Crushes

                Crushes are fun. Whether it is fantasy, or harmless flirtations, it just feels good. Crushes distract you from your problems, which everyone needs. If you are having a bad day, your crush makes it better. If you are having a good day, your crush is icing on the cake. Crushes take the stress off. They give you time to relax, forget about the craziness of your life, and just have fun. Crushes are nice because there is no pressure for them to turn into something. They are just a wonderful possibility.

                It is sad that high school students are so judgmental. You get labeled no matter what you do, and that label stays with you forever. If you flirt with a bunch of guys, you are a slut.  If you date multiple people, you are a skank. This is sad. It is not a crime to date multiple people. You have to experience everything to find out what kind of person you are most compatible with. You do not have to have a giant commitment with every person you date. Dating does not mean you are in love. It does not mean that you are having sex either. It just means that you are having fun together and trying each other out. If you only date one person and decide they are “the one,” you will never know what else is out there. So please, do not judge girls who are social. Make sure you know all the facts before you label someone as a slut of a skank. Are they really doing something wrong? Or are they just being a girl? (272 words)

Sleep

                Sleeping is lovely. Sadly, I never get enough of it. I get between five and six hours of sleep every night, which is not enough. For teenagers, sleep is very necessary. We need it to function properly, but between school, homework, and outside activities, no one gets enough.

                My alarm is set for 5:45 every morning. At the beginning of the year, I leaped out of bed right away without any problem. Lately, I have been staying in bed until about 6:15 and then dragging myself out of bed. I then have to rush through getting ready and skip breakfast (also not good) in order to leave my house at 6:50 for school. I am lucky that I live only a few blocks from school because if I lived further away, I would probably be late for school every day.

                Once I get to school, I am falling asleep in my classes. Most days it is a struggle to keep my eyes open during a lecture, and if we are watching a video, I lose the battle of consciousness about eighty percent of the time. I always feel really bad, but come on, we sit down all hour, you turned off the lights, and you put in a movie with a boring narrator that’s full of historians and scientists talking about boring things. It is like you are asking us to take a nap.

                After school I have practice. Between dance, voice, and show choir, I never get home earlier than eight o’clock. Most nights I don’t get home until nine. At practice, I get physically exhausted. At school, I get mentally exhausted. Certain things throughout the day make me emotionally exhausted. When I get home, all I want to do is pass out, but I have homework! So, my homework turns out sucky because I am totally tuned-out by the time I do it. I NEVER get to bed before 11:30. Most nights I don’t fall asleep until around midnight. Most weekends I can’t even sleep in because I have things to do!! Things have to change. (348 words)

Musical Mania

I

I love musicals. I listen to them everyday. I sing them twenty-four hours a day. I act them out all the time. I have seen so many of them on and off Broadway. I annoy people with how much I love musicals.

My house is full of music. My dad sings and so do all my brothers. My mother does so much backstage work with theater and thinks she can direct play much better than most directors she has met. My brothers, my father, and I have been in numerous musicals. My brothers and I all participated in a lot of children casts in many productions done by Theatre Cedar Rapids. My father is in them too and one my brother even got the lead role of Tony in West Side Story.

Last spring, I went to Chicago to see Les Miserables. It was the best thing I have ever seen. Every actor had so much talent and the music and story itself is amazing. I sat in the fourth row, which made it even more amazing. I was so lucky to be able to go and see it.

Last spring break, I saw two original cast Broadway musicals in New York during our choir trip. I saw Memphis, which was wonderful, and How To Succeed In Business Without Really Trying, starring Daniel Radcliffe. He was wonderful!!! He sang and danced and was charming and MELTED MY HEART. I love him so much. I was a little concerned about how well he would be able to pull off playing this part because he’s a movie star, but he was so fantastic I wanted to cry. He looked like he had been performing on a Broadway stage his entire life.

Now that one of my brothers has a job in New York City, I hope to visit him a lot and see a few Broadway shows while I'm there. I’m so excited and I can’t wait until I get to see another one!! (332 words)

Directions Directions Directions

            Directions are meant to be read. If you have a question, re-read directions. If you don’t understand something, re-read directions. If you were doing a project with a packet full of directions, why on earth wouldn’t you read and re-read it?

