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.