Show choir camp SLAVE!
Aug. 1st, 2004 10:54 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
candylandWhew, been a while since I posted in here. But today I'm going to tell you about what happened last night.
First, let me explain: every summer, my campus hosts a show choir camp for high school students. As a music ed major, I was recruited to work as a counselor here at the camp. I've been assigned to a choir, to hang out and help out where they need me. I also help keep an eye on kids during meals, and do room checks and lockdown and such at night. All the kids are staying in the dorms, just so you know.
There are three choirs, each with a different director, different music, and different choreography to go along with the music. My group's doing "Big City Swing," "When Your Heart Has Wings," and "Pinball Wizard." I love Pinball Wizard...but anyway, there's also one large group number. This year, it's "Joyful Joyful," from Sister Act 2. Trust me, you get reeeeeeeeally sick of the songs reeeeeeeeeally fast.
Today is the third day. There's a performance tonight, and then we get to go HOME! YAYNESS!
The thing started on Friday. We checked everyone in, and rehearsals began. But also on Friday, we had what's called Skit Night, in which everyone's divided into groups with a counselor to head things up, and we put on a skit at night for everyone else. The theme was children's stories, and my group got Goldilocks and the Three Bears. Well, my group was very enthusiastic, and had plenty of ideas. We ended up doing Goldilocks--ghetto style. The main character was played by a guy with a yellow T-shirt tied around his head for hair, topped with a yellow baseball cap. He also had a towel wrapped around his waist for a skirt. And it ended with the bears killing Goldilocks and chasing the narrator down. He was placed into the Witness Protection Program.
We had the Three Little Pigs perfomed with "Britney Spears" as the Wolf and Justin Timberlake, the twenty-four hour married guy, and the back-up dancer fiancee as the Pigs. We had Snow White and the Five Dwarves, where the only Prince in the kingdom was named Elflamo and seemed more interested in hitting on the male narrator than waking up the Princess.
The skit that won was directed by my friend Vixie (not her real name). They did the Ugly Duckling. It was a short, cute skit, the only one in the entire show that didn't offend everyone (my group decided from the beginning that they wanted to offend as many people as possible--to not offend everyone wouldn't be fair, after all). And her group had the best goddamn joke of the entire evening (which I have gotten her permission to use in a fic).
The Ugly Duckling is sitting there, looking pathetic (and we all want to hug him). Suddenly, some people prance out onto the stage and hold, like, a sheet in front of him so he's hidden from view. One guy dances to the front of the stage and pronounces in a very high voice, "We are the Magical Puberty Fairies!!!" When they pulled the curtain away, there was a different guy sitting there--a very tall, ripped, hot guy! He stood up and ripped his shirt off. The females in the audience went absolutely nuts!
So that was the best joke of the night: We are the Magical Puberty Fairies! Oh man, I'm still laughing about it!
Anyhoo, yesterday was just a bunch of rehearsals. There was a dance last night, and so we (the counselors) had to walk around to the dorms and down by the lake (our campus is by a lake) to make sure nothing was going on there, as well as keeping an eye on the dance itself. So Krystal and I took the first shift in the dorms.
Well, as we were making the rounds, my sister called me on my cell. She was home alone and kinda freaked out, and so she just wanted to talk until one of her friends came over. At the same time, Krystal was on the phone with her boyfriend, so we must have looked veeeeeeeeeeeery intimidating--two girls, walking through the men's dorms, talking on cell phones and randomly asking people if they're doing anything illegal. We wandered by the lake, but we didn't see anything going on, so we headed back towards the building where the dance was.
As we approached, one of the other counselors--we'll call her Kay--was outside. She saw us, and yelled at us, "Get to work, counselors!" The thing about her is that you can never tell when she's kidding or not. But she seemed genuinely pissed off. And there's, like, three other counselors standing around giving us this blank look. Then she ordered us to take a shift at the dance--which is what we'd been planning to do anyway.