            For instance, Mizzay gave us a giant packet breaking down what exactly we had to do for our portfolio. There was a list of what we needed to include, questions we needed to answer for each commentary, and examples of the sticky notes. Our first assignment was to read through the packet of directions before we even started our portfolio. Obviously, some people didn’t do this. Sure, some people will have some questions after reading it, but they would be clarifications. When a teacher asks her students if they understand the task at hand, she does not expect to be bombarded with “I don’t get it” and “this packet is confusing.” It’s not only aggravating to the teacher, but it is also annoying to the students who actually read the directions and thus they understand what they are supposed to do.

            Let’s be smart students. If we are told to read directions, do it. Before you start you homework, read directions. Before you begin a test, read directions. Before you do anything that you should screw up, read the directions! Before you ask a stupid question to someone else, ask yourself, “did I read the directions? Did I utilize the resources put out for me and engage my brain? Am I being smart and proactive or annoying and ditzy?”

            I will say it one last time. Please read directions. If you do not want to seem annoying to the entire rest of your class, do your work. Think before you speak please. (293 words)

My Thought on Blogs Part 2

You say that we can write about anything we like, but this doesn't work for me. The only time I want to write about something is when I'm stressed and want to write about personal things. I can't write about this for three reasons: First, I don't want to put my feelings on display in the internet for anyone and everyone to see. I'm not that kind of person and that could lead to some bad things. Second, you told us that if we can't use their names, we shouldn't post it, which totally makes sense to me. Third, whenever I'm stressed or angry or confused, I write a letter by hand. There's just something about physically writing my feelings down that is therapeutic to me. Also, a letter isn't really a blog and I like to tuck it away into a spot that only I know about. If it was on display on the internet, that would defeat the purpose of a personal letter that you want to write, but not send. If I do find something to write about, I never want to finish it. I write about a sentence or two during class and then save it for later because I can't work when there are any noises or distractions around. By the time I get home though, I'm totally bored by the topic and don't want to write the blog. I justify not writing it by telling myself that I have time to write completely new ones. This sucks because this cycle keeps going until I have to cram a bunch of crappy blogs in at the last second. And when I do this, I just get disappointed with myself.

I plan on trying harder to be self-sufficient in second term, but it's really hard for me. The stress of junior year is literally three times as much as sophomore year. I'm very sorry that you have had to experience mediocre Rachel so far this year, Mizzay. I hope that you are able to see the straight A student that I really am by the end of the term. I also regret being distracted by my grandfather's illness and death the first month of school, but I couldn't avoid, prevent, or help that situation. This year really snuck up on me and I am paying for it right now. Catch-up is the worst game to have to play and I will try my best to NEVER have to play it again. (415 words)

All State Babay: Results

After we returned to the gym, I took a nap. I changed back into my sweats and set up a bed in the bleachers. It was not very comfortable at all, but I managed to sleep on and off for a bit. I cuddled up with my blanket decorated with kitty ballerinas and my comfy pillow, and I closed my eyes and convinced myself that the noisy gym full of singing high school students was actually a lullaby for me to go to sleep to.

When I woke up, it was time for lunch! I had pizza with my friends and fellow choir nerds and we talked about a lot of choir and non-choir related things. It was really fun. I then occupied my time watching youtube videos, teaching a dance to my friends in front of everyone, and going back and forth to the cafeteria to eat and kill time. The first list was supposed to be posted at three. This didn’t happen. The recall list was posted though. That is a lost of people that the judges want to hear by themselves in order to figure out if they made the choir or not. I was not on that list so it meant I either made it, or didn’t make it.

One of my alto friends and I were in the cafeteria when it happened. We were munching on cookies and talking about girl stuff when I got called. My friend told me to get my but up to the gym and wouldn’t tell me why. I kind of knew then that I made it. On my way there, though, we passed my old choir teacher. He congratulated me. We then sprinted to the gym and that’s when I saw it. My name was posted up on a giant orange list on the gym wall.

I felt so fantastic! I called my entire family within five minutes of finding out. It was outrageous. Once the entire process was done, it was about eight o’clock. The day was scheduled to end at around 5:30. Kennedy got seventeen singers in. That’s a school record. Linn Mar got sixteen singers and one alternate in. Kennedy was victorious!! We got the most singers in out of all of the Cedar Rapids and surrounding schools! It was an awesome day! When I got home, I went to Pei’s to eat a celebratory dinner. A terrific ending to a terrific day. J (407 words)After we returned to the gym, I took a nap.

