Competition(s) update (since I keep forgetting):

February 8 competition
That one was rough. It was in the forbidden city and I think we let that get to our heads. A lot of the work was sloppy and we were missing some people. And I dropped my solo toss... unsurprisingly we got last place. Also my friend hurt her knee and is out for the rest of the season, so we're down to 14 people now.

February 15 competition
This one was better than last competition. I finally caught my solo toss! (It's a triple on rifle, and a catch under the leg.) We got second to last place, supposedly because of my solo.
Pickles's mom got us all matching peace sign bracelets and a new headband for Larry (because I lost the one I made him):

(Jerry got a bracelet too!)

This past Saturday competition: (ok those other 2 were relatively short bc they were a while ago but this one is super long bc it was recent and this one is juicy)
-Our coach had surgery a few days prior to the competition so she wasn't there. We had another teacher as our "coach", along with parents who know how the competitions work.
-I was told that I would learn my full solo on Thursday... lol nope, I had to write it along with someone on Thursday and Friday before the comp. Not to mention the solo was two 16 counts and a 20 count long (52 counts in total), and all I had before then was my solo toss, which was out on a count 9 and catch 11-and.
-We really needed to cram in more practice time, so we had an hour long practice on Friday after school and we had to have a practice Saturday morning... from 6:30 to 7:30, in full uniform, hair, and makeup. (We had to leave by 7:45-8 ish to get to the school.)

-So those were all the issues we had BEFORE Saturday morning.

-Saturday morning I intended on waking up at 4:45 so I could laze around until 5 and then start getting ready, be done by 6, and get to school at 6:15 ish. Lol nope, I woke up at 3:30 and couldn't get back to sleep. I went to bed at 11 ish.
-My makeup was being extra finicky that week... it turns out I lost my liquid foundation stuff at some unknown point in time. My blush and one of the little squares in the eyeshadow palette (the one we use the most for the eyeshadow we do) shattered for some reason. My sister fixed them with the rubbing alcohol trick, but the blush wasn't really showing up on my face too much, and the eyeshadow was much more pigmented than I was expecting. I packed on a lot on the brush, which was a mistake, and I had trouble blending it with the other color.
-We were missing 2 people that morning- 2 rifles (one of which is also a sabre).
-The floor crew issue, haha... we had a big problem with floor crew that day...
-Our floor crew is all band kids, except for one person who is on color guard (bread slice, she didn't want to do winter guard this year). However, there was a charity event happening that morning that band helps at, and our band director (let's call him "barker") made all of the band kids go to the charity event. Bread slice was the only floor crew member with us, and we need at least 4 people. Barker told the band kids not to go to the competition, but didn't tell us that he was stealing our floor crew members. He doesn't understand that we need the people more than he does- I think you can sacrifice 3 people from 70-something other band kids. And we couldn't just get some random kids to help out, because (a) we would have to train them and there's no time for that, we have to leave in less than an hour, and (b) it costs money for extra floor crew people. We tried calling people on floor crew, but they couldn't come. Eventually we got 1 other person, but it was a non-band person. TLDR: So we had 2 floor crew members for that comp, thanks barker. (Oh yeah, and our coach heard about it and she's not happy)
-On top of the floor crew issue, our bus of all things was a problem. The bus is usually early, but when we finished practice, it wasn't there. We were so close to driving ourselves to the competition, but the bus just barely came at a good time. Apparently someone else took our bus driver, and we had to call for another one.
-We were the first ones to perform in our round...
-That chaotic morning aside, the competition was great for having no coach! I rocked my solo and I caught that under the leg catch! I was so happy!
-We got 7th place out of 8... it really sucks that we got either last or second to last place at every comp this season, but look at the scores... (my school is in red)

We were 1 point away from 6th, 2 points away from 5th, and 3 points away from 4th. So close! Also we got superiors, yay~
-Our coach saw the video of us and she loved it so much!
-This is the last competition before championships (that is, if it isn't cancelled due to coronavirus like something else was... more on that later...)