Cantando Festival

Who: Harmonie Secondaire École Pointe-des-Chênes without Merve and Nathalie Turenne.
What?: Cantando Festival. What is it?: A band and jazz festival, where groups perform in front of juges.
When?: Our trip is the 16th - 20th of April. We perform the 17th at 3:20.
Where?: Winspear Centre, Edmonton, Alberta. We are going by bus... More then 14 hours of road going.
Why are we going?: To perform as best we can and learn.

I was well enough prepared, but just before I left, my mom reminded me to bring my black clothes for our perfomance. THANK GOD! I would have cried if didn't have that..
So on the bus, I learn that Merve was too sick to come... I can't imagine what she's going through... THE BUS IS WAY SMALLER THEN I EXPECTED! Oh well... I packed lots of food compared to what I usually do, due to the long bus ride.
The bus ride started well. Not much going on. I put on my boombox to see their reaction which was: "SHUT THAT OFF!" -Johnny. Lol.
- 1:45 in -
I read a little and shall continue as much as I can. I thought that this bus was gonna be big enough that we could separate from the group.
- 3:00 in -
Stopping in Brandon.
- After that till the end -
I got the music up and we danced! Then when it was really dark, someone had brought glow sticks so Christine and I had a techtonik competition. We both won! Everyone was up dancing! Awesome time! Lol
After that it took 20 mins to get out of the bus... Pretty sad. Also we noticed the back door had been open for a while but we didn't lose anything thanks to the bag of percussion that was in the doorway.
That night was good! I owned Jacques at magic. Then we talked a lot about stuff, secrets, and somewhat to Johnny but he was tired.

- 17th of April -
I made sure our room woke up at a reasonable time. We were the first ones to eat.
Then we have a meating at 10, took 15 mins for 3 mins of talking.
Then we went to eat at olive Garden at like 11:30, they say no time or something then our bus just left without us so we are stuck without a bus... So we decide to go to Montana's where I get the Montana's Great Canadian Burger. Ced took the vegitarian burger with feta! Under my suggestion.
- OUR PERFORMANCE -
We went to practice for our things and I felt bad for our teacher cause everything was going bad and you could tell she was nervous. She almost lost it and then came to apologise so that we wouldn't panic because if your teacher is panicking, imagine the students. I had to go to the washroom so bad, cause I'm keeping myself hydrated, and I just had the chance to luckily. We perfomed pretty well. I had to play in black socks cause I had forgotten my shoes. I made a few mistake on loud notes. Mme Irene was "testing" us on the fermatas, holding it as long as reasonable. Incredible momment. A rush even though I felt free-er then normal! Fun! Picture after that and then we left for the hotel!
The pool was awesome!Just before we walked into the pool, we passed a chick and I told her she should call me but when she looked back, I was already on my way to the slide. I think I impressed a few people with my "gliding" skills! Such an amazing feeling! I smoked my elbow against the side of the slide, hurt so much!!! I also hit the edge of the pool 4 times! Scared me the first time but so satisfying! A lady in pink was a bitch to us when we, me Jacques johhny alex and deric, went all in a row. Then we made fun of her so bad by waiting EXTRA EXTRA long. It was funny! Derric was doing this weird twisting thing were his head would end up away from the slide. The first time he went, I was sure he was gonna smoke this head against the edge of the pool. The chick, the one that I just told to call me, was with her friends watching from the 2nd floor window. I was like oh shit but then Jim told Shelby that they were watching him and he was like "Really?". Jennifer was also glinding but she had her own way of doing it and it looked so gracefull! Like a queen stepping down from her thrown lol. Then, Jacques, Zacch and me went in the hot-tub and made it overflow and started a random conversation with the girls in there! Awesome!

Then supper, Old Spagetti factory was great! I had to direct everyone to it, without knowing so I lost ourselves but then I rememberred and got us there no prob. Then, I had predicted, they did not have our reservation and Mme. Bohemier had not called to comfirm. Why would kids konw more the adults? Anyways.. Starts off by me spitting water all over Erica's silver wear cause of my cough... I got to order half and half of meat saucer and some light cheese sauce! It was delicious because I had a mix of two flavours cause just one gets annoying after a while. I'm soo experience with that place. Lol. I helped Mme to get organised. Then I un-sealed the parmijan for Johnny for Johnny dump it on hit plate but somehow Marie ended up with it and .. Yeah poor girl.. Funny as hell.. Then I tried Jean-Marc again with the peppers but he saw it. Then he tried it himself on other people and Alex falled for it... God!! Two plates..
The concert after was amazing! So much variety of instruments and soo much control and precision... I c why Mme. Bohemier likes music. The clarinette earned it's respect in me thanks to that amazing clarinette soloist! Along with the euphonium.

- 18th of April -
So we started of by going to the Telus World of Science. Kinda cool, lots of stuff but too much that you have to read. Didn't feel like it at the time. The one thing I wish I could have done would have been to solve the mystery. But way not enough time.. We missed the concert we were supposed to see at lunch. I ate a cool pita wrap for lunch. Pinaple chicken. Jacques and I sorta got in an argument because I was complaining about Jacques' lack of memory. He asked me like 6 times "So two larges? Pep mushroom and deluxe?"... Our fatigue is already showing.. How is this gonna end... Anyways, I pretty much found the place where we were supposed to go for our workshops because Mme. Bohemier had no idea and was in no rush. I learned mostly about the physical aspect of my instrument and one thing that will definately help is to put the bolts on top of my mouthpiece. Zachh and Jacques missed theirs but they got to see a mini jazz concert and talked to them so they learned a lot anyways. They have to write about it in their journal hahaha...