Let me explain something: I was assigned to one of the director's, so I have been sitting in on every one of his rehearsals, helping out and running for copies or whatever he might need me to do. I have learned choreography, I have learned music, I have run CD players, I have helped kids figure out where they're going, I have taken kids all over this campus, I have done room checks, I have answered questions, I have run photocopies, I have done office work (stuffing envelopes and stapling things and whatnot), and just generally been around in case I'm needed. AND Krystal has been teaching voice lessons all day every day for this camp. Yesterday, she taught ten lessons, and she taught eight, I believe, on Friday, and she had a few today, in addition to doing room checks and rounding up kids. That might not seem like a lot, but trust me, that's pretty heavy duty. We have been busting our asses quite a bit for this camp, we'd just done a round, and it pissed us both off because she didn't seem to think we were doing anything.
It pissed me off. But we went into the dance and just kept an eye on things. It was one long grinding train, pretty much. I hung on the sidelines, although I join in for the Cha Cha Slide *sheepish* Then, about ten minutes before the dance was supposed to close down, Kay came up to Krystal and me again and told us to go make sure the dorms were open and everything. I understand that she's stressed (she's a voice lesson teacher, too), and she is technically our superior (we're both first year counselors, and she's done this before), but I really got sick of her talking to us like that. We're all supposed to be adults here.
So we headed out. Well, there's a monument on campus that always had spotlights on it; it's a piece of school history, sort of our symbol. There were some kids out there using the spotlights to cast huge shadow-puppets on that monument. It was hilarious! Krystal and I got to talking with them, and that made us both feel a ton better. They're such sweet kids. There's a lot of really sweet kids here.
Well, the dance broke up as we were checking out the male dorm, and about twenty people had accumulated in one room. Realize that it's now eleven-thirty, and lights are supposed to be out at midnight, with everyone in their room. Add into the mix that there's thunder and lightning overhead, and a severe storm warning on the Weather Channel website (we'd checked before making rounds when we saw clouds and lightning), and you've got the formula for a problem. So we told one of the male counselors about it, and he said he'd handle it. After all, that dorm was technically his responsibility, and thus we left it in his jurisdiction. After all, we had our own dorm to worry about.
As we were heading back to the female dorm, it started to rain. We got inside, and the counselors converged to discuss our plan of action--room checks at midnight, get everyone inside, and NO ONE was to go back outside because of the storm. We all went around to inform as many of the girls as possible. Well, I was on the first floor (ground level), walking towards one of the lounges when I look over in time to see three people running outside into the now-pouring rain. In addition to the ten people that were already out there. Kay was right behind me, and we both dove for the doors. I got there first, opened it, and started yelling at everyone to get inside. I felt like a bitch, but I have a job to do, and they are partially my responsibility.
Kay was still right behind me, and she started giving orders right away; women, she announced, had room checks in ten minutes (as that was how long was left until midnight), so they had better go get ready for bed immediately if not sooner. There were three guys in this group, and she ordered them back to the male dorm. They all came inside to get their stuff (they'd all taken off their shirts), and one of them looked outside and kind of whimpered, "It's hailing..." I took pity on them and said I would walk them down to another door that was a little closer to their building. Kay nodded, and those poor guys followed me quite gratefully. They were very nice, and thanked me profusely as I let them out over there.
Then we had the oh-so-fun task of doing room checks. Half the girls are in the showers or doing other bathroom-related bedtime things--brushing teeth, washing faces, etc. Two girls are stuck in the hallway because they'd accidentally locked themselves out of their room and were waiting for security to come and key them in, and there's just general mayhem.
We would check a room, and five seconds later, we'd have to go back because everyone was running around so damn much. It was like herding sheep. It took us probably half an hour to get everyone in their rooms and do the checks and stuff. It was hellish. Extremely much so. But finally, everyone was in their rooms, all the lights were off, and all was quiet. I took a shower, and crawled into bed.
I later found out that in addition to everything else, some college students who were living on campus over the summer came staggering into our dorm at about two AM, completely drunk, and making a lot of noise. They woke up my friend Vixie, who was up on third floor, and she had to send them to the other side of the dorm. They're not allowed to be over here during the camps, especially whilst intoxicated.
