First off, I think I’m going to be setting a new goal of blogging twice a week. My schedule is so busy and a lot of times after everything is done, I just want to sleep. I’m gone from 9am-ish to like 6pm, then am doing homework for a few hours after that…so yeah. Any way, I don’t think anything super unusual or exciting happened Wednesday or Thursday. On Friday I spent a few hours with my flute mentee, helping her with her semester plan, a training log, pianists and emails. It’s a lot of adjusting to do and she was really stressed about it all, so we sat down and I helped her through what I could and she was feeling better by the end of it.
Saturday was an incredibly long day. We had a game against Penn State that the marching band traveled to. We left around 11a and got there around 3. Then I was running around helping to set up “lunch”, which was more of a dinner, for the students. After eating, they did some warm ups and we did about a mile long walk to the stadium. The Penn state marching band has their own building dedicated to just them, which is super cool, and they were kind enough to let us use it, though it did mean a hefty march down to the football stadium. The walk over was….really bad honestly. They had warned us that we could be in a hostile environment, but I didn’t think it would be as bad as it was. People were literally yelling very unkind words to the marching band which was just so ridiculous to me. Like one, this is just football, two, we don’t even have anything to do with the football players so?? I wish I could say the game was better, but it wasn’t. We had multiple staff members in the back basically guarding the band, and from what I heard, it was really bad back there with fans screaming slurs at the band… so boo on Penn state fans! You could tell who was there from Penn State for the marching band because they were kind and supportive.
But the football fans were something else. So for me, the first half of the game was incredibly anxiety inducing and I was super close to a full blown panic attack the entire first half. And when I say close I do mean it. It was really rough. The stadium had over 100,000 people in it, so it was loud even with ear plugs, people were screaming, music was playing, it reeked of alcohol and it sent me into sensory overload and close to a panic attack. I’m getting stronger ear plugs for the game this weekend lol. But, weirdly enough, on top of just trying to breathe to keep myself together, I did what was suggested in my alexander technique class. That’s not something I thought I’d be getting at the class, but it actually helped a lot. Our teacher talked about taking in the audience before performances to help with performance anxiety instead of just trying to avoid and ignore them, so I tried to do the same at the game and just slowly take everything in. And by halftime I was okay. It was weird lol. So I guess there’s a tip for my anxiety ridden friends. The marching band I thought did really well on their performance, especially with it being the first of the season. During the game, the band was gifted a drum top-thing, from the Penn state band welcoming us and the band had signed it, which was really sweet, especially considering the penn state football fans were not cool. After the game, we headed back to the marching building and chick-fil-a was waiting for the band and staff and that chick-fil-a hit so different. It was really good. But then we were headed back to Morgantown and got back around 4am…so it was an exhausting day. Also, I’m not attaching a pic of what I wore to the game, but we literally looked like members of the Barden Bellas from pitch perfect….white shirt, khakis, a navy blue blazer, an orange scarf, and sperrys.
If you’re wondering about what I did with Piper since I was gone for so long- I did not leave her completely alone! A flute friend offered to come take care of her. And from what she was saying it sounds like Piper wasn’t terrible. She stayed over for about half an hour and Piper was apparently really timid and cautious, so much so that she wouldn’t go outside to go potty with my friend. But Piper did get some food and I’m sure Piper appreciated the effort. I sure did!! I’m also low key proud of Piper because I really thought it was going to be bad.
The rest of Sunday I spent mostly sleeping. I don’t think I did anything else other than eat and sleep. Today, we didn’t have classes which was a huge blessing. I’ve basically been catching up- I did some grocery shopping, cooking, homework, and some cleaning. And that has taken up basically all day, but it does mean that for once, I have a night off. So I’m finally going to relax and watch some TV before heading to bed!