All State Babay: Audition Time

I think it is a very good thing that I had my freak out at five in the morning, because if it was any later, it might have messed up my audition a great deal.

Once everyone was at Kennedy, we started to warm up. This got my mind off the actual audition and I started to focus on the singing part. Warming up really helped me calm down. Also, people were freaking out about a tenor being late, which took my mind off of things. This was a big deal because a few days before, our director made it very clear to us that if you arrived late to Kennedy and missed the bus, we weren’t going to wait for you. You would have to find your own transportation to the auditions. We then loaded up onto the bus with our sack breakfasts, pillows, blankets, and music, and started our two-hour bus ride to the audition. I shared a seat with one of my fellow sopranos, and we talked the whole way there. Normally I wouldn’t talk so much that early in the morning, but I didn’t want to sleep, I wanted to warm up my voice, and I liked the distraction of conversation.

When we finally go there, it was go time. We all huddled up in the gym around the portable keyboard and marked our music and sang through the audition selections. If you aren’t familiar with the All State audition process, it goes like this: Everyone learns about full songs that are really hard and get them as close to perfect while singing with 3 other people on different voice parts than you acapella. Then, once you arrive at the audition place, you are told what portion of the song you are singing. For the audition, you sing not even an eighth of the giant song you had to learn and you don’t even sing all of the songs. You have no way of knowing what you will have to sing for the auditions so you have to prepare the entire song and hope you are lucky enough to get a portion you are good at.

After we warmed up for the second time together, we were on our own. Because my group had to audition around 9:45, I immediately changed into my nice clothes, did my makeup, and revamped my hair. I stood around and talked for about fifteen minutes and then my group and I started to rehearse the audition on our own. After we finished practicing, our directors came over and it was time for us to head to our actual timed “warm up.” We walked around the maze of a school and finally arrived at a little home ec room with a kitchen, a piano, and a table. When we were singing, I got kind of scared. I was going kind of sharp on pitch and our group’s adrenalin was affecting our singing.

After a scary warm up, me, my group mates, and our directors headed down to the room where we would be singing for a judge. While we were waiting, I saw my old choir teacher from last year! He wished us good luck, and it made me want to do really well for him. My group and I took a big deep breath, and then headed in for our dreaded audition.

The lady judging us was really nice (well, at least nice-looking). She was a small woman with a pleasant smile. When we started singing, I forgot she was even there. For the first few songs I was focused on singing well and wasn’t even concerned about the judge. Then I started to notice her writing things down. This made me nervous. I couldn’t tell whom she was writing about. There was a specific column for the tenor, bass, alto, and soprano, but she didn’t seem to be writing in mine. This freaked me out because I thought she stopped listening to me. As a judge, you listen for specific parts in a song. If the singer messes up, then you decide they automatically didn’t make the choir and you stop listening to them. I was so scared that this was the case for me. I was also really concerned because there is a very hard part with close harmonies that the judges picked for an audition. I felt really sad because there was a clash between the soprano and alto that I nailed during warm up, but it sounded iffy during the audition and it was my fault.

Anyway, we finally finished our seven-minute audition that lasted forever, and returned to the gym to wait for hours for the results. (782 words)

Confessions of an Ugly Stepsister

Maguire, Gregory. Confessions of an Ugly Stepsister. New York: HarperCollins World, 2000. Print. (252/368 pages)

            Gregory Maguire takes a classic fairytale and adds an interesting twist in Confessions of an Ugly Stepsister. He creates a background story to let the reader get to know the classic characters of “Cinderella” and look inside of what they are like behind the façade of their usual portrayals. I believe that his modifications to a fairytale everyone already knows and loves brings it new life and intrigue.

            I have very much enjoyed reading Maguire’s book thus far. Aside from the beginning, he has kept the book very interesting to read. He shows the characters with completely different attitudes that I even questioned if this was an extension of a fairytale. He steers clear of all of the stereotypes of the characters and gives them new personalities that make his book seem like an entirely different story for the first half. In his book, you are able to see the events that made the characters what they are. You can see the evolution of the stepmother becoming nasty and Cinderella becoming a quiet maid. Maguire’s use of the attentive stepsister, Iris, as the narrator is very skilful. She is able to observe the happenings of the house, show the reader her opinion, and give the reader hints as to others’ opinions as well.

