Apparently they have to preserve open space now

Today I felt really guilty that I haven't posted in like 2 weeks. But I have TONS AND TONS of rehearsal. I can't use homework as an excuse because I really didn't have that much the last 2 weeks. Anyways, today our grade went on a field trip to Windy Hill Open Space preserve. Yep, apparently they have to preserve open space now. Go figure.

As soon as our bus left the school, it started raining. The rain only got harder and harder until when we actually started hiking it was coming down moderately. Us forty-some kids were all complaining about the rain, but we all trudged on anyways. I was one of the last people. There was mud EVERYWHERE from the rain, and people fell in a lot. I had to not fall in, because my hiking boots were also my boots for Les Miserables. I got a bunch of dirt on them, but some people were coated thickly in mud from the knees down so I was pretty lucky. So we got about one mile into the trail and I got really tired. But we still had to go on. About two miles into it, the rain let up, but we were all soaked and freezing because the wind had started.

At one point me and two other kids were right in the middle of the group, so we could see absolutely no people to the front or back of us as far as we could see. Which wasn't very far, because there are a lot of hills. We weren't lost or anything, but we just were pretty much stranded and all we could do was walk. We got pretty freaked out; the other kids started pretend-hallucinating that they could see a sheep or Totoro or something fluffy like that, and I started laughing hysterically.

Before, I was worrying excessively about my shoes, but by this far in the trip, I didn't really care anymore. My pants got really muddy. I almost fell in a mud pit, and it was all uphill. When we were almost to lunch, I couldn't really walk anymore except in short bursts. At the top of that hill, my loneliness broke. A group of girls from my grade found me and the two other kids, to their happiness. We were so glad that we all had survived! We all had walked about two and a half miles at this point. So then I walked the rest of the way to the picnic tables with another girl from the group.

When we got there, I could barely open my lunchbox because my hands were frozen. I had packed pistachios, but I couldn't open the shells. I had brought a power bar, but I couldn't open it. I got other people to open them for me. Someone lent me their hat (thank you so much!!! you know who you are) and that made me feel a little better.

So then we started down the trail again the way we came, and it was a lot easier the way down because a) it was sunny and b) it was downhill. This one guy tried to explain Halo Reach to me. All our friends chatted. When we finally got to the bus, we all curled up on the seats and congratulated anyone who got on the bus for surviving the trek.I finished the trip with muddy pants, dusty shoes, two blisters, and a huge grin.


Then we were supposed to paint watercolor pictures of something we thought represented our trip. One girl painted a sunset, another drew wildflowers. I painted a still life of my near-ruined right shoe. Maybe I'll take a picture of the painting and put it on the blog, but no promises.

A person can only listen to so much revolutionizing

I had nine hours of rehearsal today. NINE. And we ran through the entire musical. The run-through part of the rehearsal only took about five hours, while the other four were just fine-tuning individual scenes. We are getting a turntable for the sets. A turntable! That will actually turn on command! So when everyone in the scene dies at the barricades, the turntable can turn around so you can see all the dead people. There is a fine line between dramatic and traumatic.

Now I'm really tired and I have to rest now. I have another seven and a half hours of rehearsal tomorrow. G'night.