International Competition

My dear friend Elena suggested regarding my blog that I have some intent before writing each entry and that I use better punctuation! She thinks that I need to be writing more stories and not just run of the mill entries. I think she has a point. Although I am very proud of myself for writing every day. Yay Me! And I won't let lack of intent periodically keep me from continuing to write every day. But, whenever I can think of one I will try to write a story.
I had a wonderful Wonderful few days this last weekend at our chorus's coaching retreat with Betty Clipman. She is my favorite coach ever. We had a whole shift in our thinking from the director being in charge to us taking charge. We watched some award winning choruses from international competitions past to see the difference between the director pulling the songs from the chorus and the chorus taking charge of itself and then practiced it ourselves. Wow. It was great.
So, instead of writing about my weekend (even though I may have just done that), I'll put in a short story of a new Sweet Adeline attending her first international competition and listening to us sing! (In the first person.)

I looked up from my special international guidebook and my detailed picture of the costume of the chorus that just finished performing. The next chorus was taking the stage, smiling really big and looking bigger than life.
It was my first international competition. I had a few newly made chorus buddies rooming with me and we had about 10 seats together for our chorus to have for our own. The stage was off to our right a bit but the jumbo trons were in great view. I listened to the starting note as I turned to my friend and chorus buddy and asked her about the chorus. She said that they were from California and had placed in the top ten a few times years ago, but not much recently. I knew that many choruses competed every other year when they won their regional competition.
My chorus had been third in our region's competition. I remembered the heart beating intensity as I had listened to our place being called. Third overall but first for the mid-size chorus division. We had jumped from our chairs screaming and hugging each other and then received the medals from their tangled up ribbons on the wrists of a fellow member.
We had very little hope of getting to compete on the international stage ourselves. A few really large choruses in our region made it almost impossible for us as they interchangably won every other year, even though people said it was not impossible for a chorus of 60 members to beat out choruses twice our size. It had apparently been done before, but only once.
As I began to sketch out the costume onto the little stick figure comparing it to our chorus costume in my mind, the Bay Area Showcase Chorus began to sing.
It was the ballad (that means the slower, more melodic sappy of the two songs.) Something about remembering a lost love. I remembered my old boyfriend from high school. We had split long ago, but I still thought of him sometimes. I began to get goosebumps on my arms and turned to smile at my friend. She smiled back and I knew we were listening to something special. I almost couldn't breath for the rest of the song. So much was coming to my mind all at once, and yet I was focusing on the words of the song. There were lovely soft parts and resounding emotional parts. Wow.
I jumped up with the rest of the audience and clapped for a long time, and then sat back down as the pitch was blown for the up-tune.
It was exciting and fun and happened so fast. My mouth hung open as the chorus ended the song and the room was filled with sound. I jumped up again.
Wow, I said to my friend, that was the best one yet. I quickly sketched in the rest of the sparkly flippy dress with the swishy collar as I glanced up to see the next chorus take the stage.