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| Randomperson (profile) wrote, on 7-20-2003 at 1:36pm | |
| Music: "Live" ~Heaven Subject: Band Camp NEver to be forgotten... not for good reasons |
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| I got back from band camp on Friday afternoon. We left Sunday morning for Ferris State where we spent almost 10 hours a day on marching band-related material, some days marching those whole ten hours or sometimes about 7 and then indoor music rehearsals for 3. It was grueling, but that was the least of my problems. The instructors, getting sick, and general crap made it worse. Sunday: First off, Annie quit the day we got there... Demitria, the color guard choreographer (Characterization in a nutshell: Bipolar, Short tempered, Talented, holds grudges towards Troy) intimidated her or something, so from day one we had a hole that isn't guaranteed a person. My mom, a chaperone, also got told off by Gillette and Demitria for not handling her correctly and letting her go home. They both said they should've been the ones to handle it. One thing to get straight: Annie sat in my mom's room for an hour. She was afraid to talk to Demitria she told my mom, and for that whole hour Mr. Gillette never came to talk to her, instead kept working with the band and then sat in his room. He, when asked by my mom if he ever knew anything about Annie besides her name or ever talked to her, said "No". Let's analyze this: Annie is scared to death of Demitria so talking to her will only make her want to leave more, and Mr. Gillette neglected to ever get to know her, or let alone talk to her, and neglected her in the midst of the situation HE should've been handling... Who's fault is that? Monday and Tuesday were straightforward, long days where we did basics and the start of our drill. The major occurence on those days was the genesis of J.R. Trimpe's stalking of Adrienne and Lacie. J.R. is the dude who wrote our music, and came to do music and sectionals. On Monday at sectionals he 1) Sat next to Adrienne and said "We're gonna become great friends this week!" and 2) told Lacie to "Blow, don't suck. *Wink*". Lacie asked nervously, "What?", and he said "You heard me." Tuesday he did it again, when he tried to get Lacie to double tongue a note, and not very surprised when she couldn't do it, he said "I'll show you how to double tongue later. *Wink*" Also Monday night Demitria and some of the other instructors went to a bar, and upon coming back, Troy, sitting in the hall, asked Demitria is they were all drunk, jokingly. Last year they bantered back and forth, but Demitria, seemingly drunk as i heard, slapped him on the head and said "Don't speak to me that way" and some other things. Wednesday started to make everything terrible. JR went home for a day, but Chris Lewis, the guy who graduated 2 years ago who played trumpet really well, went out with Kristine Piotrowski, was rather nice and humble even to me at the time, a lowly 8th grader, a freshman in marching band, made life hell for me. He pointed out everything I did wrong: Not traversing, feet not totally together on a standstill, marching style, stomach not sucked in quite enough... Sure I wasn't perfect, but he was out of line. VERY out of line: 1) It's band camp. We'll make mistakes 2) He commented on my playing once in a while. He's not my section leader or music instructor. I'm a woodwind, not a trumpet. 3) Others were making more mistakes right in front of his face but he didn't point them out. (Ex. Mel and Lisa in from of me in a line were not traversing, lisa was two steps behind melanie, and they were shuffling their feet. I did all of that right but my shoulders weren't quite parallel to the sideline, and he pointed out my mistake. Worse yet I could not point out that others were making mistakes at that moment or I would be running laps) 4) He specifically pointed me and a few others out by name by yelling across the field, but with those not on his hit list he made general statements or talked to them quietly alone. I notices three of those hit-list people were me, a freshman girl and Dan Chandonette. Dan may not have noticed it, but David Breed seems to think it is because Chris might be afraid Dan is as good or better then he was in his senior year. Katharine, the freshman, needed a lot of work, but pointing her out was out of line. Me, I have no idea why he did it, but every other thing he said was about me. Wednesday also brought more controversy. Demitria, unprovoked, threatened to punch Troy in the throat if he didn't shut up. She then