After hanging out in the entrance/lounge, which would have been amazing for paintball, we headed to our workshop from one of the juges our our performance. When I walked in, I started to set up my stuff and that's when I saw him. Omg.. Creeepy guy. He was walking head down, with his eyes up, and was mumbling something. He wasn't bad of a teacher once you got used to his "ways". He tought us how to save 15 mins of practice time just by looking at Mme., smart guy. We kept of "hurting his feelings" by not looking at him. Jim called him a total red-neck lol. So says the cowboy lol.

I think we went to the pool again not sure. Yeah we did. And it was basically the same thing as last time. We had orderred pizza and it was DELICIOUS!! Jacques had also got Cinna Stix, which he made me taste to convince me to split them with him, which I did. We even had pizza left over for everyone. But after that, Jacques and I gelled our hair! The usual, clean for the concert. I couldn't find a cool way of gelling my hair. WEIRD! On our way there, I interviewed Jennifer about random stuff. She's... different. Idk but she matched the guy that she liked so it's all good. I don't think I would ever date her. Not really my type from what I learned. Ok ok ok the interviewing was maybe not just to learn if she matched the guy. Multi-tasking ;-).

The concert was so cool! I wish I had been down there playing with all the other saxophones but I would have missed this amazing day. The other brass only band was cool to. They didn't sound like just a brass band. So many different variations of instruments and new ones I had never seen. THE JAZZ BAND WAS AMAZING! Most of it seemed like improvisation and omg! On each of their improvisation solos they were just nuts!!! The drummer did a base drum only solo! It was sick! Then the saxophonist, while he wasn't playing, went to go get a tambourine as if the music was missing something. That was improvisation and it was awesome! The croud went nuts!! I noticed the jazz band was just having so much fun...

- 19th of April -

Mall was unbelievable. The guys stayed together for the first part and since none of the stores were open, we started to dance in the halways! We even got some of it filmed... Awesome!! Then we visited a few store including Bluenotes, Stiches, EB games for Shelby, and random stuff. I got my orange plaid shirt that I had got before but ripped for 4 dollars. I also got a Adidas cologne and my hoddy/muscle shirt at H & M! Everyone said it was soo me and it looked good. Plus I got one pack of magic cards.. FUCK ZACCH is so lucky with his packs... god damn. I also went to American Eagle with Cédric and I found him a very nice red hoody which he bought. He needs to clean up and longsleeves seem to be the way!

I ate our left over pizza and order a cherry milkshake at DQ! So expensive but soooo good!

Then we went to the Water Park! My first time going there. And I've been to the mall 3-4 times... lol. It was amazing! The wave pool, so much fun! Cédric and Johnny helped me jump over each wave! I was doing front flips but on the fifth wave they were too knocked down by the fourth one that I just made it by stalling in the air! So sick! I also did a frontflip dive!! Then we started to go with the wave, ride it! And it was hard to learn but after a while I sort of got the hang of it! I went at least 9 meters far for my record! Such a crazy feelings when you're caught in the wave and you look at infront of you and you're moving with the wave. I got smoked in the face soo hard I had a headache for the rest of the day. So many people in the way! The slides were fun! We started by the highest one, I was shitting my pants the whole way up. But it was the slowest one lol... Many different slides. The funnest ones were: the one where you glide on a tarp, the one where you end up in a funnel and the purple one that drops three times! I flew sooo much on the purple one!!! And on the glinding one I had guessed that Jenniffer was going to go the farthest and guess what!? She did! lol Small is powerfull! 5 hours in there was too long and Jim agreed with me. When we got out, a little kid shared his shampoo with us! So nice of him. We got everything out and I went, with Jacques to eat chinese lol. But I ate with Cédric and Jim cause Jacques got lost. Too much! And we went to HVM and Collectors Edge to end up at Zellers. Then we had to run all the way across the mall because we were late. God! Such a long run with all our shit on us! Shelby was screaming the whole time: "Wait... Slow down! I can't keep up!". We got in, and then I even got time to go to the washroom and came back. Then Mme. Vivianne had lost a pack of papers and she RAN to go get them! SHE RAN!!!

- The way back -

I slept most of it. I set up on the ground. Then lots of people copied me. Then Bréanne came to sleep right next to me which supprised me. We had my soft blanket under me so it was so comfortable and her tiny blanket on us be we kept each other warm ;-). I woke up to go to the washroom at the gas stops and went back to sleep. I did that for 10 hours of the way back lol. My eyes were blood shot and I think it was cause either cause of the dust(alergies), chlorine and my contacts. When we got to Tim Hortons in Brandon, I tried to scare the lady at the counter by saying: "Give me a BAGEL!" But I couldn't be so mean. Then I organised all my shit and talked with everyone. Bréanne just kept smiling when we planned a fake laugh. It was so funny!

The first day, Cédric was amazing. But somehow, somewhere we lost him and yeah.. His attitude rose to a crazy level. Who knows what's going on in there...

What I learned from all this?: Well a lot but one major thing I learned again is to keep my cool and not to show too many emotions.

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