The Other Side...

Well, I've kind of been avoiding writing this post because it will mean that the drum corps season really is over.  It also means that my drum corps career is also over.  I am officially too old to march in DCI.

This season marching with the 7th Regiment Drum and Bugle Corps was a total rush.  From the very beginning we knew big things were going to happen for us and I was so proud.  I've been with the corps for 5 years, and every year just shows more and more progress.  Every year pushed us in a different way, pushed me in a different way.  This year was no different.

Our show this year was titled 24601-7R.

The 24601 refers to the prisoner Jean Valjean, though the show has no real ties to Les Misérables.  The 7R is simply a referral to the corps name 7th Regiment.  The show itself was "a unique, creative vision that battled with themes of oppression and conformity" (taken from the 7th Regiment Press Release written by Kathleen Schassler). In a recent newsletter, Reporter Ken Mason, Drum Corps World staff, had this to say:

"7th Regiment continues to exceed expectations, not just improving, but doing so at a faster rate than their competition.  This corps uses everything from head to toe in performing visuals.

While not one of the larger units in this contest (21B/14FP/8PP/14G/2DM), their field musicians projected a stronger sound than the groups that preceded them. Brass has been bowling people over all year. The battery plays with a very wide dynamic range, from the stickless hand strokes on the snares in the ballad to the highly exposed -visually and musically- full-arm accents, climaxing drum features."

We competed in Open Class World Finals on August 8, 2012.  We placed 5th out of 14 total corps with a score of 86.35. 

In addition to all of that, it was fun.  I had a wonderful colorguard made up of 14 amazing people.

We had an amazing seven person guard staff (six pictured below) who really pushed us past personal limits, making us better every day.

Sublime Summer

Man I really get boring in the summer, don't I?  Well this summer is a special case as of right now.  I am currently interning four days (M-TH) a week at the Buttonwood Park Zoo in New Bedford, MA (social media rules pending, I'll get back to you on that).   I am also spending the weekends in CT with the 7th Regiment as part of my age-out season with them.  That leaves me evenings and Friday morning to myself.  Not much time to get stuff done, especially when I have a summer class and homework for my internship to be completed!  So I apologize to anyone who has been avidly awaiting my next post... for the past two months.


I really don't have much to say, or any time to say it in.  I'll post some fun zoo stories before the summer is over.  As of right now, I have a weekend rehearsal with 7th, and Monday thru Wednesday at the zoo.  After that it's drum corps full time until August 11.  So you will again not be seeing any posts from me for quite a while.  Hope all of you are having sublime summers!

S is for...

7th Rrrrregiment!!

Like that wasn't obvious!!  The 7th Regiment Drum and Bugle Corps is an Open Class drum corps based out of New London, CT.  They were founded in 2004 and continue to push their way to the top every season since.

Now, I'm not biased or anything like that, but I absolutely love drum corps as an activity.  It combines the best of... everything!  It has music and arts and dance and athleticism and pure entertainment!  Not to mention the family and friends and memories and jokes and everything else involved with living/ working with people for an absurdly long time.  I myself have been with the corps for the past four years, and this season, 2012, will be my fifth and final year with the corps as I am aging out.  As per DCI rules, anyone ages 12-21 can march, and I have finally reached the magical age of 21 and will thus be ending this chapter of my life at the end of the season.  Yes, this is upsetting, it's been the majority of my life for five years now, but it's also a little freeing.  I can now go on and explore other interests.  Of course I will miss it, but there's not much I can do, so I'll make the best of it.

For those of you who don't know, drum and bugle corps is a performing arts ensemble consisting of only bell-front brass, percussion, and colorguard.  They are independent organizations dedicated to developing strong leadership, character, and integrity in young adults.  During the summer they travel across the country, competing against each other and performing for thousands of fans.  I like to describe them as marching bands on steroids.  But whatever you do, don't call them a band.  They are corps, plain and simple. 

O is for...