            This book is a hard read because of its use of old English. He uses were uncommon words during his narration and the characters talk in a way that is quite different to the way we speak now. I have had to look up multiple words throughout my reading of this book and read several passages more than once. There have been times when I thought I knew what a character was thinking, but then I looked up the word they used and it turned out to be very different then I perceived. I also have to go through some parts very slowly and read passages more than once because they were too hard to comprehend by just reading it once. The book is very readable, but sometimes I needed to move slower to get all of the meaning.

            The beginning of this book was also very hard to follow. It started in the middle of action which confused me. It also was written in the old English which I wasn’t used to yet. Starting this book was very hard and I actually tried it more than once before I was hooked on this story. Aside from that, this book is a very interesting story with an intriguing plotline that I would recommend to just about anyone.(445 words)

Mercy

Picoult, Jodi. Mercy. New York: Washington Square, 2001. Print. (400 pages)

            Jodi Picoult is a fantastic writer. She does such a good job of capturing her reader and making it impossible for them to set the book down. This is one of many Picoult books I’ve read and it definitely lived up to its author’s legacy. Picoult is known for taking risks in her writing and exploring subjects that are sometimes avoided by most writers. Before reading this book, I had a very black and white understanding of murder, but this book showed me a whole bunch of gray area that I never thought about.

            Picoult’s strategy of organizing the book into multiple narrators adds a very nice effect to the reader’s experience. In most books, the reader only gets to view inside the main character’s thoughts, but Picoult’s style allows you to look inside each person’s mind. Because of this, the reader has multiple opinions throughout the book. You can like a character during one chapter, then find out on another that they are actually very selfish and cowardly and decide to hate them. You could also hear about a husband killing his wife and think he was a monster, but then as the story went one and facts and thought processes were revealed, you would change you r mind and think he was innocent.

            Parts of the book that were a little hard to follow were the flashbacks, the murder alibi, and the opinions of the main character, Cam. There wasn’t a very big change between the behavior of the characters between the present and the past in this book which made flashbacks confusing. Sometimes I would start reading a section and then get really confused because I didn’t know why this event was happening. For instance, if the main married couple just had a fight and then the book immediately went into a memory about fishing, that would be hard to follow. The murderer’s alibi was hard to follow because it was incomplete for the entire first three quarters of the book. Events of that night were also revealed at different times throughout the story which sort of jumbled-up the alibi in my mind. The most difficult part, however, was keeping track of Cam’s thoughts. He went back and forth throughout the entire book either sympathizing with the murderer, or completely hating him. I guess this makes sense in real life, but when his though process was written down, it was a little hard to follow. Plus, before each section there was a hand written note to mark the beginning of it. These were confusing because it was clear that they were written by Cam to someone else, but the “someone else” was hard to decode. IT also seemed like these notes were from the future, which caused even more confusion. To avoid this, I normally read the note, but didn’t dwell on it too long.

            Picoult did a wonderful job in Mercy providing the reader with an intriguing and dual sided story to a very complicated subject. I would recommend this book to anyone wishing to read about a subject that tests the boundaries set by our societies today.(533 words)

Do You Believe in Love at First Sight?

I was reading a magazine the other day and the topic of "love at first sight" came up. I've thought about this idea from time to time, but not really. Some people are so focused on love that they lose track of themselves. Some don't open themselves up to it at all. Most everyone has a warped vision of love in their minds due to all of the television, celebrities and movies out there. Sometimes you get the message of perfect love, sometimes love filled with conflict, and sometimes you see people get married just to get money out of it... **cough kim kardashian cough**

I do believe in love at first sight, but I think that there are many misconceptions about it. Most of the time when people think that they are experiencing love at first sight, they really are just experiencing attraction to a person’s beauty. I believe that when you experience love at first sight, you feel an emotion that you have never been able to feel before. The world stops and this person is all you think about. Even so, this doesn’t mean that you need to hop in a car and find the nearest wedding chapel. Marriage is a big commitment that takes time to know you are ready to make. You need to take some time to find out all of the little quirks that make you love this person even more, the sacrifices you will have to make, an all of the characteristics of this person you’re going to have to learn to live with. Love at first sight is very realistic, but it doesn’t happen everyday. When it does, don’t stop your life to be with them, just spend time with them. I believe that there is a perfect match for everyone out there, but we don’t always find him or her. (311 words)

