Literature 101

Had to do somethin.,.....

Riding on a bus with thirty different girls for two and a half hours was fun but at the same time nerve wrecking. I gazed out the window listening to my cd player trying to tone out the loud, squeaky voices in the background. Trying to get motivated and focused on the big day that lies ahead. We were on our way to the South Eastern Color Guard Circuit in Chattanooga, Tennessee for the biggest winter guard competition, championships. It made me terrified, knowing that all of the other competitions we participated in this past year were all just practices to get ready for this big day. It made me terrified. It all came down to the best of the best.

All of a sudden the bus came to a stop. I opened my eyes to see heaven, a pizza hut and a taco bell in the same building! I sat in the back of the bus and had to wait for what seemed like forever to get off. When I finally got off the bus, I paced myself to the door because I knew that there would already me a line of people standing there when I got in. As I walked through the door, my prediction was correct, a plethora of people. " Just great," I said to myself. Just my luck though, everyone was standing in the Taco Bell line. So I decided to go for the pizza. After I paid for my food I sat down to eat with Bridgette and Jessica, who were the two other seniors in the guard. Since I spent most of the hour that we had standing in line waiting to order plus the extra ten minutes I had to wait for the food, I had to quickly gobble down my pizza, before we had to get back on the road.

We got back onto the bus, feeling ballooned, and we all wondered if we could fit into our uniforms. We still had at least another hour or two before we got to the hotel, so it was okay. I put my headphones back on my head, and decided to catch up on some shuteye. A quick jerk to my seat woke me up with a fright. We were finally at the hotel. We got our keys and went straight to our rooms to get ready. Still under a time frame, we had to hurry, to get our hair and make up done, and put our uniforms on. I put my uniform on and helped others get their hair and make up done.

I rushed down to the bus, hoping and praying that I had all of my necessities, like my gloves and equipment. We all got on, sat in our seats, for the head count, and the bus was in motion. At this point my nerves started to kick in. The palms of my hands started to sweat, the beat of my heart began to increase in pace. The time was shortening. Now was the time to definitely start focusing. I shut my eyes thinking about the show, viewing it all in my head, the counts, the tosses, and making sure I got to the right spot without running into anybody else. Most of all, I had to work on my facials, my happy, sad, and mad faces. Judges looked at so many things I just did not want to let any of my girls down.

The sounds of scratchy, screechy voices suddenly awoke me from daydreaming. We had finally reached our destination, the Mackenzie Arena, right in the center of Chattanooga, Tennessee. By this time I was sitting a pool of sweat. I was hoping I was not the only one this felt that way. I'm pretty sure my make up had been running down my face by now, but my make up was the least of my worries at this point. We had finally made it; I could not believe my eyes. It had not seemed this big last year. As we got off the bus to grab our equipment and find a spot to practice, I looked around at all of the other guards and drumlines. They were each getting ready to put on their best show. I quickly put my gloves on, and scurried over to get my bag to practice. We finally found a nice shady and dry patch of grass to practice on, so we laid our bags on the ground and began to stretch. We then began to practice on our own. I reached into my bag (which had a massive, gaping hole in the bottom of it) and took out all of my equipment. I only had two flags and a saber, so it was not that heavy to carry around. I picked up my saber and started to throw some tosses, hoping that the sun would not blind me from catching it. Tony, our instructor, called us all together so that we could work on some parts of the show before we actually went to warm-up.

We were practicing on our last song when our director, Mrs. Mashburn, came and told us it was time. We then gathered our equipment and got together for a quick prayer of the 'our father'. When we were done, we threw our bags into a big bin and gathered our equipment. Then we were off to warm-up. By this time, my nerves had taken over my entire body. My whole body was in panic mode, frozen yet shaking all over.

At last we got to