever we're done. This could mean we end practice around 11 or later. Tuesday we're planning on the same schedule. That's two nights in a row we'll have a close to a 5 hour practice. Then on Wednesday, our choreographer is coming to clean and give us pointers from 3:30 to 6 before our dessert concert on Thursday. The dessert concert is a concert in which all three show choirs, Chanteurs, Protégé, and Happiness, perform their 20 minute long show after the jazz choir, Moonlight, performs a couple of their songs. The dessert concert is a great way for alumni and family and friends to see the shows without following us around to different schools. It makes it easier for everyone. It’s also a great dress rehearsal for the choirs to run the whole show in front of an audience without the judges and get some feed back. Thursday night we have been instructed that we get 10 minutes to go say hi to family and everyone and let them tell us how good we were, and then we are expected to be back on the stage. There, our director will promptly tell us all of the things we did wrong and how to fix them. We will spend as much time as we need to after this to go over all of the mistakes he spotted until we get them right. Seeing as the concert starts at 7 and will not get over until around 8:30, this could very well go until 11 just like Monday and Tuesday.
Protégé is competing for their title Friday night and instead of having a practice, we are to go support and watch them. It will be a nice break from all the practice. While we are cheering, however, there are some rules we must abide by. First rule, there is to be absolutely no shouting of anyone’s name performing. It has been deemed as distracting and we don’t want to hinder our groups in any way. We must stop cheering when the group is singing, aside from the 5 seconds we are allowed to cheer and clap right after a soloist is done, is the second rule. The third and final rule we were told to follow is that we need to cheer loudly for the other groups, which includes our mass cheers such as “jump shake your booty”, without hurting our voices. We need to find the balance. We can cheer the proper way, by using our diaphragm and not our throats, but that would be the logical way to cheer so no one ever does it. It’s going to be very hard to get through the whole week without hurting voices or bodies before our first and hardest competition this season.
Thursday, January 8, 2009
New Moon Rumors
There have been many rumors flying around about different things that are going to change, all revovling around the infamous Twighlight series, specifically the upcoming New Moon Movie. one of the rumors flying around was that Taylor Lautner would not be playing the role of Jacob again because he's currently too skinny for the role. In the New Moon book, Jacob discovers he is a werewolf and the director informed Lautner that he wants someone fit and has a lot to him. I personally don't like the idea that Lautner won't be playing the role of Jacob because as a viewer i don't appreciate when directors change the actor for a role when a sequal comes out. Ever actor has their own style and way they do things. Not one actor is the same. Two different actors may interpret a charactor a different way which will change it as well. It's never as good as the first. Lautner is supposedly working out every day to get buff and eating to gain weight to play the role in New Moon. He started doing this the day after the filming of Twighlight was over. He has gained 19 pounds so far and is looking to gain 10 more. Despite all the rumors, he was recently officially signed to act in Twighlight's sequal
There is some confusion on who is going to play the role of Leah in the new movie. Rumor has it that the director, Chris Weitz is choosing between two Disney actresses, Vanessa Hudgens or Brenda Song to play the role of Leah. It would be a terrible choice to choose either of these girls. Brenda Song is known from various Disney Channel shows and movies, such as the Suite Life of Zach and Cody. I know she's and actress but in the show she plays an extremely snotty and ditzy, rich girl who owns the hotel. This is way different from the charactor, Leah, Portrayed in the book as a quiet, wholesome girl. Branda Song's acting on the Disney Channel is some of the worst acting I have ever seen. If she can't even act ditzy how is she supposed to be able to act any better in the new movie. Vanessa Hudgens is known from the Disney movie High School Musical. If you thought Branda Song's acting is bad, you haven't seen disaster until you've seen Hudgens act. There is also a rumor that some of Hudgens's music will be on the new soundtrack. Non of the music she has produced or sang on the High School Musical is anything like any of the music from Twighlight I don't see why they would do that to the viewers of New Moon. All her music is extremely "poppy" and electronisized and total crap. I hope for the sake of the viewers, Chris Weitz makes the right decision to choose niether Brenda Song or Vanessa Hudgens.
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