I woke up this morning once again groggy. I am not sleeping well. Too much on my mind. I should stop that. My first meeting of the morning started out slow... only about 3 people were in the room along with 2 people in Europe out of a list of 30 invited. Five minutes in my boss shows up and all of a sudden people start trickling in and suddenly we have this huge meeting. About half way through they mention that they need something done and I volunteer because it's Excel and they need the code for a macro checked for errors because it's not working properly. Takes me like all of two seconds so I volunteered. That set off the guys in the Enterprise Command Center to IN FRONT OF MY BOSS... talk me up.. compliment me.. give thanks for the work I do.. etc etc. I was so embarrassed but extremely pleased. I just turned red and finished writing my notes. But it felt good to be praised in front of my boss. I enjoy working here so much but I don't think he has realized my full potential. Slowly he is starting to realize what I am capable of. Ironically enough, today at 3:00pm I have an interview for another higher up position within the company. I would give anything to continue working for Geoff... but it just doesn't seem to be in the cards.
So, back when I was in high school I participated in many things. I wasn't in the popular crowd.. I just was more.. middle of the road... good girl.. okay grades.. nothing spectacular. But all through high school I was involved in some kind of activity. Mainly dance and colorguard. Dance is pretty self explanatory. Colorguard.. most are not familiar with. Guard is a mix of dance coupled with rifles, flags and sabres (swords). They are mainly seen with marching bands... they perform at half time shows during football season. The most athletic I have ever been was when I was in guard. Throwing a 5lb piece of wood in the air while completing a pirouette into an arabesque may sound and look simple but it is quite the opposite. My first year there they had a new guard director. He asked and received a really big budget for us and in turn he made us into the most popular, most successful colorguard in California for 3 straight years. (I left after the 3rd year.) During the field season (basically the football season), we performed extremely elaborate shows. Chess (Broadway Musical), Sweeney Todd (also Broadway) and finally Cleopatra. Chess was our first taste of becoming really good and really popular. Our costumes were long flowing gowns cut down the middle to allow our legs to move freely. At the end of the show a field filled with 200+ people emptied behind about 10 flags. It had a very dramatic effect. Sweeney Todd featured 16 foot tall flags of a shimmering white fabric. About 30 members of the guard carried them to the center of the field against a blood red drop shaped tarp and out of the middle of the flags came a girl wearing a white and silver gown (the show was about a barber that murders his customers). Cleopatra had pyramid shaped tarps and giant feather fans. That was my last show and it was physically demanding. I was a rifle captain and was also on the sabre line which probably means nothing to anyone who is reading this but it was very hard. We placed first in state all three years out of over 300+ groups.
In the spring it turned to what was called the court season. These were more centered around dance and were highly competitive. We traveled all over the country performing and competing. My last year we performed Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde. The floor was covered in a black tarp with these giant roll doors... it was fast paced classical music and we placed really high that year. Unfortunately, my parents weren't really involved in my high school days. I don't think they knew exactly how good we actually were. All they seem to remember is that I traveled and practiced a lot so I was gone most of the time. It also cost A LOT of money. Because of this I don't have many pictures from those days. No videos.. just some scrapbook stuff.. and newspaper clippings when we kept winning. I also performed in the Rose Parade which is seen on television across the nation on New Years Day. THAT was nerve racking. For 3 years all I did was dance.. weekends... most of summer vacation.. and afternoons up until 6pm I was practicing. This at least earned me a letterman. Anyway... the only thing I could find of my old colorguard is a show they did after I had graduated. They aren't as good as we used to be because the director has left but it kind of shows what I used to do.
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