Operation Wallacea

So this is along the lines of my E and N posts.  Operation Wallacea is a program that offers biological and research conservation opportunities across the world.  And it is the next program I want to be involved with.  OpWall is great because they have many location options as well as length of time options.  Some locations cater more to one area or another, and you can chose a location based on what you want to do.  They offer programs in 11 countries: Indonesia, Honduras, Egypt, Cuba, South Africa, Mozambique, Madagascar, Peru, Guyana, Romania, and Mexico.

I personally have my eyes set on Indonesia for summer 2013, hopefully participating for the full eight weeks.  This means, however, that I need to raise over $5,000 to cover the program costs, travel costs, and extras.  I was making a fair amount of progress on that until today when I walked into the Bursar's Office and gave them a check worth $1,518.00 to pay for my summer class.  Man that was painful.  However, if that means I will definitely be graduating next spring instead of the following fall, I guess I'm okay with it.  

Undergetting (un)Square, Take II

I am a blog posting machine right now!  Muahahahahaha!!  Just kidding. But really, this is my third post of the night that I'm writing.  I don't think I will be posting it tonight as I have other responsibilities calling me but I figured I'd get started on this one.  I had a request today to write another blog about drum corps and I thought that was a wonderful idea.  My only issue now is what exactly should I write about?  Drum corps is a very general topic.  It is difficult to sum it up quickly besides simply saying that it's marching band on steroids.  Which I love to say.  Sometimes I switch it up and say that it's marching band on crack.  Either way the listener usually gets the picture. If any of you have some drum corps knowledge, or not, and you haven't seen it yet, you should check out this video on corps- What Is Drum Corps

Drawing inspiration from the music I am currently listening to (Radiohead) I guess I'll talk a little bit about this past season since I didn't get much of a chance to do so over the summer.  I did a post not too long ago (okay it was three months ago but whatever) entitled Undergetting (un)Square.  What I did not really do in that post was elaborate on what the title meant!  My goodness what an oversight that was.

So if you don't already know, the 7th Regiment's 2011 program was entitled un(Square) and it featured music by Dave Brubeck and Radiohead (thus the aforementioned inspiration).  The song lineup was as follows: 1) Everything In It's Right Place, 2) 15 Step combined with Take 5, 3) Creep, 4) un(Square), 5) Creep reprise.  It was an awesome lineup.  I once described the theme of the show to a drum major of another corps and he responded with "Woah, that's deep."  I'll try to explain it in a similar fashion here.  un(Square) is about breaking out of the mold.  The show begins with a square, signifying conformity (EEIRP and 15/5).  As the show continues the audience is led through an identity crisis where the main character is being scolded for being who she really is.  She is shunned and abused by her peers (Creep) but soon learns that it's okay to be different (un(Square)).  Everybody is unique in their own way and it's okay to be un(Square).  By the end of the show we are reveling in our differences (Creep reprise).

So that's not anywhere near how I described it to that drum major, but I think it will serve it's purpose.  Often times a drum corps show is taken at face value.  And sometimes that's okay.  Like in '09 when our show was Excalibur.  It was pretty easy to see the theme there, Lady of the Lake and King Arthur and the Sword Excalibur all did a pretty good job of that.  But when a corps puts on a concept show it becomes a little more difficult.  Our show this year was a concept show but I think that if people put just a little bit of thought into it that it was easy to understand.  Other concept shows involve too much thought.  They are a little too deep to understand without a bit of explanation.  I personally think the best shows are the ones that are easily understandable but still involve thought and planning and cleverness.  I LOVE clever shows. 

On that note I will turn away from the subject of show planning.  I don't want to upset too many people and honestly I'm pretty laid back about it so I don't want to get too into it.  So I really should get going now.  I will continue on with my drum corps discussions in the near future, however.  If any of you have any questions or ideas on what I should write about, just let me know!  I love suggestions!  And comments.  The more comments, the merrier!

August Blues

Hey everyone!

