IT'S MY BIG SING BLOGPOST WHAT THE FUCK WOAH IT'S UP WHAT'S HAPPENING OH MY GOD VICKY ACTUALLY DID IT SHE GOT HER SHIT TOGETHER AND COPIED OUT THE POSTS FROM HER JOURNAL YAY FELICITATIONS!!!!
Okay so for the most part I'm going to copy directly what I wrote down in my diary there. Warning there is quite a bit of embarrassing Lachie fangirling (don't hurt me!!!!). I will post my present day comments in bracketed italics.
I didn't do a post on Day 1 so I'll just give a brief run down:
Day 1:
- flight down, seated next to millie and sophia, but swapped so that I got the aisle seat, and across the aisle was vivian (z). Talked about school and extracurriculars and I LEARNT THE CUP SONG!!!!! Which must have annoyed everyone else on the flight hahahaha. Also played iphone charades app with vivian's phone and we were really noisy. EGGS were sitting right behind us!!
- got to dunedin (it's really not that pretty of a city tbh) and our motel rooms weren't ready so we all had to pile our luggage into tibbles' and the yr9s' room, and we headed out to the church that we'd be performing in later that night to rehearse
- rehearsal was a bitch and it was really cold in the church
- it was actually warmer outside than inside the church wtf
- walked around trying to find the octagon, gave up, and ended up just eating subway
- got the most rip off macchiato ($4.50 for HALF A SMALL CUP) from a cute little coffeeshop
- went to the supermarket and got food for the week (ended up being too much food)
- got back to the motel and hung out with everyone in the yr9 apartment and watched masterchef and it was nice and relaxing and good bonding time
- went to choir dinner at this little turkish place that had shit food tbh (flinty ily but daaaamn who even recommended that place to you....) but good company :3
- performed in the church to a huge audience of ... four people... (more than we were expecting ngl)
- got back to the motel, slept at 10pm
11:24pm 29/08/2013 Day 2 of the Big Sing
Alas it is day 2 of our 5 day trip, and today can ultimately be summed up in one word: FUCKING-STRESSFUL. To be fair, it wasn't very stressful until around 4:30pm when we fucke up and ran late to a session (literally.. ran!!!) but I'll go into that later.
Last night I had a pretty shit sleep. We went to bed at around 10pm and were too pussy about the possibility of getting caught to actually man up and watch supernatural at 10:30 like we had planned to. And tired.
I woke up like, 4 times during the night which sucked. These motel rooms are surprisingly nice and warm! Two flat screen TVs in every complex, even! This morning I woke up way before 7 and wasn't even tired. I had a huge breakfast of crunchy nut, a banana, a crumpet with nutella, and a coffee (don't ask me why I thought it was important for me to record down what I had for breakfast in Dunedin, i have no idea what was going through my mind there....)
We then went to the opening ceremony in the town hall. As we were waiting outside with all the other choirs, Lachie was also out there and omfg ok HE WAS WEARING A FUCKING SCARF OH SWEET JESUS HAVE MERCY ON MY FRAGILE SOUL!!! I can't deal with boys in scarves omg it's like he's purposely fucking with me (maybe he knows!!...?) I inconspicuously got a snapchat photo of him which I save and will treasure forever. (Okay I am SO SORRY BUT THIS SHIT IS GOING TO BE HILARIOUS IN ABOUT A YEARS TIME)
The opening ceremony had an acapella group from Otago and they were dressed as clowns and it was like WTF? Ok so at lunch we had a performance in a church and it was pretty good.
