Cats vs. NAfME

This past week has been the big week.  I've done very little homework during this time, and my life has been devoted to one of two shows, both of which went really well.

Let's start at the very beginning, a very good place to start.  Cats.  Last Thursday was the start of our tech.  The costumes were all amazing, the set was good, and everyone's makeup was fabulous except mine.  The first tech day went really smoothly, although we were still missing a lot of stuff.  We had no lighting yet, and the percussionist wasn't there.  A lot of people left the rehearsal thinking our show was a lot worse than it really was.  But things looked a lot better Friday.  Things were starting to come together, and we knew that we had a really good show.  It was over these two days that I started to realize how perfect of a cast we had for this show, and how good of a choice this was to do.  I was really excited.

Then came show day.  It went great.  We sang well, and didn't really have any major screw ups for either performance.  ES came to the matinee (and gave it a pretty good review), and my entire family was at the evening.  It seemed as though everyone liked it, and we all had fun doing it.  It had a different meaning for me, as everyone else had at least one more performance to do, but it was all great.  The only complaint was the I wish more people would have been in the audience, but it seems that we always wish that.

The next morning, I left for the All-National Choir.  It was a fabulous experience.  It was so nice to meet people from all over the country in one setting.  Literally, there were people from every state there, except maybe HI.  We all got along very well, and were not afraid to talk to each other, even to the point where we were still introducing ourselves on the day of the concert.

We stayed in a five-star hotel.  There were literally gardens, and rivers flowing (complete with fish and ducks), and trees growing, and sunlight shining, and street lamps coming on inside.  It was amazing just to be in this hotel.  The food was good, and we had a concert every night, when we weren't rehearsing. It would have been nice to have a little more time to explore, but I feel that what we had was alright.  We were already being treated in amazing fashion.

And the choir sounded amazing.  I won't say that we could have put on a good show the first day, because we had a lot of technique stuff to work out, but we did on the last day.  There was a piece where we could rightfully say that no one had sung it that good in 200 years.  It was so amazing to know that our concert was probably going to set a new standard for several of the pieces we did.

Don't ask me which one I liked better.  I can't say yet.  Maybe I never will.  They were both fun and exciting in their own ways, and I would do both of them again if I could.

-NM

Feline, Fearless, Faithful and True

NM: The High School Cat

As KM put it, I am slowly turning into a cat.  It's probably mostly due to these intense rehearsals, but it may or may not have been inevitable.

So many times, I have started acting like a cat when I had absolutely no reason to do so.

• In school Monday, I started rubbing my head to my neck.
• More than once, I have hissed at someone
• I once considered licking the back of my paw to clean myself
• While listening to someone talk at dance yesterday, I found myself on all fours.

The list could go on a little more.

I successfully creeped out several people in chorus class today when I demonstrated some cat movement (including how cats say hello).  I had a great time.  They didn't.

Honestly, I'm pretty sure that my transformation is not a bad one, just a little socially awkward.  Being four-legged does have it's advantages, even if it lacks versatility in movement.  Also, how awful is it to be one of the most graceful creatures on earth?  The only disadvantage may be the lack of vocabulary, but with Jellicle Cats that's not a problem.

To put it plainly: I'm having such a great time doing this show!  It's become everything I hoped it would be!  Depending on how the shows turn out, it's up there for most fun show I've ever been in.  Please see me if you want to come see it! I would love to actually have people show up this year!

-NM

How to Kill Your Voice Without Really Trying

It's quite simple actually.  Just a few things that you have to keep in mind.

• Take part in a musical, such as Cats, where you are constantly in inhuman positions, and it is nearly impossible to support your sound properly.
• Play a part in that musical, such as Macavity, that requires such laughs and shrieks that require only your throat.
• Spend at least three hours a day in rehearsal for said musical
• Not bring enough water to said rehearsal
• Spend a lot of your free time rehearsing choir music for an event such as NAfME National Choir, that you absolutely have to rehearse for
• Sing in your school choir, school vocal ensemble, and church choir
• Have milk be your favorite drink in the whole wide world
• Partake in social activity, such as talking to people

In case you haven't noticed, a lot of those things apply to your very own NM.  In fact, all of them!

You do not want to hear me speak right now.  And I don't want to speak to you.  I would like to leave it at that.  Unfortunately, I don't know any sign language, and that makes it very hard to communicate.

On a completely unrelated note, Cats is going very well!  Things are starting to come together, and I'm starting to find my character.  I think I'm doing a good job.  Apparently I'm really scary.

If only I could still talk when it was all said and done.  I'm don't know how Nationals is going to go.

-NM

Senior Quote

For our yearbook, all senior have to select a quote.  I can't say I knew what I wanted mine to be right away, but I knew what I wanted in my quote.  Here goes:

1. I wanted the author to mean something to me.  I didn't want to find something that some random guy said that I liked.  I needed to have an idea of the context.
2. I didn't want it to be a generic life lesson.  It needed to be specific to me.
3. I wanted it to be saying something.  It needed to be something that I wanted to tell the world through the yearbook.  Not just something I found cool and interesting.
4. It needed to be inclusive.  It couldn't be an internal thing, it needed to make people want to feel this was directed at them.

