All State Recap!

If you have been with my for a while(or have taken the time to read the back logs) I talked about my audition in this post and I revealed that I got into the reading choir in this post about my concert. I like to keep continuity this is going to be a recap of all the awesome stuff I did, and I will start with at the beginning.

Tuesday: I spent most of Tuesday just being in this stupor of excitement of all the fun I would have Allstate. I would leave tomorrow at eight in the morning and I could barely contain myself, when I got home after school I spent the rest of the night planning out all of my outfits out for the next five days and that is always tons of fun. I back for 7 days because you never know if you are going to need it. 

I also had to pack my yarn, but I could not decide what I wanted to bring with me. I had just cast off a vanilla sock and I cast on the second one and knitted like two rows of ribbing, but those are in a red and didn't excited me too much. I made sure to pack the blanket I started for my  brother, but that didn't excite me much either. In the end I realized that I wasn't going to get much knitting done so I just stuck with these two projects(foreshadowing).

Wednesday: I woke up super early so I could ride the metro rail up to downtown where the bus was supposed to be there by 7:45 and we were suposed to be on the road by 8. I knew we weren't going to leave on time, but I thought that was because a student would be late. My mom and I made sure I was there much too early, around 7:10 am. The bus didn't get there until 8:30. All of the students were there on time, but the bus was super duper late. Alas, it wasn't to bad, even though the driver was kind of awful. We got there in a reasonable amount of time. We usually leave around 12 to get to allstate, but one of the instrumentalists had a rehearsal at 2. We were worried that she would get to her rehearsal late, but we got there right on time. We only had to wait in the bus for 2 hours for the teachers to get registered and to set up the college's booth for the convention. After that we had to wait in the bus for another hour before getting into our rooms. I ended up rooming with two cellos, a double bass, and three instrumentalists.

After we got settled my two best friends and I went exploring around the hotel. Tampa is gorgeous, absolutely beautiful. At least the part we are in is. The hotel is right on the water, I am pretty sure it is an inter coastal water way, but it the same water that the cruise ships dock at in Tampa. 

Here is a ridiculous picture, but see how pretty the water is!

My best friend stephanie, who I have mentioned pretty frequently on the blog, and I got married recently(of course facetiously, but we are close enough that we would probably get married if there weren't minor things preventing that). We decided for our fictional marriage we needed to have a honey moon, and thus it was that all state was our honey moon!

I love Steph so much, and I just think this picture is so representive of our relationship over the past 4 years, there are lots of trees and trashcans in the way, but we hold hands either way.  

After our little exploration we went to dinner at a nicely redone Sports Bar, and I had a delicious panini. We then headed back to the hotel where we had a meeting with our choir director and talked about our rehearsals. After that we walked across a bridge and went to publix and got tons of food, mostly breakfast food and oreos.

This is essentially what I had for breakfast every single day of all state, yummers!

Thursday: Today is the first day of rehearsals, but first the people in Reading Choir and Concert Choir has to go to a "leadership seminar". It wasn't too bad, at worst it was a little preachy in some parts, but over all it was bearable. I wish I had brought my knitting though.

After that is the first rehearsal and the conductor was pretty awesome, Dr. Z. Randall Stroope. How cool is it to have a first initial, maybe I should start doing that, A. Jacob Wadle. Sounds pretty cool. The rehearsal is essentially just sight reading a giant pile of music. A ton of fun. 

The rehearsals are at the Embassy Suites, which is a ton taller than the hotel I stayed at. It has an elevator that faces in and I could not resist going all the way up to the 20th floor.

We then had dinner at five and headed back for more rehearsing. Basically all the same thing, made some new friends and all that jazz. 

Friday: The concert was that night, so we have an rehearsals basically all day that day. It is getting pretty tiring on my voice, it is hard to have good technique when you are paying attention to notes and rhythms. 

The people in reading choir, just me and my other best friend Sofia  had to have a really quick lunch and I still had to get dressed for the concert and do my makeup, so I had a delicious sub and to save time I put the goldfish I would have eaten separately into my sandwich  I normally put crackers in my sandwiches to add some texture, but I have never tried putting goldfish into them. I got lots of weird looks, but it was delicious. I got dressed and we did our make up together, so we looked super pretty!

Me and Sofia(ain't she pretty!)

The concert turned out pretty nice, we sang four songs, three of which we sang for the first time in the past two days, and the fourth was something we only saw the cover of.



Turned out pretty nice!

It has been a tradition since my freshman year to go to this Greek Restaurant called Opa! It is always so much fun! We get to dance on tables and there is a belly dancer, and it is just the best time!

All of the vocalists

A clear shot of my butt

Aren't I such a good dancer

Just us booty shaking on a table

I had an awesome time dancing for probably the first time in my life, so this was a major success!

Saturday: This was the last full day of being in Tampa and Sofia and I meant to use it to our fullest! We started out by sight reading with our teachers at a little seminar and then we said good bye to all of the friends we made. I couldn't believe how cool all of these people were!

After that we went publix to get some lunch and we just talked. After lunch we met up some instrumentalists at the hotel and they brought down their double bass and jammed around the piano while Sofia and I played cards with some other new friends.

After a while we got bored and started making some card houses, pretty good for super slippery cards

 Later that day we watched the women's choir and the mixed choir sing. They were pretty good, the most enjoyable part is the inevitable faintings, this year there was only one, but still pretty funny!

During the day the chaperons went to publix and got a feast of brownies and oreos and cupcakes. And after the concerts we got pizza and had a sleep over feast. Eventually me, Steph and Sofia got bored of the underclassman watching twilight and headed back to her room and listened to music and eventually slept.

Sunday: We headed out at 9 in the morning, all of us extremely sad for leaving Tampa, but happy for the experiences.

Now I am just left with a lot of new friends, memories and a pile of sheet music I have no idea what to do with.