Handle With Care by Jodi Picoult

Mizzay said we could do this so here's my Annotated bibliography on the novel Handle With Care by Jodi Picoult:

Picoult, Jodi. Handle with Care: a novel. New York, NY: Washington Square P, 2009. (477 pages)

                I enjoy Jodi Picoult books a lot. They are fiction, but they give you a lot of factual information. Every time I read one of her books, I learn about a disease, religious views, law enforcement, or criminal investigation procedures. I enjoyed Handle with Care because I learned about a disease I didn’t even know existed, called Osteogenesis Imperfecta. It is a disease where a person’s bones are very brittle and break easily and do not grow to normal size. It was also very interesting to learn about the daily life of a family with a severely disabled child. Even though it was fiction, Jodi Picoult is very good at doing research and made the fictional family just like many real families in the United States today.

                I really liked Picoult’s usage of multiple narrators. She included so many characters ranging from the mother and father to the best friend, daughter, and lawyer. Utilizing these many points of view really made the story come to life. It also created multiple protagonists. You would sympathize with one character, but then you would hear another character’s thoughts and then change your opinion. The usage of different narrators also broke the book up nicely. The plotline did not jump around too much and it was a fairly smooth read. Sometimes, you would get confused because Picoult put in multiple flashbacks spread throughout the book, but you could tell if it was a flashback most of the time depending on the certain friendships and actions each character performed. The most challenging part of the book was keeping up with the trial portion of it and keeping each character’s motive and train of thought straight. Many characters kept changing their mindset throughout the entire book, which could get a bit hard to follow at some points. But aside from that and some challenging words, it was a nice read.

                The book was not only separated into narrator chapters, but also sections. You could tell the start of a new section because it started with a recipe. This was significant because the main character was a cook. These recipes confused me because I wasn’t sure if I needed to read them or not. Sometimes the recipe would foreshadow what was to come in the upcoming section, but sometimes it wouldn’t. I didn’t find these recipes very necessary because I’m not going to bake them and they didn’t seem like an important aspect to the plotline.

                Even though there were a few setbacks to this book, I highly recommend it and any of Picoult’s other books to anyone who is intrigued by the workings of our judicial system and who wants to learn something new about a relatively unexplored subject. (474 words)

Horoscopes

Lately, I have become horoscope crazy. Right now, I have a horoscope sent to my email every day. I also occasionally look them up on a bunch of different websites and then pick out which ones I like the most. I also look them up in the paper or my Seventeen magazines all the time. I'm not exactly sure why I read them so much, but I just do.

When I read them at the beginning of the day, I like knowing what will be coming (or at least thinking I do). Sometimes if it says something about a “secret admirer” then I go into the day feeling very confidant. Once I read that horoscope, I make a decision to be myself that day. I choose to be more social rather than reserved. If it says something about hard work, then I choose to be very productive and focused that day. Other days, I look at the horoscope and just laugh. If it talks about something ridiculous like money (I have none) or work then I just ignore it. Also, sometimes if it says something really romantic, I just laugh and think “Yeah right! I don’t even have a boyfriend.” Horoscopes never have a negative impact on me, which I guess is part of the reason I read them. They always start my day off right.

            When I read them a few days late, I think back to that day of the week and try to compare my day to what the horoscope said. Sometimes I’m amazed that it was really accurate, but then other times I chuckle at how off track it was. Sometimes, the horoscopes cause me to look at a situation from a different angle.  If I was so focused on the negative impact at the time, looking back at it through a horoscope helps me see how maybe it was actually a good thing in disguise.



            I’m not saying that horoscopes are an awesome thing that you should build your life around, I just think it’s fun to read them. I’m not superstitious and I by no means will ever adjust a decision of mine because a horoscope told me so, but I just think they’re interesting. I think it’s really cool how people predict events through the stars and I’m curious as to how they do it. (392 words)

My Thoughts on Blogs

I don't enjoy blogging. Lo siento Mizzay. I will do it, but I don't get any satisfaction from doing it. The only time I write is if I have to for a specific deadline or if I have an issue on my mind. You may say, "Hey! You do both of those things with blogs!" but actually I don't. Yes, I realize that we have a deadline of thirty blogs by the end of the trimester, but sadly, this has little effect on me. I also realize that I can write about anything I want to, but in reality, I can't.