And, there's a whole lot of things that it didn't have to be.

• Funny (In fact, I liked that this one wasn't)
• Grown up
• Intelligent
• Depressing
• True for everybody

I'll admit I didn't spend a whole lot of time searching.  However, I didn't need to.  Once I knew what I was looking for in a quote, I knew exactly where I wanted to look.  It only took a little searching.

When I saw it, I knew it was the one right away.

"How lucky I am to have something that makes saying goodbye so hard."  -A. A. Milne, author of Winnie the Pooh

-NM

Homecoming 2013

So, let's start with the game.

It was a great game.  We won big, even though the team we played also only had one loss.  The student section was not as good as the game against Keystone Oaks that I went to earlier in the season, but it still was pretty good.  Much better than the one game I went to my freshman year.  Although J insists that I was not part of it, I say that I was a part of it, just not part of the crazy people who decided that they needed to cheer even when there was no reason whatsoever.

Also, I got to see RH, which was nice, who I haven't seen since last school year, if only briefly.  Although I spent most of the game with KR and her friends, I did watch the very end with KM, as MC and co. started getting even more crazy than the fans cheering "Drive Home Safely!"  All in all, I have no regrets going to the game.  Not one.

And now, to explain why I didn't go to the dance:

The homecoming dance has a pretty bad reputation at QVHS.  The past three years, I've felt no inclination to go, and I couldn't have gone last year even if I wanted to.  I can't say too much, as I've never been there, but nothing persuaded me to go.

The only reason I would have had to go this year would have been because it was my senior year, and my last chance to get the experience.  But honestly, I don't feel like I'm missing out.  The more I asked around, the less and less of my friends were going, and I think that was what finally convinced me in the end.

And that's not a bad thing.  One always shares similar beliefs and attitudes with your friends.  Their judgement should reflect yours.

Hopefully, I'll go to prom.  But we'll worry about that when the time comes.

-NM

HR

Looking back, it's amazing how many memories we've had together.  And yet I still feel distant most of the time.

As you may have noticed, I have not written about a lot of people from dance.  Lately, I have been trying to figure out what the reason for this is.  It's not because I don't spend time with them, I see them more than some of my friends from high school.  I guess it's simply because I haven't made that quantum leap into friendship with anyone yet.  Hopefully that time comes soon, but I'm not optimistic.

Today, I felt some hope that it might occur.

After dance today, both HR and I were waiting until our younger sisters were done.  I started reading, but after a while, I was getting bored.  Miss L and HR were having a conversation, and I just joined in.  We just talked for a while.  About school, how she was so much further along in the college process than I was at her age, about what's going to happen when we're handling our own money, all that stuff. When it was time to go, I said goodbye.  She said bye back.

She's really a nice girl.  Sure, she has a little bit of a reputation for crazy at dance, but who at dance doesn't have that?  She's always someone who I felt like there was more beneath the surface.  She always gave the impression of being energetic, but I could tell that there was a lot of stress in her life.  Not being particularly close friends with her, I could not tell you what was going on.  Or, I could be completely wrong, and she could have nothing going on at all.

Most of the time, she's in her trio with CK and NG.  She's found the connection at dance that I haven't. And she's a really good dancer.  She could go places with her dance, but she should manage to be content with a minor.  

She's just someone I'm going to miss when I go away.  Even if she won't necessarily miss me.

-NM

The Last Callback

This is it.  The last time I'm ever going to have to do a callback at high school.  Maybe the last time ever.

The last time that I'm going to have waited for the date to be announced, the email to be sent.  To find out what I'm going to have to work for!  To wait so I can learn what to sing, who I'm up against.

The last time I'm going to be let down.

I hope Mr. V's not reading this.

The past three years, callbacks have been uneventful.  My freshmen and sophomore years, I never really expected anything.  I was an underclassmen, and nothing was really to be expected.  I told myself that my time was coming, that pretty soon things would change.

Last year I was disappointed, but not shocked.  Although people kept telling me I should try for Evelyn, I never felt strongly connected with the part.  Though I thought I would at least get a callback.  I was wrong.  No callback for Evelyn came.  I told myself, well, this just wasn't your show.  Next year's your senior year.  Next year things will change.

Next year came yesterday.  Nothing changed.

We are doing Pirates of Penzance.  There are three male leads, two of which I could see myself playing.  I didn't get called back for any of them.  I did get a callback, just not for either of the parts I was hoping for.

It's not just that this means I'm going to go throughout high school without any sort of lead role.  That's not the issue here.  It's also that I've gone through high school without even being considered for a lead.  It's not that I'm not lead material, it's that I'm not even potential lead material.  I was hoping that that wasn't the case.

I'm sure that Mr. V knows what he is doing.  I'm sure that I could pull off the Police Sergeant pretty well.  It's going to be a great time, we're doing a show that's sure to be a blast!  It's just that I'm maybe a little disappointed.

-NM