Hey everyone. As a little addition to my last post, I actually decided not to go shooting that night. I didn't have any shells loaded (just trying to save the planet), and I didn't want to have my already enormous debt to my grandpa to increase. I rode home with my mom that day, and we got home to an answering machine blinking with a message from my grandma. apparently they were expecting me to get off the bus there, and when I didn't, they FREAKED. I found that a little odd, because they know I often ride home with my mom, and I don't actually live with them anymore. When I was 8, and my mom didn't work at the school, and I lived at their house, it was different. Now, I can fend for myself.
So, guess what I did yesterday? I went to band Festivals!! Festivals are a big area competition that we take part in every year, where we play three songs we've practiced and two we've never seen before. I had a ton of fun, even though our band got a 3 (the best was a 1, the worst 5). I don't look forward to the band events because of the playing, I look forward because of the fun I always have. What they say is true about band people, we do tend to stick together. OK, so there may be a few undesirable people (stupid gossipy preps who tend to whisper to each other, look in your direction, and giggle), but overall it's a nice environment. I've gotten to hang out with a lot of people I wouldn't have if it wasn't for band.
The competition was about an hour away, in the big city. The bus ride there was pretty fun, although I got a little ill-feeling because of motion sickness. When we got to the high school it was held at, there was a real culture-shock for most of us. Our school district has over an 18-mile radius, and still only has about 200 students per grade. I've been to the city in question, Flint, that we were in many times, so I had a little background experience, but apparently some people were not aware of the difference. The school had 2 pools, elevators, and hundreds of classrooms. All of the desks had doodles on them that, if they were found on desks in our schools, would earn us expulsion. They actually had lecture halls, something most kids had never seen before.
On the way home, we stopped at McDonald's. I still feel sorry for those poor employees... imagine about 100 loud, obnoxious band kids piled in one tiny place. The line was half an hour long... and I was at the back. My friend and I had time to go and play a game of air hockey (that's right - they had an arcade in the place) and get back in line with no noticeable difference.
I had thought the bus ride there was chaotic, but I hadn't seen anything yet. A busload of teens jumped up on caffeine is a bad thing indeed, believe me. It was totally dark on there the whole time, and that just seemed to add to the insanity. Towards the end, the driver was actually forced to turn on the lights in the back, to try and keep us in line.
The cool thing is, we still have a few more trips with band this year. We're going to see a Broadway play sometime soon, and we always make a trip to Cedar Point at the end of the year. There's also a lock-in, which is just pure insanity. They lock us in the school, and set us loose. I stayed up 25 hours straight that day...I'm not sure if anyone really got a good night's sleep. They didn't actually make us go to bed until 1 in the morning, and because virtually all the adults there were ladies, and the guys' half had all the TVs, we just stayed up. However, around 4 or 5, I did start to get really tired. I would be walking down the hall, and discover I somehow made it to the other end without remembering any of it. It was pretty cool, though.
Well, I've spent about an hour writing this, and I'm just tired. Tune in next time, at Boyd's World.