So I know it's been a while since I last blogged, and I apologize.  I've been in this mood lately that I don't really want to expend too much effort into anything that I do.  It probably has something to do with the constant go, go, go of my earlier summer.  I only bring this up because for the past couple of months, every time I try to log into blogger to post something, firefox will not let me log in.  I don't know why, It's always the same deal.  It says "Not Found Error 404"... I think it's 404.  And then it doesn't let me do anything with blogger.  Any suggestions?  Now, when this started happening I would just go and use IE and everything would be fine and whatnot.  Lately, I just haven't felt like doing that.  And thus no blogs.  From this point in time, it will stop!

I just listened to this neat little podcast by one of my favorite podcasts, WNYC's Radiolab, about choice and the rest of your life.  It was very interesting, as I find the vast majority of their podcasts to be.  I'm not really going to go into it, because I'd rather you listen to it yourself.  It's entitled "Shorts: Mischel's Marshmallows" and was broadcast on 3/9/2009.  I tend to listen to them out of order, based on the context of the show.  If you're interested in this gem of an informational source, you can check them out online at their website or you can look them up through iTunes Podcasts.  They are completely free and I highly recommend all of their shows. 

Now, my main purpose of blogging at this time is to lament over what is basically the end of my summer.  I move back in to uni tomorrow, well I guess that would be later today, 8/29.  Move-in was supposed to be yesterday, but due to hurricane Irene, the whole process was postponed a day, as were all classes.  Now, instead of heading down Saturday, staying in a hotel, moving in Sunday and seeing my parents off, we are driving down tomorrow (that's around 7 hrs without any storm-caused issues) moving me in, buying a few last minute things and then they get to drive all the way back home in order to work on Tuesday.  I feel pretty bad about it, but what can I do really?  I could get a car, which would be totally useful in this and many other situations, but sadly I'm still pretty broke after all of my NZ adventures.  That's okay though, I start working again on Wednesday, yay!

In other news, I just have to share one thing with all of you.  The joys of birthing.  Or should I say lambing?  It is currently lambing season in NZ, and through my wonderful contacts there I have been a very long distance witness to this absolutely adorable occurrence.  I won't show you any of the actual birthing images, simply because I don't have them.  But I can't keep the wee lambs to myself any longer!!

Now THAT is what I call adorable.  Soooo disappointed I'm not there in person.  There's always tomorrow! ...Or two years from now!

Undergetting (un)Square

Well folks, it's August.  August 16, to be exact.  It's been almost an entire month since my last blog.  The reason for this delay was, of course, my going on tour with the 7th Regiment Drum and Bugle Corps.  It was a pretty typical tour, about the same as the previous four years.  We were placed in some nice schools, and some not-so-nice schools.  We had good and bad fields, showers, and weather.  Although this year we did not have any sickness.  I don't mean injuries, I mean illness.  Every year I remember there has been some prevalent illness at some point on tour, but not so this year.  Way to go!

Anyways, there are so many subjects I could discuss on the matter of tour.  To keep us all sane I will only discuss the outcome, because, let's be honest, that's all some people can understand.  In the end we placed 7th in Open Class Championships for the year with a final score of 86.150.  You can watch our finals performance here- 7th Regiment Finals 2011  We had yet another awesome year of marching music and self-improvement.  I am extremely happy that I decided to push myself and march this summer, even though I missed the majority of the season by being across the world.  On another note, the 7th regiment also had eleven individuals/ ensembles compete in the 2011 I&E competition.  I performed once again with my darling friend Victoria Smolenski.  We placed second in our category with a score of 80.0.  Another great experience for the both of us.  You can watch the video here- Caitlin & Tori I&E 2011.  You should also check out the links to the other videos of 7th participants. 

If you have any other questions about our season or drum corps in general, feel free to send me a message!

 I got to see my lovely friend Kristen while in Dayton, OH

 Yay rehearsal in PA!

 Kevin Thompson performs his I&E for the corps

 Liz Walek perform her I&E on mellophone.

The brass quintet performs (they won their category).

I pose with one of my co-captains, Erica, while awaiting full corps retreat to receive our scores at finals.

 Captains Rachel and Erica show off our lovely instructor, Dana.

 Time for the underwear run- through!

 The 7th Regiment performs in Lucas Oil Stadium in Indianapolis, IN.

 Miss Daisy receives her volunteer of the year award.