At lunch we went to velvet burger and I spent $23 and felt so ripped off and regretful afterwards that I sold Anty my wedges. NEVER AGAIN!! I didn't even get time to eat my burger until at afternoon tea, where we went back to our motel room and chilled -- possibly too much because before we knew it, it was already 4:20 and we were already late as we were supposed to be at the town hall for session 2 which started at 4:30. So, we ran. I MEAN, LEGITIMATELY, RAN. Sprinted blocks with my brick-filled country road bag slung across my shoulder and my choir skirt bunched up in one hand, trying in vain to hold my skirt together and not flash everyone on the street as I motherfucking POUNDED THAT PAVEMENT!!! When we got there, Victoria and Rachel (slightly ahead of us) had already made it into the session, but Viv Q and I were stuck outside until the choir finished. By then I was grossly red faced, sweating, and practically hyperventilating my ass off. I was pretty pissed off at myself, NGL, but what's done is done I guess. PS IF LACHIE LOOKS GOOD ON STAGE UNDER UNFLATTERING PERFORMANCE LIGHTING, HE LOOKS 100X BETTER IN DAYLIGHT UGHHHH (ok how did my stream of consciousness even jump to Lachie wtf Vicky)
I was expecting Flinty to give us a huge rage-out for being so late, but since Anty and Gyorgika was late as well, our group of six people faced her together, and she was basically like, "why were you late?" and I decided to just bite the bullet and tell her the truth that we had lost track of time at the hotel and she was super understanding over it and was like "your downtime when you were trying to relax before tonight's performance only made you more stressed, isn't that right?". Rachel and Victoria wanted to make some bullshit excuse about how I had mean period cramps which prevented our whole group from getting to the town hall on time and I was like uhhhh no i think it's probably better if we just tell her what actually happened lol. Anty and Gyorgika were so relieved that we were late as well because they were not only late, but actually in a group of 2 instead of a group of 3 like we had to be at all times.
For dinner break we had to go back to the motel to get my lanyard/tag because I'm an idiot who was not only late but forgot all her shit, so we had to get sushi on the way for dinner. Very tiring but better than running. We were up first in session 3 and this meant we were all quite ready and pumped. Personally I thought we performed rather well! Good, even! Very satisfied when I got off stage, hehe. Felt really engaged and like I did the best I could.
Other highlights:
- Dilworth got a standing ovation but only their last piece with the Pacifica dancing was outstanding imo
- St Kents and Wellington were really good. And Kings. I recognized a boy from roskill in the Kings choir! We kept staring at each other through their dancey piece because Saints were in the first row and thus in direct line of sight with the people on the stage. Everywhere I looked, it seemed like there were guys staring at me and I was feeling rather exposed lol. I'm obviously biased because all my favourite choirs have boys in them...
- Told mum to watch livestream but she missed us and only saw from 3rd choir in. How sad...
- At night, roommates and I had a pretty good time gossiping after lights out. Viv and I discussed our respective Year 8 boy dramas and awkwardness with guy friends at a young age haha.
30/08 Day 3 of Big Sing 11:57pm
Woke up late at 8:30 because we didn't have to meet until 10am. Turns out that we can't actually get ready properly in that amount of time and we were rushing out the door at 9:59am today. After the morning session, Victoria, Q, Sophia, JJ, and Grace and I had lunch in this Japanese place that took WAY too long to get us our food. Seafood udon FTW!! Next we had a rehearsal which was pretty intense and afterwards a bunch of us decided to get changed. This was happening during a session which meant choirs were performing and/or getting ready. We naively were talking very loudly as we descended the stairs in the town hall building, and LOW AND BEHOLD there was a (guest) choir rehearsing right at the bottom of one flight of stairs. We quickly shut up and as we descended to the next level, it was... you guessed it... Lachie and the Kents choir, prepping for their performance. ABSOLUTELY MORTIFYING EXPERIENCE OF EYE CONTACT WITH LACHIE SINCE I WAS AT THE FRONT OF THE GROUP. They were blocking the exit so we tried going through another way but it was a dead end, so we had to shamefully return to where the choir was and go through the proper exit. OMG kill me tbh.
