Mood Ring
Football Games
Collisions of the “Seasons”
Aug 12th
well, it’s been WAY too long since marching season, but even so, we’re still making huge advances. Contest is tomorrow (whoop, whoop), and the founder’s day parade is in 4 day future! Ah, excitement!! Founder’s has always been a fun time for me… our family and neighbors own a BBQ booth, so that’ll ALWAYS be entertaining! 
i’m so excited to actually be part of the parade i’ve been watching for my 15 years of life, AND its a great transition between “the seasons”. yes, after the competition this week, i guess we’re technically out of “contest season”, but we’ll have some other performances, but the best of all…. the wait will finally be over!! we’ll know the theme of next year’s marching show!! (we know it starts with a PR, if i remember correctly) it’s almost sad how much i miss football season! sure hope i’m not the only one going through withdrawls! what prompted all this self pity was a highlight tape from my football player cousin. he’d sent out tapes of his best plays to colleges in hopes of being noticed by college scouts (and if anyone needs a 6’5″, dedicated, hardworking wide receiver, please feel free to ask) as we were watching the highlights, you see the boys playing their hearts out on the field, you hear the obsessed parents with their insane little noise makers (or in the Dripping Springs case, a gas can filled with deer corn… don’t laugh, it’s real and it works, so good enough), the cheerleaders yelling “tee hee, EXPLODE! tee hee INGNITE! tee hee” (sorry to good to pass up, no hard feelings cheerleaders), and my favorite, the unending melodies of the headbanging stands tunes (crazy train comes to mind here!) sigh! as the year is coming to a close (maybe i’m speaking too soon! still have 2 months left!), we see the seasons colllide! the ending of concert season, and for that matter, school season, and the approach of a long hot summer of marching/football season. but isn’t that what everyone lives for anyway?! our whole town thrives off the energy of football season, no matter what the score or season total is, and i really cant wait for that again! i guess just marching in the founder’s day parade may bring just a little of that back haha, well until the next time, see ya! have fun yall!!
I’m Maaaarching in the Rain
Sep 6th
Ooooohhh goodness! That was one strange game against Wimberly, especially from a band standpoint! I think it’s needless to say that even before the game, it was PORING! I personally became soaked from dancing in the rain! For a while, we had no real idea if or when we were going to march, and I know as a woodwind that only got her flute back from the shop a day before, I was concerned about our instruments. Thank goodness, the sun finally came through, and things began to look up… and then… halftime! Again, I’m getting this from only my personal standpoints, but that was the most incredible, infuriating, amazing moments ever!!! To clarify, we were sent on a mission NOT to fall apart as we did last week… Mission, not so accomplished… But on the bright side, it wasn’t as bad as last week! Improvement! But anyhow, I’m standing at a hold fuming and brewing over how we messed up once again… and then a single drop of rain alerted me of the FLOOD to come. We had an obligation to complete our show, even when the fans are running and screaming, trying to escape the impending tsunami. After about 2 seconds of complete fury of thinking of how my flute was getting destroyed as I’m holding it in the poring rain, a thought popped out of nowhere… “WHOA!!! I’m marching in the rain! No… I’m MAAAAARCHING in the rain! Just marching in the rain! What a wonderful feeling…” So with the “Singing in the Rain” soundtrack on an endless loop in my head, we finished our soggy show, and spent the rest of the game going through endless rolls of paper towels drying off instruments and keys.
So How’s Band Going for You?
Aug 30th
My most frequently asked question. Actually, I take that back, my second most frequently asked question, second only to “Michelle, what time is it?”
The first week of school is always interesting. Band rehearsals get cut down from 3 hours to 1 hour and 20 minutes in the morning, and this year, we’re staying inside during first period instead of going back outside and marching in the heat. That way, we can have a designated amount of time each day to work on music. Plus it gives us girls about 30 extra minutes to change. How can you not love that? 
Last week we cleaned the opener and the ballad (which, I’m proud to say, we have completely learned) for the first football game on Friday! We are now getting ready to start learning the closer, which I think already has 18 sets of drill.
Speaking of our very first football game… let me tell you how that went last Friday. We get ready to go on the field for the half-time performance and after a little confusion we manage to get to the opening set. Megan starts us off and we’re doing great until we get to chart 12. That’s when I (and I’m sure most of the band) realized that the left side of the band was going at one tempo and the right side was… well, not with the left side. Fortunately we managed to pull it together in the next couple of sets and finish marching the show, but I have to say, it was not one of our best performances. The good thing is that that was our first football game and we still have an entire season to fix the problem spots in the show. Hopefully, with some hard work, everything will start to improve
So I was reading Allie’s post before me and I thought it would be appropriate to introduce my flutes as well. My marching flute is Beth (get it? Mick and Beth… any Moonlight fans?) and my concert flute is named Coraline (pronounced Coralene, also from Moonlight). Allie and I also have names for our cars and phones and iPods and just about anything else that you can stick a name to, but I won’t get into that.
Hope everyone’s doing well and I’ll see you guys later!