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Greetings from the 2010 Margaret. Here's an old snippet of text I found from the year 2006, when I was just 15 years old. I guess it's kinda like a journal entry. Warning, it's dreadfully self centered, but what can I say? I was a pretty excited kid. "Here's a summery for my 7th year competing at the Pacific Northwest Teen Square Dance Festival: This year, I had no expectations whatsoever. When I received the program of the next day's events on Friday night, I was kinda surprised. I found out I was going to be competing against around 10 other people in the Junior Calling Division. I was pretty sure I was going to get 3rd or 4th place. I knew exactly who would get first. After I danced in the first position of 3, I went on stage to call for my square's display square. Quite unfortunately, my mouth was even more excessively dry than last year. As in, my braces and teeth were literally sticking to my mouth. I was having a rawther difficult time speaking and I was choking as I got the words out. Then they played the music and I belted out the first note off key... but then the guy on the record was singing with me. Of course I couldn't sing that high, it was the original version, not the one that has been lowered for me. Then they played it again and it was fine but they turned of the music. I got a huge round of applause as I said something like "I prefer to sing with music." Then they played it again... and the guy was singing. Finally, they got it right, track 3 on the CD, and I sang. I was kinda disappointed on my performance. The dryness made my voice sound unsteady. And then for patter, I was thrilled, I called it all without forgetting any of the moves. It was nothing fancy... I had no extra fillers to sound professional. It was just clean and simple as I worked on my timing. I talked to my mom later and we both guessed I would get 3rd or 4th.... second at the most if I was really really lucky. Skip ahead to the awards ceremony. Tthere are 4 different calling awards I could have won. To compete as a junior I had to sing one "singing call" (it's a song with the lyrics replaced with dance calls every once in a while) and then a patter (it's just calling moves not to a song, although there is music going in the background). I was competing for "Best Singing Call" "Best Patter" and 3rd, 2nd, or Champion overall in the Junior division. On top of those, which are all junior, there is the T.E.C.H. award which stands for Timing, Enunciation, and Clarity. This is not just for the Juniors but the Intermediates and Seniors who can call all the way up to the age of around 19-20. So Best Singing went to who I expected. And then Best Patter was me! I was really startled and not suspecting it in the least. Patter has always been my worstest thing. When I was a preteen, I won "Best Singing Call" a lot, but my patter always weighed me down. My patter score last year was the lowest. However all of a sudden I was the best. but I still didn't expect to do well overall. I knew who was going to get 1st. But then she got 2nd. I just figured I didn't win, until I did win as the Champion Junior Caller. I was thrilled, but still not with it. I had not expected that in the last. Woot! Go Maggie! And then for T.E.C.H., the thought of winning it didn't even cross my mind for a second. My dad didn't even turn on the camera. But I guess I won that too. I found that exceedingly amazing. So I was happy. But I was pretty stunned when I went on stage. And my square got 2nd cause we're a pretty cool group of peoples." -Mini Maggie May- |