Church service this morning. I sang for the little thing we did here on campus. And the little sermon was given by one of the teacher. The theme was, "You can't take it with you." Great, we all know that. I believe his exact words were, "We are in the land of the dying." Great. Just what I want to hear at nine-thirty in the morning. Let's go sing some 'Joyful Joyful' now, okay? Well, there's not really much for the counselors to do at this point during rehearsals, so we're all basically hanging around, doing odd jobs when needed. We reset the chairs in the choir room before lunch.
That was when something kinda freaky happened. I was heading out of the room, and I turned around--in time to see my friend Vixie fall over. She has a heart condition, and she sometimes gets woozy or faints altogether, and that's what happened. So the rest of us counselors (there were about five of us there, I think) sat down and waited for her to wake up, to make sure she was okay. Then Ryann came and joined us (YAY!), and when Vixie was okay, we all went to lunch. On the way there, Vixie got faint again and nearly fell down a flight of stairs. God bless Ryann, he caught her. And everyone was okay after that.
So now it's just basically hang-out time until the final performance at 4:30. Then I'm going out with Ryann and some friends for a while before I head home. So after I finish this entry, I'll probably get my stuff packed so as soon as everyone's checked out, we can go.
I know it sounds like I'm bitching a lot about this, but the amazing part is that I've actually had a pretty good time. Krystal and I were roomed together, and we've had some fun conversations. Watching the kids and working with them has been a great time, since show choir was my absolute favorite activity when I was in high school.
And next weekend, guess what I get to do? That's right--I get to be right back on campus on Wednesday night to be a counselor for the All-State choir camp! I think I might actually be on a little bit better footing with that one. I'd never been to a show choir camp before, but I've been to All-State camps. I have an idea of how those run, and I know what goes on there. Unfortunately, I've already been warned that the kids tend to be not quite as well-behaved at the All-State camp as they have been here. So we'll see how it goes.
And that was my exciting weekend as a show choir slave! I hope the evening performance goes well--those kids have been working so hard, and it looks really good!
Laters, all!
Me ^__^
First, let me explain: every summer, my campus hosts a show choir camp for high school students. As a music ed major, I was recruited to work as a counselor here at the camp. I've been assigned to a choir, to hang out and help out where they need me. I also help keep an eye on kids during meals, and do room checks and lockdown and such at night. All the kids are staying in the dorms, just so you know.
There are three choirs, each with a different director, different music, and different choreography to go along with the music. My group's doing "Big City Swing," "When Your Heart Has Wings," and "Pinball Wizard." I love Pinball Wizard...but anyway, there's also one large group number. This year, it's "Joyful Joyful," from Sister Act 2. Trust me, you get reeeeeeeeally sick of the songs reeeeeeeeeally fast.
Today is the third day. There's a performance tonight, and then we get to go HOME! YAYNESS!
The thing started on Friday. We checked everyone in, and rehearsals began. But also on Friday, we had what's called Skit Night, in which everyone's divided into groups with a counselor to head things up, and we put on a skit at night for everyone else. The theme was children's stories, and my group got Goldilocks and the Three Bears. Well, my group was very enthusiastic, and had plenty of ideas. We ended up doing Goldilocks--ghetto style. The main character was played by a guy with a yellow T-shirt tied around his head for hair, topped with a yellow baseball cap. He also had a towel wrapped around his waist for a skirt. And it ended with the bears killing Goldilocks and chasing the narrator down. He was placed into the Witness Protection Program.
We had the Three Little Pigs perfomed with "Britney Spears" as the Wolf and Justin Timberlake, the twenty-four hour married guy, and the back-up dancer fiancee as the Pigs. We had Snow White and the Five Dwarves, where the only Prince in the kingdom was named Elflamo and seemed more interested in hitting on the male narrator than waking up the Princess.
The skit that won was directed by my friend Vixie (not her real name). They did the Ugly Duckling. It was a short, cute skit, the only one in the entire show that didn't offend everyone (my group decided from the beginning that they wanted to offend as many people as possible--to not offend everyone wouldn't be fair, after all). And her group had the best goddamn joke of the entire evening (which I have gotten her permission to use in a fic).
