What am I going to do?!!

My leg pain is getting worse. It started in my shins, moved to my calf's, and now it affects my thighs and arches as well. It seems to be a radiating pain coming all the way from the bone at some times even when I'm just sitting down. I hope I can finish out the season, I have to finish I can't let everyone down.

But what about next year. My senior year not being able to march? All this hard work to get to where I am to just be thrown all the way back to where I started. I want to figure out what is affecting me. I don't know what to do if I can't march next year. Hopefully I can get to a doctor soon and get to a specialist who can tell me whats wrong. I need to fix this problem but it's only getting worse.

Bus ride back.

So I'm on the bus back to cypress from Pensacola right now. It's 6:40 pm. We left at around 7am. But Pensacola is an hour behind so it was really 8. So we got sixth place in Pensacola :( but it was all because of one judge who gave us bad marks. It's hard to type on this phone though, I'll edit this post later.

Alright so yes last place is disappointing. But I myself and kind of happy that we did this poorly at the competition. That may sound very negative but let me explain. I feel as though some of the members of the group coast through and "go through the motions" as our instructor says all the time. I think that this placement will cause us to wake up a little bit and begin to work a little harder for our national competition which is in just one month!! I hope that I'm right and it INcouraged, because if I'm wrong, it will be the opposite and everyone will be DIScouraged.

Walking the tight rope

This is in follow up to my post about my depression. I have figured out a very good analogy to explain how I feel. 

I am walking on a tightrope. When I'm on the tight rope, I feel great. But sometimes I loose my balance and I can be hanging off of the rope. Sometimes I have a better grip than other times. And sometimes I fall to the ground. But theres no safety net anymore. He past away 3 years ago. So when I hit the ground, I am down for a while before I get back up. Once I do get back up, it still takes me a while to climb back up the ladder to get back to the rope. I just got back on the rope, and I feel ok right now. I just need to find a balance pole or a safety net before I fall again. 

The eX Factor is finished!

Not completly finished, we still have to add little details here and there. But all of the music and all of the drill is on the floor. We now have all the different sections of our show: exhale, express, exterior, excite and exit. The show is around 6 minutes long ITS RIDICULOUS!! I love percussion. This upcoming weekend, we will be going to Pensacola for another regional and there will be 5 groups including us, all of which are high scoring and at a very high level. So finally we have some competition that we can compete against.



I cut my hair so I don't look like a girl anymore like in this^

It will be a long weekend:

Friday March 13,
2009

1:00 pm – Load
Truck/ Bus
2:00 pm –
Depart for Pensacola

We will stop on the way for dinner

11:00 pm – Arrive in Pensacola/ Check-in to Hotel
11:55 pm – Lights Out!! Get Some Rest!!

Saturday March 14,
2009

8:00 am – Wake Up Call/ Continental Breakfast at Hotel
9:30 am – Depart for Tate High School
10:00 am – Arrive at Tate High School/ Unlaod Truck and Set
Up Warmup Area
10:30 am – Warmup/ Rehearse
12:00 pm – Snack of fruit and snack bars
1:15 pm - PRELIMS
PERFORMANCE

After this we will go to a local mall and eat a late lunch/
early dinner. (Cordova Mall)
We will have another snack before we perform in finals.

8:00 – 9:00 pm - FINALS PERFORMANCE (TBD)

9:30 pm – RETREAT
We will begin loading before retreat and finish after it is
done.
10:30 pm – Depart for Hotel/ Eat sandwiches at Hotel if
hungry
11:55 pm – Lights Out!!!

Sunday March 15,
2009

6:30 am – Wake-up call
8:00 am – Depart for CBHS

We will stop for lunch and make sandwiches.

5:00 pm – Arrive at CBHS

The affects of depression

Alright so this is wayyyy of topic but I'm going to talk about it for a little while because.. well.. it's affecting me a lot right now. For the past few weeks, for no specific reason at all, I've been feeling really depressed. I've been trying several things like different foods, better sleeping habbits, but nothing seems to be working. All I want to do is sit on my bed. And do nothing. I don't really have time to do this becuase of my percussion schedule which is good becuase other wise I would probably never get out of bed. Right now even I just want to go to sleep. I am still thinking about whether I am going to do the comments for my blog. I know there are concequences for not doing certain things like finishing my blog for this week and to avoid those concequences would be really easy.. but I just find myself saying "screw it" all the time. I don't want to feel like this anymore. ajfklasdpnfisdafidnaf. Its very frustrating knowing whats right and knowing how easy it is to fix it but not being able to push myself to do it. And trust me I'm very good at pushing my self to the limits and this entire blog is proof to that, especially the recent post about my shin pain. But this just seems to be an obstacle that I cannot overcome right now and I feel very out of control of the situation and it is very frustrating. 

Edit: took about 10 minutes and tried to do some comments. I'm going to sleep. I can't do it right now.

WGI Orlando CHAMPIONS!

This Saturday we went to Orlando to compete in the Orlando regional that I mentioned in a previous blog. In our prelims show we had a few mishaps, collisions, falls, etc. but we still managed to place first in our class but only .4 above second place and about 2 points ahead of third. But we didn't see their show, we didn't know if they had a bad show too. So we went into our finals show pretty confidently and the show went great. There was so much energy on the floor at the end of the show you could really feel a strong force. Or maybe that was just endorphins mixed with adrenaline from the performance. But the good thing is the judges felt that energy also. And with our score or 83.2 we are now currently in the top 3 groups in our class around the nation.

This X was in the sky as
we were warming up to
perform

Here's an article on www.WGI.org written about our finals performance:

"The blue musicians in Cypress Bay HS (FL)(1^st: 83.20) really jumped out against the yellow floor as they formed an “X”. Appropriately, their show is entitled “The Ex Factor”, with themes of “exhale”, “expand”, “exterior”, “express”, and “exchange”. Even with a large front ensemble, the musicians really lock in together. It was clear the performers were enjoying themselves and were directly communicating to the audience through eye contact, and facial expressions. In turn, they were a fun group to watch, a performance one would label “exceptional”."

It was a great show and it was a lot of fun. I can't wait for our next trip in 2 weeks to Pensacola. And I definitely can't wait until the national competition in Dayton, Ohio in April.

This week we have practice on

Tuesday 5:30-9:00

Friday 4:00-9:00 :(

and Saturday 10:00-5:00

(not including concert band practices and performances/competitions)

It's going to be a long week but we are going to finish the last 2 minutes of the show(we currently have about 5 minutes completed) and we are going to add in a lot of the little details like little body details and such. I haven't posted a video yet because the instructor Mr. T doesn't want any videos circulating until after the season but I will have some pictures up soon and the video will come around April.