good enough

UIL was on Saturday. We went up to the school at 6:30, took a bus up to North Crowley High School where the competition was, and didn't get back to the school until after 8 that night. What a day.

We took show gifts to everyone in the morning. There are 8 schools competing at district, and all of us bring little baskets of goodies and things to the other schools, so those of us from our company who had been in UIL last year as well took our baskets out to everyone. Most schools were really friendly, and Martin was mostly standoffish, so that was a bit weird but at least we were being nice. Later that day, seeing a few of them individually they were friendly, so it might have just been the group mentality. They don't really mingle with other schools much.

The day. We had a classroom for our school, and everyone had their stuff set up with mirrors. There was food and people were playing chess and cards. We had this crocheted Frisbee we threw around. People would play music, and Isaiah played the piano for a while. At one point we played some Hamilton and half the guys were dancing around singing along. It took me ages to curl all my hair for the show. Everyone was pretty energised. Before 3:30, we had all gotten into costumes and were working on British dialects for the show for a while. Victor put on relaxing music and we all laid down or sat or slowly wandered around the room with the lights off. People would speak up mentioning notes we had to think about for the show, so in this meditating we were all reminding each other of things we had to keep in mind. I felt so connected to everyone, like we'd truly become a single organism. After that, we all stood in a circle for our little warm up thing we always do. At the beginning of when we started doing the circles, people would hold hands flat for the most part and stood essentially next to the same people every time, but by competition day we had gotten to the point where anyone would stand next to anyone and we were all weaving fingers when we held hands. We closed our eyes and people would pass the energy around by squeezing someone's hand and seeing how quickly we could get the squeeze back to the original person. After that, we said a prayer, and then Emely looked at us and said her little thing that she always says. "I just want y'all to know that the force is with you, and it will always be with you". Then we all sung the beginning of that one Star Wars song (dooo DOOOOO, do-do-do-DOOOO-doooo, do-do-do-DOOOO-doooo, do-do-do-doooooo). Then we got in a football huddle and swayed back and forth going "hoo, ha, hoo, ha, hoo, ha" starting at a whisper and slowly getting louder and louder until we all put our hands in the middle and said "all for one and one for all and all for the love of the stage!" while jumping up and down. I have never loved a group of people more. Then we went to the cafeteria for warm ups. We all did vocal warm ups and we ran through the beginning of the show to get it in our systems before going on stage.

The show. The set up was open curtain, so we had to get all the columns up and chairs set and everything with the people in the audience watching. We were quiet and organised and got it all set in under 6 minutes. We waited in the wings stage right while the woman introduced our show. The audience was so full because it was the last show of the day so loads of the other schools had come to watch. Jarod called places and we went on in the dark. Kenzie and I held hands on either side of the center pillar, then let go when the music started. And we did the show. It was high energy and the audience was amazing. They laughed and really got into it. Tech worked flawlessly, the transitions went smoothly, people's dialects were mostly all there. When it was over they cheered. They exploded into clapping and they cheered as we walked off stage and Tyler told us later that a lot of them even stood. We got a partial standing ovation for a competition piece. It was incredible. The break down went smoothly and we efficiently got everything off stage and back into the truck. Then we rushed back to our room to change for awards. Christian and Caitlan and Alyssa and some other people from UIL last year came to see us and it was amazing. I love and miss them so much.

The awards. We didn't care what happened to us, and I'm serious. We wanted to advance obviously, but we had had such a beautiful day and such a beautiful show that we didn't really mind what happened because we knew that we had done well. Tyler got an all-star tech award (we found out later that we got outstanding tech award as well), Patrick got honourable mention cast, Kenzie got all-star cast (along with Josh Goodman from Martin who did not look happy). Some guy from North Crowley got best actor, and I got best actress!!!!! It was incredible, it really was. When I sat back down I cried. I was sitting with a group of people I loved more than anything and they were all patting me on the shoulders and clapping and grinning ear to ear and I felt so at home. Best actress of all the girls in all 8 shows. I know it's just district but it meant so much. These judges had told me I was good enough. I'm good enough to stand on that stage and be seen. I can't explain how that felt.

The aftermath. We got things to write on and came back into the auditorium after awards, and one of the judges came to give us notes. He loved the show so much and he had hardly any negative notes. He said I was, that everything I'd done from my movement to my dialect to the way I transitioned between scenes was brilliant. I cried a lot. That guy texted me to tell me congratulations and said that the Martin company was "smitten with my excitement on stage" and how I was getting up on my tippy toes during awards because I was so happy. That was nice. We got first from every judge. During the awards ceremony, they just announced the advancing schools in no particular order, but afterward we found out that we got first from every judge, North Crowley got second, and Martin got third. What a day.