The Ugly Duckling is sitting there, looking pathetic (and we all want to hug him). Suddenly, some people prance out onto the stage and hold, like, a sheet in front of him so he's hidden from view. One guy dances to the front of the stage and pronounces in a very high voice, "We are the Magical Puberty Fairies!!!" When they pulled the curtain away, there was a different guy sitting there--a very tall, ripped, hot guy! He stood up and ripped his shirt off. The females in the audience went absolutely nuts!
So that was the best joke of the night: We are the Magical Puberty Fairies! Oh man, I'm still laughing about it!
Anyhoo, yesterday was just a bunch of rehearsals. There was a dance last night, and so we (the counselors) had to walk around to the dorms and down by the lake (our campus is by a lake) to make sure nothing was going on there, as well as keeping an eye on the dance itself. So Krystal and I took the first shift in the dorms.
Well, as we were making the rounds, my sister called me on my cell. She was home alone and kinda freaked out, and so she just wanted to talk until one of her friends came over. At the same time, Krystal was on the phone with her boyfriend, so we must have looked veeeeeeeeeeeery intimidating--two girls, walking through the men's dorms, talking on cell phones and randomly asking people if they're doing anything illegal. We wandered by the lake, but we didn't see anything going on, so we headed back towards the building where the dance was.
As we approached, one of the other counselors--we'll call her Kay--was outside. She saw us, and yelled at us, "Get to work, counselors!" The thing about her is that you can never tell when she's kidding or not. But she seemed genuinely pissed off. And there's, like, three other counselors standing around giving us this blank look. Then she ordered us to take a shift at the dance--which is what we'd been planning to do anyway.
Let me explain something: I was assigned to one of the director's, so I have been sitting in on every one of his rehearsals, helping out and running for copies or whatever he might need me to do. I have learned choreography, I have learned music, I have run CD players, I have helped kids figure out where they're going, I have taken kids all over this campus, I have done room checks, I have answered questions, I have run photocopies, I have done office work (stuffing envelopes and stapling things and whatnot), and just generally been around in case I'm needed. AND Krystal has been teaching voice lessons all day every day for this camp. Yesterday, she taught ten lessons, and she taught eight, I believe, on Friday, and she had a few today, in addition to doing room checks and rounding up kids. That might not seem like a lot, but trust me, that's pretty heavy duty. We have been busting our asses quite a bit for this camp, we'd just done a round, and it pissed us both off because she didn't seem to think we were doing anything.
It pissed me off. But we went into the dance and just kept an eye on things. It was one long grinding train, pretty much. I hung on the sidelines, although I join in for the Cha Cha Slide *sheepish* Then, about ten minutes before the dance was supposed to close down, Kay came up to Krystal and me again and told us to go make sure the dorms were open and everything. I understand that she's stressed (she's a voice lesson teacher, too), and she is technically our superior (we're both first year counselors, and she's done this before), but I really got sick of her talking to us like that. We're all supposed to be adults here.
So we headed out. Well, there's a monument on campus that always had spotlights on it; it's a piece of school history, sort of our symbol. There were some kids out there using the spotlights to cast huge shadow-puppets on that monument. It was hilarious! Krystal and I got to talking with them, and that made us both feel a ton better. They're such sweet kids. There's a lot of really sweet kids here.
Well, the dance broke up as we were checking out the male dorm, and about twenty people had accumulated in one room. Realize that it's now eleven-thirty, and lights are supposed to be out at midnight, with everyone in their room. Add into the mix that there's thunder and lightning overhead, and a severe storm warning on the Weather Channel website (we'd checked before making rounds when we saw clouds and lightning), and you've got the formula for a problem. So we told one of the male counselors about it, and he said he'd handle it. After all, that dorm was technically his responsibility, and thus we left it in his jurisdiction. After all, we had our own dorm to worry about.