Oh speaking of St Kents, I've been texting Darryn a fuckton and we were planning of meeting up today but it didn't happen because we both had short breaks with rehearsals. I saw him in the morning and then again later in the town hall after afternoon tea where he was a total sweetie and came over to where my choir was sitting to chat. I told him about the mortification of walking in on their choir and he was like "Hey I should introduce you to Lachie right now" and I don't believe I have EVER said "NO" that many times with that much panic in my voice at any one point of my life!!! OK, since we are already on the topic of Lachie, I just want to note down that he was wearing fuckin beige/mustard chinos that matched his beige fuckin SATCHEL and he also had a grey coat and scarf and GLOVES UGH HOW DARE HE?!?! WHO GIVES YOU THE RIGHT UGHUHGUHGUHGHHHHHHHH!! (okay reading back on this I actually cannot stop laughing IT TOOK ME ABOUT 10 MINUTES TO TYPE OUT THAT BIT ABOUT HIS CLOTHES BECAUSE I WAS ON THE FLOOR PISSING MYSELF HAHAHAH JESUS FUCKING CHRIST WHAT IS WRONG WITH ME THAT LITERALLY WAS A THIRD OF A PAGE IN MY DIARY JUST FLIPPING OUT OVER HIS GODDAMN OUTFIT OH MY GOD I NEED HELP)
At afternoon tea I went with Anty and Victoria to food court to look for Anty's bottle and as we were walking back to the town hall, /lachie was walking from the other way towards us and I nearly shat myself because EYE CONTACT!!!!!!!!!! I panicked because I wanted to seem like I was super non-committal walking past him so I started discussing the pros and cons of french braids for performance as we passed him OMFG I AM SUCH A LOSER????? The sun was setting behind him and everything was ridiculous.... I hate myself. (ok i literally just had a whole passage on making eye contact with him I'm not sure whether I want to punch myself more or check into a mental facility.)
Our performance (which my mum watched and texted "Great!!!" afterwards, yay!) was okay in my opinion but I didn't feel as good as I did after the first session. A part of that had to do with Flinty's negative, stressed attitude in our prep time. At dinner, I went with Anty and Gyorgika to this Italian restaurant but as we were walking there, we became engulfed by people from Burnside and it turns out that we were going to the same restaurant as their WHOLE CHOIR! The restaurant ended up kicking us out because they couldn't deal with the number of people, and we went roaming for another place. We wandered into a bar, got kicked out for being under 18, went into a Jap place, saw Flinty + co, and GAPPED IT, and ended up in the same restaurant that I went to for lunch.... -___-
Last Lachie point: as we left the town hall he was right behind me and I nearly fainted and Sophie was like WTF. When I checked my phone and turned on the internet, I got an influx of snapchats (22) and on FB I saw that Nicole watched our Big Sing performance and Cathee, Jo, and Cherry were watching the latest sessions as well!!! I felt SOOOO supported and grateful for my friends, aw. I was legitimately so overwhelmed! I can't believe they watched the livestreams! Lol apparently the cameras were filming audience members during the breaks between choirs and zooming up in on people's phones where they were playing candy crush, or zooming in on their text message hahahahha.
Jason from Kings (the guy from roskill) fb msg'd me asking if I was at Big Sing and I said yes and we texted for quite a bit. Kings is staying in the same hotel as St Kents!!! Might hang out with Jason and/or Darryn tomorrow. OH LOL DARRYN TEXTED ME ASKING IF I WANTED TO GO RUNNING WITH HIM TOMORROW MORNING AND I WAS LIKE HEEEELLLLL NO i ain't running for nobody!!!! Elaine was super cute and said they missed me at school. All this fbing and shit was happening as all four of us gathered in our one room after lights out and at first we were talking about shit and gossiping, but we ended up all on our phones taking advantage of the wifi hahaha bless our generation.
Day 3, 31/08/2013 3:20am
Breakfast was fast and we made our flashmob video at 8am, doing a thing where we popped out on the road singing what is this feeling to some boys from Wellington boys college (who are staying next door!!). Took a few takes but end product was good and on my camera. We posted it before the last session which was good. Before that session started, I called Kelly K over and we chatted for a bit which was nice.
Later, in the mass choir rehearsal, Sophie, I, and the rest of our alto section were in the front of the mass alto section, which was cool ut also rather embarrassing! At lunch, I went with Anty and Qiu to the Italian place that we got rejected from yesterday at dinner. Played cellphone-in-the-middle game which totally backfired on me because I was giving Darryn directions to get to the restaurant so that we could meet up. He came eventually and brought a friend (who ditched him) but I'm really glad we got to hang out! It was pretty awkward though because Qiu and Anty didn't know him so it was mainly Darryn and I talking, so I felt bad about leaving them out. Especially because he hadn't had lunch yet and had to wait ages before his order arrived. Had a bit of a discussion about Lachie (of course we did... HE BROUGHT IT UP THOUGH, NOT ME) and how Lachie can be a bit of a dick in his quest to be taken seriously by the students in spite of his young age. (Oh ps if you tell a guy that you're really into guys who wear scarves and then the guy wears a scarf the next time you see him and actually points out that he is wearing a scarf, are you supposed to read into that or....)
