Allison

woohoo

today has been a win day.

Got up before 7 (I just woke up :O dad was going to wake me up, maybe I heard him starting a fire in the stove) to get ready to go to All-Region tryouts. Arkansas (and I guess Kansas/Oklahoma/Missouri too) has been under a terrible weather warning, here it was for flash flooding. Up north it's ice storms and stuff ;o Anyways, it rained all day long. Wonderful weather for having to walk outdoors a lot. (Usually we practice our music in the bus and walk back and forth to the school building to see how far auditions have progressed) it's always sunny on all region tryout day :(

Anyways, I was 55th out of 83 percussionists auditioning, so I had a wait. I went to see what music they were posting for us to play, and when I looked at the first piece I about freaked out.

With All-Region, the directors decide on three sets of music, and then rotate them in and out, picking a few lines from each song in each set each year. Last year they completely changed the way percussionists tried out. Before, we would pick whether we would prefer to tryout as a snare, keyboard, or timpani player, where we had to play a longer harder song in our desired instrument, and then shorter, easier songs in the other two. This system was just fine, and I have no clue why they decided they had to do it.

Anyways, now everyone that plays percussion has to play long hard songs on all three.

The first music posted was timpani, since that was the one being done first (after trying out on timpani, you went to the keyboard room, and then to the snare) and it was the song my material I'd practiced had been from, but not what I was told the audition material would be from. I had a photocopy of that part and none of the rest, so when I realized I didn't have the music at all, I kinda started flipping out. The same thing happened with keyboard, but the snare parts overlapped.

having tried out for all-region five times before (and making it four times of those!) I'm kinda used to having to deal with their crap, so I searched out the director's lounge and made anxious faces at mr. ray (who was standing just inside the door, conveniently xD students aren't allowed in>:[) and explained the situation to him. He was all "WTF" and went inside, and hannah and dani and I watched him get really serious-mad-pissed off looking and he did his thing where he was gesturing very pointedly with his finger and it was just very obvious to us, knowing him as long as we have, that he was mad.

He came back out after a while, and apologized to me, told me I could kick him, cuss him, etc etc etc and I was on the verge of starting crying, and he said it was his fault because he hadn't kept tabs on what the percussion material had been. When it was originally given out, it just listed the pages the material was on. Then the asboa.org website had updated the listing with definite measures to play, narrowing it down to about a third of the music that the material would be chosen from. THEN they had revised it to read the whole exercise again a couple of months later. And of course there was no word from them about this. We had found out about this that morning. Other schools had just found out a couple of days ago. He went back inside, and when he came out again, he told me and the other guy from school that was trying out in percussion to go wait outside the audition rooms to see if they would change it.

we waited, and sure enough, a guy came (and he was really cocky, "I've got the new keyboard material! If you want to see it, you had better let me through!") and taped up a new section of music, one that was part of what I had practiced. The timpani music was changed too.

Mr. Ray told me later that he had been the first one to complain about this and I had been the one to bring it to his attention. He also mentioned that the Fort Smith Southside band director hadn't known about it either (one of the big schools in the region. Region II is from here west, and there's a lot of 4 and 5A schools; Russellville's, Fort Smith, Alma, Van Buren etc) and whereas no one would care if Pottsville's percussionists were screwed over, Southside was a matter of consequence (Their school hosts the Junior High All-Region clinic). It's not right, but it worked out in our favor this time, so I'm not complaining.

Anyways, that was some fun drama.

And now the part that really will mean anything after today; I made first band, ninth chair~ And I qualified for All State, so I get to try out for that too :D (oh man, if I made state, that would be so amazing x.x;; Not that I think I could; I remember how badly I failed the last time I qualified xD

Anyways, I don't have to go to school friday, and I get to play in a big ol' band and work up some big ol' music 8) This is my last year to do all region, and I was seriously worried I wouldn't make it at all, and to make first band for the first time in senior high is just awesome :D

but oh my gosh, if I do want to make state, I had better start practicing now x.x; according to asboa.org it's february 2nd :OOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO


OH! I almost forgot what else made today win!

I got my Christmas present from my brother 8)

250GB external usb drive, ftw~ it's so quiet :D and hopefully will last a long timex.x; I was so excited about getting to use this pretty skyblue usb cable that came with our router, then i realized this had its own usb cable too. But I plugged in teh blue one anyways because it's pretty :D and I named it Zombi, and I'm sure it's obvious why this is appropriate!

stu, was I going to name something else that or this something else? It seems like I told you but I can't think for th elife of me what else it could be on either count.

Tomorrow I shall have children (eighth and ninth graders) and shall teach them the love that is band and the joy that is marching.

I am freaking excited. And now I can't hardly sleep xD