As we were heading back to the female dorm, it started to rain. We got inside, and the counselors converged to discuss our plan of action--room checks at midnight, get everyone inside, and NO ONE was to go back outside because of the storm. We all went around to inform as many of the girls as possible. Well, I was on the first floor (ground level), walking towards one of the lounges when I look over in time to see three people running outside into the now-pouring rain. In addition to the ten people that were already out there. Kay was right behind me, and we both dove for the doors. I got there first, opened it, and started yelling at everyone to get inside. I felt like a bitch, but I have a job to do, and they are partially my responsibility.
Kay was still right behind me, and she started giving orders right away; women, she announced, had room checks in ten minutes (as that was how long was left until midnight), so they had better go get ready for bed immediately if not sooner. There were three guys in this group, and she ordered them back to the male dorm. They all came inside to get their stuff (they'd all taken off their shirts), and one of them looked outside and kind of whimpered, "It's hailing..." I took pity on them and said I would walk them down to another door that was a little closer to their building. Kay nodded, and those poor guys followed me quite gratefully. They were very nice, and thanked me profusely as I let them out over there.
Then we had the oh-so-fun task of doing room checks. Half the girls are in the showers or doing other bathroom-related bedtime things--brushing teeth, washing faces, etc. Two girls are stuck in the hallway because they'd accidentally locked themselves out of their room and were waiting for security to come and key them in, and there's just general mayhem.
We would check a room, and five seconds later, we'd have to go back because everyone was running around so damn much. It was like herding sheep. It took us probably half an hour to get everyone in their rooms and do the checks and stuff. It was hellish. Extremely much so. But finally, everyone was in their rooms, all the lights were off, and all was quiet. I took a shower, and crawled into bed.
I later found out that in addition to everything else, some college students who were living on campus over the summer came staggering into our dorm at about two AM, completely drunk, and making a lot of noise. They woke up my friend Vixie, who was up on third floor, and she had to send them to the other side of the dorm. They're not allowed to be over here during the camps, especially whilst intoxicated.
Church service this morning. I sang for the little thing we did here on campus. And the little sermon was given by one of the teacher. The theme was, "You can't take it with you." Great, we all know that. I believe his exact words were, "We are in the land of the dying." Great. Just what I want to hear at nine-thirty in the morning. Let's go sing some 'Joyful Joyful' now, okay? Well, there's not really much for the counselors to do at this point during rehearsals, so we're all basically hanging around, doing odd jobs when needed. We reset the chairs in the choir room before lunch.
That was when something kinda freaky happened. I was heading out of the room, and I turned around--in time to see my friend Vixie fall over. She has a heart condition, and she sometimes gets woozy or faints altogether, and that's what happened. So the rest of us counselors (there were about five of us there, I think) sat down and waited for her to wake up, to make sure she was okay. Then Ryann came and joined us (YAY!), and when Vixie was okay, we all went to lunch. On the way there, Vixie got faint again and nearly fell down a flight of stairs. God bless Ryann, he caught her. And everyone was okay after that.
So now it's just basically hang-out time until the final performance at 4:30. Then I'm going out with Ryann and some friends for a while before I head home. So after I finish this entry, I'll probably get my stuff packed so as soon as everyone's checked out, we can go.
I know it sounds like I'm bitching a lot about this, but the amazing part is that I've actually had a pretty good time. Krystal and I were roomed together, and we've had some fun conversations. Watching the kids and working with them has been a great time, since show choir was my absolute favorite activity when I was in high school.
And next weekend, guess what I get to do? That's right--I get to be right back on campus on Wednesday night to be a counselor for the All-State choir camp! I think I might actually be on a little bit better footing with that one. I'd never been to a show choir camp before, but I've been to All-State camps. I have an idea of how those run, and I know what goes on there. Unfortunately, I've already been warned that the kids tend to be not quite as well-behaved at the All-State camp as they have been here. So we'll see how it goes.
And that was my exciting weekend as a show choir slave! I hope the evening performance goes well--those kids have been working so hard, and it looks really good!
Laters, all!
Me ^__^
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Date: 2004-08-01 01:17 pm (UTC)Man wish you had a camera with you when that hot guy ripped off that shirt. I laughed too and I didn't even seen it. Must have been droolable.
Wish you luck and keep on updating!
Hearts,
Kyte