“ The lips the teeth the tip of the tongue”. I was in choir, my third period class. We had warmed up. Today was the last day to rehears. Tomorrow we’d go to the festival.


We practice getting on stage. We waited for the intro. As I waited I tried to remember everything, every trick my teacher had taught me. Our first song requires facial expression, and to have fun. Next song I remembered that I was singing of the death of cries. Last song I remembered I had to enjoy it for other people to enjoy it. Ding! Ding! That was the bell thought we sounded good I wish we’d had more time to practice.

Today was the day. It was about 1:30 when we got called to the choir room. Some girls were changed while others were changing. I was one of the girls changed. Fifteen minutes had pass and my teacher came into the room. As we stood in our columns she gave last minutes reminder like to have fun.

We were on the bus. No one was allowed to talk, though there was some whispers. We were at UNLV. We’d got there late and needed to wait outside. I was nervous but not to nervous. We were walking to our seats. About two other choirs were there. We were quiet, listening to the choirs as they went on. There was one choir left to perform and that meant two things. One we were just minutes away from performance and two it was time to warm up . I notice a lady talking to Ms. Houchens.


I felt the butterflies rising up as we entered through a door that led to a stage. As we entered I thought about everything, about the way I should stand, to make sure I didn’t step on my neighbor’s dress. As I got to my column I tried to remember the words of every song except I couldn’t remember them, and worse of all three judges were staring. I felt the panic rise through my throat. The pianist started to play, and I swear the panic now was rising to my head mixed in with butterflies. “ Ruben Ruben”. The panic had stopped rising, though the butterflies kept going. We sang the first song. The intro of our next song started. “Esto - no - Bis”, we were half way through the song and I had goose bumps. This was one of my favorite because it was warm. We were done with the second song, one more to go. “ Oh won’t you”, as I sang this I remembered I has to enjoy for other people to enjoy it, ”oh yes!” we were done and I could feel the panic going down. The butterflies stayed there cause we weren’t done yet.

They took as to this room were we sight read and I bet most of you do to. After that we took pictures on a stage that was scary. The butterflies were gone and so was the panic. I was sitting in the couch of my house. My little world was calm once again.