Mood: celebratory
Topic: latest news
yesterday was the state championships for pennsylvania. boy what a hard day it was. i left home about 9:00 am and went to arby's to get something to eat for lunch later on and for some strange reason arby's was closed that day. so i went to mcdonalds and i could get from there was an egg mcmuffin and bacon. so then it was time to go get batteries so i went on over to the travel shop across the road thinking that they would have batteries but they didn't. wouldn't you think that a travel store would have batteries? so then i went over to this other place and got batteries there for like six bucks. geez.
so then i arrived at school and waited for a while and we hacky sacked for a while and then rehearsed for about an hour. then it we had an hour to eat our lunch (my egg mcmuffin and bacon for me) and then it was time to go. it was about a little less than three hours with a rest stop on the way to our destination which was the j. birney crum stadium. mr. forney said that we hit that same rest stop on every trip so many times that they're going to have to name it after us. lol.
we went to the changing rooms and then we got to practice and warm up by this lake and that's when it started to sprinkle some rain. it had clouded over and it suddenly got a bit cooler but no one really thought of it. just a little rain wouldn't hurt anything. so then it was time for us to go on after a little while of practice.
by that time it was a little later in the evening and it had grown a bit darker and the rain was now pretty steady and it got very cold. it was time, though, for us to go on to do our show and i couldn't help but think how uncomfortable it is to be cold, damp, and have to use the bathroom at the same time but really we had no choice. it started raining a little harder as we marched onto the field and by the time we got behind our backdrops it was raining ever so slightly harder and the sky was darker.
the field was astr turf so i was mainly worried about slipping (because it was wet) and falling down and all but i made sure to run slower out onto the field. as we were going into the first we moves it began raining even harder. it felt like it was about thirty degrees or something and the rain hurt when it hit my face. and the part where we have to play down on one knee was pretty cool. also, the cymbals in the pit had a lot of condensation on them and every time that someone hit them, a huge spray of water would fly off. it was very dramatic
we reached this part of the show called "the morning of the dragon" and the sky opened up and just poured like there was no tomorrow down on us. i could sort of see earl (one of our drum majors) up on the podium conduction. and then as we were going forward at one point, the wind blue the rain right into our faces. i thought my hat was going to blow off at that point and thank goodness it didn't. the rain didn't let up for a second and it came time for us to die on the field and it was still pouring rain. so it was pretty weird for a moment because i died as the rain was like pounding into my face and looked around and i could see everyone else dying and it was like it was the actual vietnam war for a second.
and then afterwards we all had to run off the field as usual and it was still pouring but it had lessened slightly. on the way back to the bus we would see people and hear them say how much they enjoyed the show and how cool it was and that's a good feeling you know? and then everyone was soaked all the way through and my pants were wet from like the knees down and my jacket was soaked all the way through. however, my black shirt was dry and everything else so i just threw on a sweatshirt because that's all i had. and it got pretty warm in the back of the bus because the heat was on full blast.
and then it came time to go out for awards and it started sleeting and we could see some hail and stuff too. and austin, kristin, ted, swopey, jonathan, kassie, and jeremy decided to stay on the bus instead of going out into the rain and stuff. we were the only ones to stay behind. later on, we heard that the awards were about to be presented so we all went out (because it stopped raining) to the stadium and watched from the sidelines.
they gave some special awards first when it was our group's turn to be announced. and this one group won like three of the special awards (we won the "best music" award, by the way) and we all thought that perhaps they would beat us. and then they announced the scores. there were four bands in our group (group 2 open) so it was an agonizing wait. and it turns out that the group that won those three special awards only finished third. and after they announced the fourth and third places (not us) we were psyced because that meant we would win either first or second. and then the announcer announced the second place band and it wasn't us! so edna (swopey's mom) grabbed me and hugged me so tightly that i thought that maybe my head would pop off. then it was announced that we had won first place and we were state champions!
it feels good to be the best in the state i think. it's quite a title and i hope we can defend it. i took a lot of pictures and that's one of them to the left. that's one of our drum majors (beckie) with our huge trophie. and afterwards, on the way home, we raided taco bell and burger king and ate a lot of food. and then (several hours later) as we were arriving home, we were pulling off the exit ramp and i noticed a police car pull out in front of the first bus (we took two buses) with these flashing lights on and one pulled out behind us (i was in the last bus) and it had its flashers on too.
and then we were all like "what's going on??" and then mrs. harvey said that since we were state champs, we had a police escort take us through town and we were allowed to like hang out of the windows and yell and cheer and stuff. that was very cool. it felt so neat to have a police escort. boy being state champs sure have a lot of benefits i guess.
ziggy
ps: oh yeah forgot to mention. we beat musselmen at the last competition at allegany by nearly two points. lol ;)
Updated: Monday, 18 October 2004 6:10 AM EDT
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