So, I had a band competition at NFA on Saturday. The colorguard had learned some new work and started to put it to drill, but it wasn't very clean. Whatever. So, we got some new flags for the second movement.
In the first ones, they're red with orange, black, and gold designs. It looks like fire. For the first movement, Spain, we spin with those. For the second movement, we each have our own flag with a certain color that goes with the color of our vests. I have blue, and the flag, though just a plain dark blue, is really pretty.
So, we marched through Spain with our flags of fire and then started into the second movement, Swing Swing Swing. We successfully made the flag change, and spinning wasn't that hard, for these flags were of almost the same weight as the others. Marching was pretty easy too. But there was a certain part where the flag work and marching was really awkward (stupid guy on the DVD!!!) and I dropped my flag in the move brutal way and my recovery wasn't that good. I was doing a toss, a toss that I had pretty much mastered, when a stupid big gust of wind came and made my flag fly into the back of Amber's head. She's alright though.
Not knowing what to do, I snatched my flag up as fast as I could and went at attention, since everyone was doing so anyway.
Then we marched the rest of the show, into Old Man River/That Ole' Black Magic, where we didn't have any flag work, and then we marched off.
So, when we got a distance far away enough for nobody to hear us, we cheered, for this performance seemed a lot better than the one at Cranston East. We had pictures taken, hugs and high-fives were exchanged, and we were all skipping around to the buses to change.
It was dark, but I found my seat on the "quiet" bus (bus 1. the freshman guard, the trombone player, and the bari-sax and I have our own spots on that bus. Oh, and most of the pit and the drumline is on that bus too.) Since this bus was a lot less crowded than the party bus, I had my own seat, so I changed into my band shirt and a pair of dance pants (comfy ^___^) and then I got off the bus to find my Upperclassperson (Bri) and the brass captain (my brother Dave) were standing around, so I tagged along with them while carrying Bri's water bottle, because she let me have some water.
So we went to the stands to watch the rest of the bands perform, and I had a nice time watching, but a bunch of guys that Dave knows were making some pervy comments and making shapes with soda cans, and Dave was all, "Katie, look away. Guys, we got a pair of virgin eyes over here!"
I don't wanna know what they were doing.
So I started having some conversations with Tory, Amber, and Emily (the trombone player) and chatting with Bri, and it was all cool and stuff. And Ben even sat kinda close by, and half the time, I was thinking to myself, "Katie, just get over it, stop staring at him, he may be really cute and all, but it's rude to stare."
Then the awards ceremony was about to star, and Dave left with the other captains. The entire band went to the fence line, as close to the field as we could, and watched as we took home first place in our division, best percussion, best music, best visual, and best effect. No, we didn't get best colorguard, but I wasn't expecting to. But you know what? We've still come a long way, considering what we've had to go through.
So, the awards ceremony ended, and we all started back towards the buses. The bari-sax (Damian) and I happened to be walking next to each other, and so we're about to jump over a little fence-type thingie to prevent cars from going onto the grass in a school area, I trip and catch myself. Damian then laughed and said that he knew that someone was gonna trip on that. So I, still holding Bri's big water bottle, threatened to hit him with it, but then decided not to because, as I said to him, "I'm not a very violent person. Usually."
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"Usually?"
I nodded and smiled a little deviously. "Yeah, you see, at one moment, I could be your best friend, then at the next, I'd wanna kick your a** because you forgot to tie your shoe, tripped, and had to get a few stitches in your head."
I then noticed a familiar, out of the corner of my eye, turn his head toward me, as though he were listening. Knowing who the figure was, I just smiled to myself and kept walking.
"Schizophrenia." Tory said as she and Emily were skipping to the buses.
I raised an eyebrow. "It's not schizophrenia! Jeez, get your terms right!" I called after them, laughing. They just skipped away.
Feeding off of their positive, laugh-y energy, I started to skip too. And hum a little random tune.
"Let's just skip to the buses! La de da de da..." I sang as I skipped forwards, backwards in the same direction, and almost backwards down the stairs. "Gah, don't wanna go backwards, now do I?"
After defeating the stairs, I noticed that both Damian and Ben were pretty much in step, skipping along as I was.
I hadn't expected Ben to join in. But nonetheless, it made me feel better. So we all skipped to the buses, laughing, and then I started to lag behind a bit because my leg hurt. But I caught up, and we all went pretty much one after the other onto our bus and sat in our usual seats.
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For the ride home, the usual group of freshmen and two sophomores were singing some random song, but I didn't join in. So I randomly looked up and who's eyes did I meet?
Yep, Ben's. So I just give a half-smile-half-shrug and sort of indicate the singing group. These guys are crazy. I was sending as a signal.
So it went like that. For the bus ride, we made eye contact a few times and I managed to smile.
Unfortunately, we made no conversation yesterday.
..... Man, he's cute....
.......
*cough cough* Anyway, so we get back to the school, put our uniforms away, and are getting ready to be dismissed. So I randomly overhear him and someone from the drumline talking about a certain song or something and I hear him sing a few lines of it.
But that was in the band room, so I couldn't hear very well.
So, I end up in the hallway, after putting the flags away, heading back to the band room, and he was getting a drink of water. I pass by, casually, not doing anything, and he starts heading back to the band room too, some steps behind me, not walking with or next to me, and he quietly starts the few lines he was singing before.
If I had no self control, I would have just turned around and stared with my jaw to the floor. Needless to say, he has a really nice singing voice. I had known that he was in concert choir for school; Dave told me because he's in the same class. So had imagined that he was a good singer, but when I heard him.....
Unfortunately, I didn't have any guts to compliment him on his singing or the "best percussion" thing for the competition. I just went into the band room, got my stuff together, and hung around with Dave until it was time to go.
So, I didn't converse with my illogical crush, which is turning out to be a bit more logical than I thought, but I was given some signals that he at least knows that I'm around, which is better than I had thought for the night.
Summary: We won first in our division and improved our score by three points!!! That's hard to do. I mean, really hard to do. We don't get that much time all together to practice.
So I think we did fairly well.
Next competition: October 20th, in Southington.
Goals: improve marching with flagwork at that awkward part of Swing Swing Swing, finish Swing Swing Swing, shrink some stuff down in Old Man River, LEARN some stuff in Old Man River, have had at least a short conversation with Ben (or talk on the bus ride.... meh), and keep the fake smile as bright as ever throughout the entire show, not just Spain and half of Swing Swing Swing.
This is Horse lady, singing out.
Katie Sea Community Member 
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