NIMBY

Not In My Back Yard!

Ok, so this is gonna be a short little post. It's 11:00 PM, and I need to be working on fixing my sleeping routine for school....

Random Thoughts of the Night~~~~
*-.,_,.-*'`'*-.,Have you ever sat there with other people and just stuck your tongue out? Like, tried making crazy designs? Or tried seeing who could touch their nose? It's actually really fun once you realize how silly everyone looks. ^_^

I am so super excited for marching band. I am not being pessimistic about it one bit. I know it's not going to be all of what i've been daydreaming about, but I just can't wait. The football games, the competitions, the parades....man!

Today I realized how much I love my pets. When I grow up, I always want to have pets!

Have you ever watched the sun set at the beach over the water? It's so cool, and oh so very beautiful. =] ,.-*'`'*-.,_,.-*

woooh, i'm so spacey today! hahahah
ummm, I had many more of them, but I just can't remember! (This ALWAYS happens when I sign into blogger to post my thoughts/ideas/events!)

I hope everyone has a fantastic week! See most of you at Band Camp! :D

<3 Marcea

How Do I Get Down?!

Drum Major Camp was a blast! I can't even describe how much I loved it! I have to thank the QHHS Band Boosters sooooo very much for paying for Mitch, Chelsea, and I to attend!

Our Drum Major Camp took place at UCLA from July 16-19. There were about 50-60 kids in our class and 5 Instructors. At first I was a little intimidated by the other Drum Majors (Some had been attending DM Camp for years!!) but by the end of the first day, I realized they were just like anyone else! I was thankful enough to room with Chelsea, so there was no need to immediately open myself up to someone I wasn't familiar with.

After check-in, we headed to unpack in our beautiful dorms located in Rieber Hall. After a mad dash down the long flights of stairs down to the stadium (And an almost potentially dangerous fall down the stairs) Chelsea and I had just made it in time for the orientation. From there it just got better. We started off with a Drilldown, and of course, I came no where near the finals. (The people who win have no honor! Hah, just kidding) The main culprit of failure during drilldowns was the need to change how we marked time and counted parade rest. Other than the drilldowns though, we got into our Unity/Baton Spinning/Conducting Groups.

The Unity groups were random selection, and ours turned out to be really awesome! Our group was called The Watermatos (Hybrid between Watermelons & Tomatoes) and the other three groups were Pomograpes, Lazacos, and Banangos. I got to know everyone in that group fairly well, and throughout the course of camp, we did many unity games/activities together.

As for the Spinning/Conducting class, I enrolled in Intermediate level for the both of them. Mitch joined me in the Spinning, but went advanced for Conducting. Chelsea did the exact opposite, and joined me in the Conducting, but went advanced for Spinning. I believe we all made good choices in that, and we all challenged ourselves to the point of sanity. From those classes I learned some really cool things. (Including in what my opinion is a really awesome Baton routine!) It wasn't easy though! Every meal break was spent practicing! The Baton really bruised up my arms/wrists, but it was all very worth it at the end.

Besides the classes, I also got quite a bit closer to Chelsea. We partied it up til midnite and then payed for it every morning at 5:30 AM. I can't complain though! Who doesn't love sneaking around past curfew just to buy some pretzels and M&M's from a vending machine?! We had fun, and Mitch was always there to keep us in-line. Hah

On the last night, the fabulous USA Drum Major Instructional Staff, Chris, Nadya, Steven, Todd, and Kathleen took us to a nice area in UCLA where they performed a Drum Major version of Harry Potter. The skit they performed was entitled, Marchy Potter. It was hilarious, and it was a good way to end the night. This a picture of staff from the brochure, and I decided to include it because the guy is Chris, one of the staff from our camp. He was probably my favorite. :)

This whole experience gave me so much. I am just so happy and thankful I got to be a part of it. It made me come out of my shell, and added a lot more to my spirit. In addition, I learned a lot about being a leader. All of the corny jokes, crazy routines, and strange chants/things we did really made it fun. I really hope that I have the honor to be able to attend again next summer!

If you wanna know more, and you aren't already bored with this whole entire post, i'll be happy to sit there and tell you how awesome this whole experience was.

Have a nice wednesday! I'll see everyone at the band rehearsal tomorrow! :]

♥Marcea

P.S. - On a side note--- If you ever attend UCLA, be very prepared for the copius amounts of stairs/inclines and declines! :D

Bitter Sweet

Sorry for the long intervals between posts!

I hope everyone is having a fine and dandy summer vacation. So far, I've had a good summer. I'm getting ample amounts of sleep, I'm hanging out with my friends, I got no homework, and I can sit down and watch as much CSI as I'd like.... :D

On Monday, June 22nd, I went with Kevin, Hailey, and Kyra to Magic Mountain for Hailey's birthday. It was a nice day out, and I'm proud to say we hit up every awesome ride! X2 was definately the scariest ride i've ever been on...and i'm afraid to do it again. haha. I must say though, the new ride Terminator was pretty awesome. It was much more fun than I thought it would be. The day was really great, and I had an good time screaming my head off, and getting soaked on Roaring Rapids. :D

Drum Major camp is starting tomorrow! I'm so super excited! I've been looking forward to this experience all summer, and I'm glad it's finally here. Mitch, Chelsea, and I will be at the USA DM Camp hosted at UCLA from July 16-19. When I get back, i'll post some pictures!

So far, I've watched quite a bit of movies this summer, and I plan on watching a lot more! Some include, Sabrina, Ms. Pettigrew Lives for a Day, Blast from the Past, The Devil Wears Prada, My Sisters Keeper, The Proposal, Dragonfly, Steel Magnolias, Family Man, and just today I went and saw Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince. I enjoyed some more than others, but all were not a disappointment.

I'm sure all of you that read this have heard of our musical selections for the upcoming marching season. Riverdance for the field show, and The Aviators by John Phillip Sousa for the March. If you guys want the music file, I can email it to you. :)

Just the other week, I was invited to Ventura Beach with Kyle's family. It was a beautiful day, and I am really happy I went. We built a Sand Castle/Fortress thing, caught crabs in the rocks, (Or more like, watched Connor chase them) and just in general soaked up the sun. The following day, my mom decided to take our family down to the beach too. Instead of Ventura though, we went a little farther to a nice day beach, Faria. The weather was beautiful, and we got to enjoy yet another day at the beach with some friends. Towards the end of our trip, this sea lion came out of the ocean, walked up on the beach, and got up on the rocks right next to us. It didn't look too good, and I figured it was probably dying due a natural release of Domoic Acid in that area of the ocean. Although it was a sad realization, we left before we watched anymore of the poor creature's pain. Altogether it was a nice trip.

Well, it's almost 4, and I havn't started packing for DM Camp which is in less than 24 hours. I hope everyone has a very lovely rest of the week, and a nice weekend!

♥Marcea