I’ve spent most of this week sick. I first noticed it when I came home from school on Monday, and ended up having to miss Tuesday and Wednesday of school (which is not a good situation to be in when you have honors classes) but managed to get back Thursday. I had a pile of make-up work to do, but I did manage to get it done, though it took a while.
On Friday I had a robotics meeting. I spent most of the time helping my guy friend Harg (his real name is Alex, but since there’s two Alex’s in the robotics club, I’ve taken to calling him Harg, which is a shortened form of Hargrave which is his last name.) dismantle a robot (apparently him and Jacob started dismantling it the door before, but I wasn’t there because I had marching band practice. Then organizing the parts that had been taken off the dismantled robot. (So many screws) It was really fun. The football game that night was…er, prone to being wet? It was alumni night, which means that the prior marching band members that graduated already come back and play with us, so we weren’t doing our competition show. Probably a good thing considering that we ended up with a lightening delay, and then the rest of the time it was rainy (we got out the woodwind instruments for halftime since it stopped raining for that, but we kept the woodwinds in their cases the rest of the time because woodwinds and rain don’t mix.)
Due to the lightening delay, the game went on longer than usual. And I had to get up at 6:30 (probably should have been up before than, but I was tired) for the parade the next day.
Parade day. One of the most tiring days of band season. We start out at the Xenia Parade. Which mostly consist of us waiting around for something to happen. Then you march the parade, and it’s basically basics with music. And for some reason we’re always out of time.
After the Xenia Parade is over, we get a several hour break. This is the nicest part of the day in my opinion. I did homework (’cause I had a lot of make-up homework to catch up on), but I go to the festival a hour and a half or so early so that I could enjoy the festival a bit. And talk to Harg.
Actually, I’ll be honest, talking to Harg and my other friends is my main reason for going early. I get to see Emily at marching band, but I don’t have any classes with Harg, so before school and robotics is the only time I normally see Harg and Curtis. I’m not actually very fond of festivals. And let’s face it…it’s called the Bean Festival. I mean, come off it, the other towns nearby have the Popcorn Festival or the Strawberry Shortcake Festival, and we have the Bean Festival. I mean, I know that we’re an agricultural town in the middle of nowhere, but we could still come up with the better name. Also, festival’s mostly seem like an excuse to spend money. Seriously, the only things you can really do their for free is visit the ballon animal guy, and look at things. And, like, maybe one of the booths has free handouts. This year I got hand sanitizer as a free handout.
I actually kind of enjoy the Bean Festival as a time to talk to friends and look at pretty jewelry (the craft show at the opera house is a good place for the latter).
Also, I need to look up some recipes for funnel cake.
Anyway, the marching band preforms a standstill performance at this stage at the center of town where we either play stand tunes or our show music. After that we load up the trailer of the front ensemble instruments, and then head to Marcus’s house, where his mom feeds us. Usually we have a nice break at Marcus’s house, but this year after loading the trailer we only had half an hour or so before we had to set up for the parade.
The parade at the Bean Festival is much shorter than the Xenia Parade (Because it’s a small town-which is one of the reasons that I love it). After that we pack up our instruments, and uniforms (which we had to do in the rain, because it always seems to rain at the Bean Festival for some reason-once again I worry about our woodwind instruments. Especially since I play one) and then walk home (in the rain.)
Actually on my way home from the parade, I tend to pick up the pieces of candy that were thrown in the parade, and overlooked up the rest of the kids)
Harg’s family was selling stuff, so they had this rain cover over them that they let me stay under and talk to them while the rain passed by. I wanted to give them a shout out for their kindness to me. They’re great people.
Anyway, I actually had a lot of fun, even if the parade’s themselves are exhausting, and I didn’t really want to do them, and was glad they were over. It was okay because I got to talk to my friends. I have amazing, geeky, weird and wonderful friends.
They make my life suck less.
Even if spending time with them sometimes means I have to be up at 11:30 completing homework (which I did).
Unfortunately, I was left sore by this weekend. And still recovering from the cold, I was sick today. So, I laid in bed and do some quality reading time.
Because as much as I love hanging out with friends, sometimes I just need some me time.