Darryn and us parted ways and Anty, Viv and I got back to the motel and chilled for a bit before Gala that night. A few of the year9s and vivian came into our room and it was lots of fun! I ended up doing 5 people's make up and my liquid eyeliner ran dry :( so I had to use my shitty pencil eyeliner which meant everyone had panda eyes by the end of the night hahaha.
Walked over to the town hall and got pizza in a rush along the way. We then took a bunch of proper choir photos in front of the cathedrals and on the steps. One of which is the first photo of this post!
At Gala we performed Hej Igatzisad which was alright and uneventful. At the end it was announced that we got Silver award and it was actually a bit of a shitfest when that happened. The compere hadn't announced our name in the bronze or silver list, and we got SO EXCITED thinking that we had gotten GOLD, and I was actually about to have a heart attack from the excitement, but then right after he said "moving on to the gold awards..." the guy handing out the plaques tapped him on the shoulder and showed him the name on the plaque and the compere was like "apologies, there is one more choir that received Silver -- Saints Alive!" and we were like ".... yay...." -____- honestly, we were expecting silver which was why we were absolutely dying when we thought that we were getting gold, and the drop down to silver was a HUGE anticlimax. If they had announced us in the silver category along with everyone elses, without making us expect a silver award, we would've probably been really proud and celebratory. Too bad.... According to Sophie's friend who is actually the compere's daughter, our choir wasn't even on his paper list at all - not in silver, bronze, or gold. So it wasn't really his fault.
Mass choir piece was super epic and I was standing right at the front which felt rather exposing.
The student function at the end was ... interesting. Very Year9 Socialish. LACHIE CAME TO THE FUCKING SOCIAL and I saw him and Anty and I were like OMG???? (okay do not read this next bit if you don't want to die from second hand embarrassment. No seriously, I can't even write it without cringing and taking 10 second breaks to breathe deeply and stop laughing from shame.) And I was like lol fuck it and took advantage of the crowded body-against-body area to take the piss with anty.... uh.... well... sort of... dance/grind against his back REALLY SUBTLY THOUGH, OKAY. No no but okay get this, I fucking danced with him?? Like, face to face???? MULTIPLE TIMES THROUGH THE NIGHT BECAUSE I WAS LIKE, FRANKLY, I MIGHT AS WELL TAKE ADVANTAGE OF THIS OPPORTUNITY OR ELSE I WOULD REGRET IT AND COMPLAIN ABOUT BEING IN NEAR PROXIMITY AND NOT DOING SHIT, so yeah I danced with him.... Not like, body on body, it wasn't raunchy, take your head out of your hands man! It was totally PG, armwidth away jammin (he fist pumps a lot, it's really funny/sad) and it actually lasted quite a long time. Like, half a song? Bravo Vicky, didn't pass out from the proximity and constant eyecontact... I FUCKING DANCED WITH HIM WHAT THE FUCKKKK!!!!!!!!!!
Later I found Darryn (their whole choir was still in uniform lol) and we hung out/danced/jammed for a while and went outside for a bit as well. I told him Lachie was there and he physically dragged me to go dance with him so that he could introduce me to him and ACTUALLY FUCKING PUSHED ME INTO HIM AND I WANTED TO SMACK HIM OMG but I refused to do it because NUH-UH I AM NOT GETTING INTRODUCED!! So he danced with lachie a little while and they fist pumped and it was SO lame that it verged on adorable hahahha it was like I was watching a jersey shore episode.... His friend and him came across two of their choir members making out and they FLIPPED THE FUCK OUT and did that "OHHHHHHHHHH SNAAAPPP" thing where they jumped around so I was like lol cya and gapped it. Ran into Jason like, 4 times! Had a bit of a convo where he asked me where I went and then he was like "real different to roskill - we've done well for ourselves!" and I was like oh snap no u didnt!!!