told Mark, the Percussion instructor, to shut up, and proceeded to tell the drumline what to do. Troy took off his shirt on the field in the afternoon, and later at the waterbreak Demitria was talking and at the end she added "Troy, put your shirt back on." When asked why she said some junk about discrimination against girls, and how since girls can't take off their shirts at all then guys can't... and a fight ensued. Dan and Troy vs. Demitria, the black tyrant and her puppet named Gillette(He just pretended to be authoritative but really only repeated what Demitria said), and Dan had some good points about how none of the girls cared, why can't the girls just take off their shirts too, and why JEnnifer, the permanent, season-long instructor, was wearing a Bikini top when it says that girls can't take off their shirts. Demitria countered by saying she was an instructor and that rule was for students and you could read it in the student handbook. Analyze this: Instructors should have rules of decency around students too, right? Can they go out and have a beer, wear just a bikini top, or threaten students with injury during a school day? That's in a sense what this is since it is a school activity. That's like Mr. Earnest going out back for a joint after lunch... So everyone went to their rooms at 3:30 pissed. All students, girls and bos united were against 'Black Hitler', 'Ventriloquist Dummy Gillette', and wereamazed at Troy. When threatened with laps if he misbehaved more during the fight. he ran one, put his shirt back on during the lap, and took it off again. So he ran another lap. That took balls. Then he sang, loud enough for the instructors to hear him, parodies about how much he hates band and the instructors. Here's a small sample: (To the 80's song "Tainted Love") Sometimes when Marching I just want to *Thump Thump* KILL Myself I want to *THump Thump* Kill Myself. I thought up my own (To "Jack and Diane" by John Mellencamp) Little Diddy bout our marching band I pissed off Demitria so she broke my hand, singing "Oh Yeah I say we're living in hell They threaten to send us home but it's just as well" Thursday was more hell from Chris, and I started to get sick. In the morning, my sinuses plugged up, my headache started, and my Colitis flared up. J.R. stood outside the window of the sectional room in the basement and just stared at Lacie with this weird look, like Michael Myers in "Halloween" stared at the guy he killed and hung on a wall. Then, after the afternoon practice, he stood outside their open door and watched Lacie and Adrienne sleep. Lacie woke up when she heard Mark stop to talk to the idle J.R. in the hallway right outside her door, asked why they were standing there, and tried to go back to sleep. Mark walked on, so Lacie opened her eyes again and J.R. was still there. She got up and left, freaked out as anyone would be. In the evening there was more hell, considering my headache was becomeing a migraine, I was getting sun poisoning, and I was about to collapse. But I made it. Then we had a candle ceremony where we pass a flame around and say what we were thankful for. I said what I wanted to say, and added bullshit about Chris. Everyone besides him knew it was bullshit. Friday we left after a morning rehearsal that I didn't go to. Matt told me to go back to bed cuz I looked horrible... and I did. I slept about 3 hours because I kept waking up so congested I couldn't breathe David said My whole body was sick: Full body stiffness, sinuses, stomach flu, migraine, colitis, dehydration, chills/sweats, and a touch of sunburn. But then we got home and the little cousins were there, and we had some fun. I rode back to school in Mrs. Devrie's Van because everyone thought I would overheat and get sick on the bus. The AC gave me uncontrollable chills and chattering teeth, so it didn't help much but I got some sleep. But I was home. And it's over. But I might quit. I'm seriously considering. I need time to think about the good stuff, so I'll post that later |
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jburt1 | 07-20-03 1:54pm Wow, that sounds like band camp from hell! But it makes a good story though! |
| Harris26 | Re:, 07-20-03 3:55pm I agree..hearing this Im kind of glad I droppd band before band camp |
Randomperson | Re: Re:, 07-20-03 5:51pm yeah no offense but I could see Chris picking on you for no good reason at all... |
| Harris26 | Re: Re: Re:, 07-20-03 5:54pm oh its ok...if he did oh well remenber when i was there how much he humiliated me??? |
Fatman | 07-21-03 5:56pm Four words: blow their houses up |