The Curious Percussionist

What a day.

I couldn't go to the Bulldog Invitational today because I had to catch a train to the city. It really is a shame because it was the last meet of the season for most of the team and I love the way that they label the Port-A-Potties. Me and Shawn took the train to the city and got to Penn at about 12:15. Then we walked 23 blocks up to Carnegie Hall. I had a cello on my back, making the walk less than enjoyable. We got there at 1:00 and we were the second and third people there. An email said that percussionists had to be there at one but apparently that was wrong because no one else really showed up until 1:45. We got on the stage at 2:00. Wow. The sound on that stage...woah. We only had 45 minutes to rehearse do after we got off the stage we had a lot of free time before the concert. I walked around Central Park with Shawn, Noreen, and Paul, and kind of with Heather, Alec, and Danielle. My group of four kept getting far ahead of the other group so we just met up for dinner. We saw dancing black people that kept referring to their blackness, a homeless man that kept yelling "TSUNAMI HALLELUJAH!!!", and a bad magician. We ate dinner at the Trattoria dell'Arte across from Carnegie. It was really expensive, there were marble body parts everywhere, the bathroom was like a maze, and our waiter was a Jewish guy from Brooklyn. After Noreen yelled at Stass for the last time, we went back to the streets and got frozen yogurt. Then we walked back to the hall to get changed into our concert attire. The performance was awesome. You should try it some time. After we played, a lot of people from my orchestra left during the intermission. There was a girl from somewhere in Suffolk that played the solo in the Mendelssohn violin concerto and she was awesomeeeeeee. Shawn went in to hear the rest of the concert because his parents bought an extra ticket. I was stuck in the backstage area with Noreen, Paul, and Brianna. We walked around outside and just relaxed. When Noreen and Brianna left, me and Paul sat upstairs in the hallway under a speaker that was playing what was happening in the hall. Then he left and I walked around for a bit while waiting for Belinda to finish. When she was ready we walked outside and gave our instruments to our parents. We waited outside the hall, just walking up and down the streets until the party bus came to pick us up for after-prom. The bus came and took all of us to the Empire State Building. We went up to the top and it was beautiful. I've never seen the city from this high up at 1:30 in the morning. When it was time to leave we got back on the bus and drove home. We didn't have enough time to go to the diner so the bus just dropped us off at our houses. I got home at 3:15 in the morning.

I always wonder why I load all of this on myself, but it always works out and is more than worth it.

Word of the Day: Phatic - Denoting speech used to create an atmosphere of goodwill