I thrive in a structured environment. I need someone to tell me what to do and when to do it by, and I will do it. I will know what they want me to know and I will be prepared for whatever is happening. Sadly, this year I have a bunch of teachers that expect me to do a whole bunch of things on my own. You may say "Hey! We're getting you ready for college! You're completely n your own then!" but you aren't looking at it from my perspective. My first two years of high school, my teachers were awesome. They were very interactive, used activities, and handed out worksheets that were actually due. This year, it's completely different. Pretty much all of my teachers expect me to do everything completely on my own. Mizzay, you are a good teacher, but you are still on this list. Yesterday, I FAILED an AP Biology quiz because my teacher sucks so much. It was my first F on something as big as that quiz. My teacher lectures at us, not to us, and doesn't give any handouts. He gives limited "optional," not extra, credit that can be turned in with the test, but because it has a far away due date, I don't do it in advance and then don't have time to do it before the test when I'm cramming. His class frustrates me so much, but I can't drop it because I just can't, and I can’t switch teachers because he is the only teacher who teaches that stupid subject. I used to enjoy science before this year. Normal biology and chemistry were awesome and I was even considering going into the medical field, but after this year, I'm not so sure if I should go into medicine. I can't tell if I'm not good at biology or if I just have a bad teacher and thus am not learning. I love math so much. I think it's because you learn a formula and use it over and over again. You work out a problem until you get the right answer. It doesn't get much more structured than that.

In regards to AP Lang, I would suggest putting some tighter deadlines on our blogs. Maybe require two or three per week rather than having them all due at the end of the term. Also, the practice worksheet you gave on subordination helped a lot. If you could give some more of those, that would be wonderful! I learn by using terms over and over again and worksheets aide this process a ton. (535 words)

All State Babay: Breakfast Breakdown

I woke up at four o'clock October 23, 2011. It was that start of a very long, stressful, fun, and anxiety-filled day. After I dragged myself out of bed, I threw on some sweat pants, poofed my hair, stuffed nice clothes, my music, a pillow, blanket, and make up into my bag, and waited for my friend to pick me up. At 4:45 we left for Perkins to eat breakfast before our auditions in Manchester. On our way there, we drove past our director’s house and guess what! He was just leaving his house! We decided to block his driveway and wave to annoy him, which was super fun. Once we got to Perkins, I couldn’t eat. All I ordered was a chocolate muffin and some orange juice. I was so nervous that I only had about three bites of my muffin and a few sips of my orange juice. It was a really good muffin and I even got a to-go bag, but my stomach was too tied up in knots to eat anything.

While we were waiting in line at the cash register, I had a breakdown. I was getting really nervous thinking about the auditions. You have to understand that I was feeling a ton of pressure to do well that day. My brother, Stephen, was a choir god when he was at Kennedy. He transferred here his sophomore year and was instantly one of the best singers. His SOPHOMORE year (first year at Kennedy) he was in Happiness Inc. and had a huge solo that he got awards for, Chamber Choir, Concert Choir, made All State, and only missed 1 POINT in his show choir audition that year according to the choir director at that time. He went on in high school to get lead roles in musicals, more award-winning show choir solos, awesome and hard choir solos, and he made All State three times out of the four he tried out. My brother Joe, who is two years younger than Stephen, also made All State and was in constantly in the front row for show choir. This is my junior year and it was my first time trying out for All State and I felt so much pressure to get in. I couldn’t be the girl who was supposed to be good and then just let her family down. In addition to all of my brothers’ pressure, my father had been talking to me like I had already made it for about two weeks leading up to the auditions. He did the same thing when I tried out for Moonlight Express this year and guess what! I didn’t make it. I didn’t want to have to deal with his feeling sorry for me. Plus, I had my voice teacher’s in my head telling me “sopranos are a dime a dozen and you need to make that judge really notice you.” That statement didn’t start to sound terrifying until this moment in time.

