I do NOT own Michigan State University.
Chapter Five The first full day
"Layla! Wake up!" Jenny yelled at me.
"Mmmm what do you want? I was sleeping." I said very angry.
"Come on, its time to go wake up Blackmer!"
"OH!"
With that I threw on my softball hoodie, grabbed my noise maker and headed outside with Jenny. We stepped outside and all the senior girls were there looking very tired, like someone had just woken them up too.
"Alright, everyone hear?" Jasmine asked while looking around. "Alright ladies lets go."
With that we crept along the border of the girls and guys area. Our plan was to go up to Mr. Blackmer's cabin and wake him up with a little song, The Fight Song. Which was the Navy fight song, only it mentioned our mascot, school colors, and other cheesy high school things. We approached his cabin and I finally noticed my watch, 4:16 AM it read.
"One...Two...Three..."Jasmine whispered.
After three we all screamed as loud as we could the fight song. We were all very loud, even at four in the morning. We got done singing it and decided now it was time for the noise makers. We spun the toy ratchets right next to the door. Still no Mr. Blackmer, but we had woken up half the guys. Jenny got impatient and started banging and ringing the door bell. We were all busy making noises that we didn't notice Jenny screaming. It turned out that Mr. Blackmer had popped his head up right in front of her face, scaring her half to death.
"Good morning Mr. Blackmer!" we all said.
"Morning ladies." he said groggy. "Are you ladies done now?"
We were still spinning our noise makers, and stopped.
"Go. Back. To. Bed." and with that he slammed the door on our faces.
We laughed a bit and walked back to our cabin. We were met with some angry half dressed boys as we left their site. I guess we woke them and some of the girls up too, oops.
I was way to excited to sleep, I had all of this adrenaline pumping through me. So unlike half of my cabin, I grabbed my stuff and headed for a nice shower. The showers at band camp seemed to be the best thing in the world, after a long rehearsal a shower always felt like heaven.
I was alone on the upperclassmen side of the bathroom, so I got the good shower. I was soon joined by Jenny, who also couldn't sleep. She chose the stall next to me and we both sang the opener while showering.
The rest of the day seemed to take forever. Because the senior girls had woken up Blackmer, he gave us clean up duty after the meals today. It wasn't a big deal, just scrubbed down the tables, and we even got the left over desserts when we were done. During morning rehearsal we worked more on marching, and then started to chart out the opener. I started off directly on the 50 yard line, front and center. We did the first 5 pages, some playing our instruments and sometimes just singing. After morning rehearsal came lunch. Then we had mandatory rest period, which was just staying in your bunk for an hour to rest. I tried to sleep but couldn't, I could already feel a sunburn coming. Then it was time for afternoon rehearsal. This one was worse than the morning one, it was around two o'clock so the sun was pretty high up, and it was extremely hot. Thankfully Blackmer gave us plenty of water breaks, and we even got to have full band rehearsal inside the pavilion. Now it was off to free time. A time when you could get ice cream, swim in the lake, have water balloon fights, or play 'Spoons' in the lodge. I grabbed some money, bought a ice cream sandwich and sat down with my friends for a game of 'Extreme Spoons'.
'Extreme Spoons' is just like regular spoons, except instead of the spoons being on the table, we spread them out all over the lodge, so we had to race to get the spoon.
"YES! I won!" chanted Josh.
He always won, he was 6'8" and was fast. He could out run anyone, so he always won, no matter how hard we each tried. I was the first to loose and so I headed to go find Annie. She was sitting on the back porch talking to Andrew.
"Hey guys." I said approaching them.
"I'll see ya later then Annie." Andrew said getting up and leaving the bench.
"What was all that about?"
"Uh nothing." she said.
"You can't hid it from me! What were you guys talking about?"
"He told me he like's me." A huge smile came across her face. "And I told him I like him back."
"Annnnd?"
"Annnnd, we're dating."
"AHH!! ANNIE I'm so happy for you! Andrew is such a good guy!" He really is, he had been one of my close friends since sixth grade. He and Annie were perfect for each other.
"Now you need to go break the ice with Mike." she said proudly.
"Um yeah about that..." I trailed off.
"Oh come on Lay! Everyone knows he likes you and you like him. You two are practically sweethearts!"
"Sweethearts?"
"Yes. But no really, go talk to him."
"I will later..."
We dropped the subject and talked about sectionals, they were up next. We were supposed to have an instructor, but Blackmer never told me who he or she was.
"Layla. Can I see you a moment?" Blackmer asked.
"Yes?"
"Um so I couldn't find you a mellophone instructor. So you can either join the saxophone's or run them your self. What do you want to do?"
"I can run them. I can handle them!"
"Ok then. But if you need my help, come and get me."
With that he turned and left. "YES!" I thought. I get to run sectionals and get everything right, not some stuck up little college brat like we've had in the past. I ran off to the cabin, grabbed my horn and music and ran to our sectional spot, the play ground.
Sectionals went ok. Of course there were sometimes when Annie and Melissa were goofing around, but so was I. All in all the sectionals had gone pretty well. We worked on the opener and some of the second song. The goal was to get the opener and second song ready for final day of band camp, when all the parents and some band alumni came to check out the band. After sectionals it was dinner, again Jenny and I sauntered over to the lodge and went in through the senior door. After a "delicious" meal of some sort of meat and what was supposed to be mashed potatoes, we had our night time activity. Tonight's activity was, Scavenger Hunt. Where the entire band split up into teams, going by the last number of your drill number. Mine was 5, I had Jenny, Josh, Andrew, Mike, Derek and a couple of underclassmen.
Before you go to the scavenger hunt (which is held on the practice field) you bring down a bunch of random objects, like flashlights, pillows, bike racks, mattresses and some girls have brought down tampons. The trumpet instructor Anthony, calls out random objects and you have to find something that resembles the said object. This year, my team finally won because we had a drum major. And since Blackmer and Anthony went to Michigan State University, the final 'hunt' was to sing the entire MSU fight song. Derek always won because he was a hard core MSU fan.
Finally being victorious this year, I realized how much I would actually miss it. You dread the long tiring days and the corny night activities and the disgusting food, but in the end, you can't get enough of it. I was really going to miss it. But I still have a couple more days left, I must enjoy them.