Competitions 2013

Today was competition day.

(Earlier today, I had quickly gone through my song once with my accompanist.

I knew very well that once would not be enough.)

Get out of class early?
Eff yeah.
Realizing I won't get to say "bye" to friends first?
No wait-

Rehearsal time. Run through both our pieces.
Rushing to the bathroom to get dressed along with the other girls.
Wait I have to peeee-

I put on my dress from underneath. It won't go past my waist.
Curse you, tailored dress.
I try it the other way. Good.
...And now I'm fumbling with the zipper on the back and try not to stare as the other girls actually put on makeup before heading out.

Sometimes I really wonder how I pass off as a girl in this world.

Car trip! Naturally, I get stuck with riding with 5 guys in a small sedan.
 I try not to cry because the interior of the car which has been parked in the sun for hours now is burning my butt off.

Some mild harassment/awkwardness because I'm a girl.-_-
Good thing I actually like you people.

We make it to the school. We wait for what seems like forever. We're allowed in the room.
It's smaller than I thought it would be, but then again this school is like three or four times the size of ours.
More waiting.

A wave of silence falls over the group of anxious teenagers.
Suddenly, all eyes are on the man in the blazer.
He sits in his spot and introduces himself.

I can't hear a thing. Not because I'm far away.
He just can't speak over the loudness of my thoughts.

My body trembled all over.
"The amount of practice I have put into this is not enough", I thought to myself.

First goes up. The judge talks a lot, I noticed. Gives us pointers. I'd better be listening...
Eventually I zone out.
Minutes later and... he's still going ohmygawdstahp
The suspense is killing me.

Second goes up. More critiquing.
Third. Talking.
Some silly poses and singing techniques.
I start to ease up.
Fourt-
Wait-that's me- shit.
I start to tense up again.
Just relax and you'll sound better, just relax, pretend you're alone in the practice room...

Oh my God, my mom is here
wat no go away meh

This is it. I introduce myself , sing my first piece.
I sound pretty decent.
I like this song.

I sing my second piece, only to lose my place early in the song.
I mumble awkwardly, trying to find a good spot to jump back in.
My mind goes blank and I realize, I've almost completely forgotten the song.
Why does this happen to me?
I want to run out the door... but I don't.
I just wanted to be held and have someone tell me I could start over again.
I was afraid to ask, so I didn't.

I finish with the last line of the song.

I already ruined it. I'm done.

The judge was surprisingly nice about it, though I could feel a sense of frustration emanating from him, anger almost, because I just massacred a nice piece in front of him.

He tells me to go behind the piano, where I can see the music.
He tells me to start again.
I do.

This is what I was supposed to sound like.
This is what I wanted to prove to my fellow members, myself, and most importantly, my teacher and the judge.

THEN, HE COMPLIMENTS ME ON MY VOICE OMG
Other than giving me tips on memorization, he gave me no negative comments on my voice :O
I like died right there okay

The rest of the soloists go up.
We perform as a group.
We got this.

Then, we are told to wait outside and wait anxiously for our results.
I'm pretty sure our teacher stalled on leaving the room in order to fuel the suspense.

we wait...

She takes us outside.

I got a Good. All my other fellow soloists get Excellents and Superiors.
I get upset with myself again, but a "Good" is a generous score keeping in mind that I didn't sing one of my songs correctly.
"you did really good though", "that took guts", "at least you have next year" are the words of comfort my fellow members and friends give me, but I still feel mediocre about myself.

"Thanks guys," I say and dismiss them in order to take the attention off me and back to our teacher, who is waiting to tell us the final score.

"Superior" is all I hear, and our group screams in happiness as we're informed of the details for the next competition.

I feel hopeful again.
There are other opportunities.

And I'm going to (hopefully) do better when I get them.