I have so much to tell y'all! Hmmm... I guess I'll start with Tiger Band camp :3
So as you know it started Sunday, and seriously I had SOOO MUCH FUN. Granted, my shins and calves and feet have never been more sore, but other than that it was sooooooo exciting!!! I made a lotta friends in my clarinet section and there are a lotta cute guys in the band too >///w///<
They fed us for free for lunch and supper at the 5 (a dining hall near the band room) and the food was pretty good! Tuesday was when the returning members came back and I made a lotta friends :3 I found 3 clarinets who are into the same things I love - anime, Pokemon, video games, etc. And two of them are roommates and they live in the apartment complex RIGHT ACROSS THE STREET FROM MINE!!! I've already visited them twice and we had some epic N64 and Gamecube tournaments :333 It was a lotta fun and we had lotsa laughs too!
Oh yeah - I brought my 007 Goldeneye game for the N64 and we played a round with the Golden Gun, and I was the first lucky person to get it and I kept killing both my opponents from sight, I didn't even scope the weapon XDDD One guy, after dying for the 4th time in a row, said "OMG JUST LEMME AT LEAST GET AMMO BEFORE YOU KILL ME!!" XD
One of those guys is a Chinese guy named Xiingjian, but he always says "No one can pronounce my real name - not even me" so everyone calls him Harry XDD
The other guy, we call him by his middle name Ian, he's one of those slightly awkward people sometimes but he's a huuuuge sweetie. He always helps everyone in need and even asks if there's anything extra he can do to help out :3
So the whole week we started learning the pregame show (where we signal to the four corners and spell out LSU on the field) and that's in a kind of marching called the 'peak step'. It's basically like tiptoeing across the field, only faster and you pick up your feet till they're mid-calf level before putting them back down again. It is SO tiring. But I got better at it :3
Thursday is cut day. During the day, each person got called out of practice for a small playing audition, where we had to play Hey Fightin' Tigers and a piece called Living in America. We were allowed to use our music, so they didn't have to be memorized, but I had memorized Hey already. :p Then, at 7:00pm everyone went into the IFF (it stands for the Indoor Football Facility, I call it the indoor football field of course) and each section of the band (clarinets, piccolos, trumpets, mellophones, tubas/sousaphones, baritones, trombones, drums, saxophones) went onto the field and as a section, we marched the Pregame show and a short sequence with roll-stepping (where you step with your heel, toes pointed up, then roll all the way through to your toe) while the band directors and managers walked around with clipboards. They decide who to cut, who isn't doing well enough. You know we have more people than we need, we had like 425 and Tiger Band only needs like 375.
After that, you're free to go home, and every section goes off to have their "cut night party". Though we're not allowed to officially have one, because of school reasons and such with alcohol etc, so for example all the clarinets happened to "all go to IHOP at the same time". It's the last time we would all be together before some of us were cut! We left IHOP at like 12:15 am.
The official list of Tiger Band was posted by the time we left, so I called my piccolo BFF Becca and asked only if she checked if the list was up, and she told me I made it. But I could tell in her voice something was wrong T^T I was soooo shocked she didn't make it. The woodwinds have tough luck trying to get in the band mostly because Tiger Band is mostly brass and drums, but the piccolos have it worst. They only take like 6 or 7 piccs I think. We had 16 of them before cut night ):
The next day was practice again, and it was also the time for what we call the "pregame tap-outs". Basically every section goes on the field in turn and marches pregame, and the managers are VERY METICULOUS in watching how people do. If you make just one mistake, they tap you on the shoulder and you're out. If you aren't playing enough of the song, if you go the wrong way, if you overstep or understep the yardlines, if your peak step isn't high enough... they're really picky. One girl got tapped out because her peak step just wasn't high enough on beats 16, 17, and 18. O____e Wow. That's retarded. Anyway, I made it through though! I'm in pregame :3333 I'm in the top part of the U when we spell LSU and when we flip the letters I'm next to the corner of the L :D Look for me, guys!!!
On Sunday we had a uniform inspection (full formal uniforms with the shakos (hats) and everything) and played songs at something called the Chancellor's Welcome. Then after that we were free to go, and my mom took me to Copeland's to celebrate me being in Tiger Band and pregame! I love Copeland's so much... you gotta try what I had. Crabcakes and shrimp alfredo, but substitute the crabcakes for fried eggplant and substitute the angel hair pasta for bowtie pasta. SOOOO GOOODDDD <33333
Hm... and that's the end of band camp!! Each day I kept having more and more fun!!! I can't wait till next year :3
NOW FOR COLLEGE!!! Omg I'm a college freshman. It's so cool.
I made it to my classes just fine, and it doesn't even feel like school! I have more than an hour between all my classes so I don't have to rush at ALL. It's amazing. I only have one class on Mondays, and then band practice Tuesday through Friday, and a couple classes on those days also. I've been riding the bus to school and it's awesome. Free and also convenient!
I'm sorry this is kinda late, Idk if anyone wanted to know how my week went anyway, but I liked typing this all up :p If you read it all, thank you and here is a cookie!!~ *pelts you with cookies* XD
Eneko out!!
=^o^=