The breakdown went like this: First, I was kind of just freaking out and saying “I can’t do this” and things like that, but then I started shivering and started to believe that I couldn’t do it. I was about ready to go to my director and tell him that I couldn’t audition and go home, literally. Then I sat down and continued to freak out and one of the other sopranos tried to come and smile and comfort me, but it didn’t work. I then went over to my friend who was across the room, said I needed a hug and started to bawl. I love her so much. She comforted me and told me that everything will be fine and even if I didn’t make it, the entire process is wacked up and totally subjective. She told me I was an amazing singer and I didn’t need a judge to tell me that. That is the definition of an amazing friend. I then went into the bathroom to compose myself and blow my nose and all that jazz (thank goodness I hadn’t put any make up on yet). While I was calming down, another one of my friends can into the bathroom and started to ask me what was wrong and stuff like that, and I started to bawl again. She started to try and comfort me, but she wasn’t very good at it and was actually making me cry harder, so then she started to talk to my about her brother’s new girlfriend and that made me smile. I finally got back to normal (but I still had a blotchy, red face), paid, and headed back to Kennedy to warm-up. The time at this point is about six o’clock. I realized later that in the midst of my freak-out, I FORGOT my muffin at PerkinsL. (805 words)

All State Babay: The Preparation

Saturday October 23 was one of the best days of my life! It also was an extreme emotional roller coaster. To preface, I will take us back to a few weeks ago.
 

Singing is hard work! You have to focus on sooo many different things at once and the thought of being judged on it is terrifying. I was placed into a quartet for All State auditions in early September. Our directors kept switching us around until the beginning of October when the audition-ers were finalized. People thought that the quartets were finalized too. We were wrong. The day before we had "mock auditions" for All State at Washington High School, our directors decided to switch our quartets around. They told us that they accidentally messed up when they selected us before. This made so many people angry because we didn’t have time to get used to our group before we had to be critiqued. Instead of giving us really nit-picky and constructive advice, we were going to get general things because we had to start from scratch. All of the work we did with our former quartets went down the drain.

Once we started to get comfortable with our groups, things started turning around. We were working with a director or on our own during every choir class. It actually got pretty annoying. All we did everyday was sing the All State music over and over. On the up side, our quartets improved a lot because of this. I also became good friends with my quartet members, which I enjoyed a lot because I had THE YUMMIEST bass! Really, all I wanted to do was stand and stare at him during the practices. I even got his number and found out that he’s a super nice guy and is really friendly and funny in addition to his major hotness!! (He’s my future husband!! Shhhhhh don’t tellJ). So anyway, I, my bass, and my alto were feeling pretty good about our audition. We were confident enough that we wouldn’t humiliate ourselves in the audition. Our tenor was a different story.

What I’m about to say is meant in the nicest way possible. The tenor we had is a really nice guy and all, but he just wasn’t getting it. He was very quiet and even stopped singing in some places because he didn’t know his part. Our choir teacher told us at the start that if someone wasn’t getting the music, they wouldn’t be allowed to audition. This caused much confusion with the rest of my quartet because it was less than a week before the auditions, our tenor was struggling and fit the description our teacher set for those who would not audition, and yet he hadn’t been cut yet. I even talked to my teacher 3 days before the audition to figure out what the heck was going on. He said that he knew that our tenor wasn’t ready but he wasn’t sure if he wanted to cut him because he didn’t want to crush his spirit. Plus, apparently you could barely hear him while the rest of us were singing so my teacher told me that he didn’t think that our tenor’s singing would affect our audition. I was ok with this, except that our group practiced without him before, and we got a lot more done without him. When he was there, we always had to wait for him to get his music organized, he made excuses a lot, and we ALWAYS had to plunk out his parts on the piano. Without him, we were able to focus on the musicality of our singing and only had minor pitch problems compared to his major mess-ups.

Finally, two days before the audition, our choir teacher listened to our quartet practice and decided to “pull the plug” (his words). It wasn’t a very big deal to our tenor because he was a sophomore so he had two more years ahead of him, the teacher actually talked to him the day before about maybe being cut, and he also had a sinus infection or something so he wasn’t “singing his best” anyway, according to him. After he left, my trio and I worked very hard for the next two days to adjust to having one less person. It wasn’t a very big change, but we still had to adjust.

I’m very thankful to my group because we all took the process seriously and worked super hard. I had so much fun with them and couldn’t have asked for a better trio. (763 words)