Anty and I even went upstairs to the mezzanine for a bit, where we ran into this guy in westlake who was friends with rachel/libby, etc. Eventually Anty and I went into the St Kents zone where I found Lachie again (oh god i'm so sorry) and danced in proximity and then Darryn saw me and FUCKING INTRODUCED ME TO LACHIE BY SAYING GOD KNOWS WHAT BUT HE POINTED AT ME AND LACHIE LOOKED AT ME AND SMILED AND NODDED AND I WAS LIKE AWWW SHIT DARRYN WHAT DID U FUCKING SAY.... (ps darryn still refuses to tell me what he said and i've bugged him a million times about it and he wON'T TELL ME AND I LITERALLY WANT TO PUKE AT THE THOUGHT OF IT) And we ended up dancing in the same smallish circle and I just ?!?!??!?! omfg?!?!? We did the lame YMCA actions and the fucking gangnam style oh my god everyone (including L) was so into it and I was like ........ ok.
I was tempted to ask for a photo because YOLO but decided to keep some semblance of my dignity (APPARENTLY THERE WAS A GIRL WHO ACTUALLY ASKED FOR A PHOTO WITH HIM, I CAN'T EVEN DEAL OMFG?!?!?!)
Um yeah so it's almost 4am now and we had gotten home at 1am and I've been texting people for the last 2 hours.... There was a fire alarm at 3am at the hotel that Kings and St Kents are staying at hahahahaha everyone came out in their pjs and shit and it was REALLY FUCKING COLD. I jokingly told Darryn to take a photo of Lachie for me in his pjs and he was like "that's pervy" and I was like "nah shh just do it" and he replied "I asked Lachie and he said it was weird" AND I WANT THE FLOOR TO FUCKING SWALLOW ME OH MY GOD I WAS JOKING, WHY WOULD U ACTUALLY TELL A PERSON THAT, THAT IS SO EMBARRASSING SOMEONE KILL ME.
Day 4
- Tourist Day
- Really bad hair day so all my photos are a MESS which is rather unfortunate if you're taking photos the whole day
- Went to the Cadbury Chocolate factory and they unleashed this big tank of melted chocolate and took a photo of our reactions and my face was in the state of extreme shock (I feared for my life when it happened, THERE WAS SO MUCH AND I THOUGHT IT WAS GOING TO SPLASH ONTO ME AND I WAS THINKING "I WOULD NEVER BE ABLE TO GET CHOCOLATE OUT OF MY CLOTHES GET IT AWAY!!!) so that's basically what my face conveyed.... Also, everyone else went crazy buying chocolate and I felt bad for not buying anything because I usually have chocolate at home anyway, haha.
- Climbed Baldwin Street aka steepest street in the world. People who cycle down there are fucking NUTS. It didn't really feel that steep though, just was kinda like climbing a hill. Definitely wasn't as bad as tramping... (ps darryn ran that street on that morning he tried to make me go running with him and it was early morning and -7 degrees... fucking crazy....)
- Lazer Tag!!! I KILLED it!!!! Consistently got among the highest accuracy and near the top of the leaderboards! Our team won in the end, hehe. SO MUCH FUN!! Everyone on the other team got really irked at me because I kept killing them and using the mirrors muhahhahaha
- The bus ride around everywhere was really nice and everyone just bonded and talked, and viv z had these nasty ass REALLY SOUR lollies that she filmed a reaction of me eating. IT WASN'T EVEN SOUR, IT WAS REALLY GROSSLY SALTY AND CHEMICALLY BURNT MY TONGUE!!! I had to spit it out eugh :(
- Harri and Lizey made a (surprisingly nice) song using dumb lyrics that Jess and Brit wrote. It went along the lines of "the sky is green like a gherkin//and I feeel like twerkin// twerk, miley, twerk it" except I'm missing like, 3 lines in between those bits, and theres a whole another verse after that. They made it into the tune of a nice folk song with guitar noodling and harmonies hahahha
- Went to the beach, planned to have lunch, realised there wasnt much choice in food, drove back to the food court.
- Went to an old trainstation where we did impromptu performances (well, not really performances, just singing) of For thy greatest blessings, Sanctus, and Benedictus because the acoustics were really pretty. It was so nice just being able to do that out of nowhere!! Everyone came out around the trainstation to see why there was singing going on hahahha. Such a lovely experience that I think I will remember as one of the highlights of the trip :)
- Flinty shouted us all ice creams from McDonalds, it was awesome.
- Bus broke down so there was a stressful period where we had to wait for another bus whilst worrying about whether we would make our flight in time.
- Flew back home, did SAT vocab on the plane with Sophia hahahaha
I miss big sing :( Can't wait till next year!! I hope Lachie doesn't remember me... fuck.
