Chorus competition

Thursday, 22nd October: Chris Kemp's birthday.

I woke up at 5:30 am and crept out of the bedroom to get a head start on doing my nails. After showering I wandered around in knickers and bra ticking off my mental list of things to do. Have breakfast. Put in contact lenses. Just as I was about to start makeup, Sharon turned up and did my hair (and Sue's as well). I worked through the CKC 12 step program for putting on makeup. It took four goes to get the right eyelash on, and I only got it right with Sharon's help. It's extraordinary how long it takes to get made up and dressed: at 8 am Sue and I were just putting on the finishing touches.

We went down to the CKC room for makeup check at 8:15 am, and I passed muster. Then we went back down again at 9 am to start warmups.

Around 10 am we headed down to the foyer to line up and wait for the bus. Two nice Convention Assistants were waiting there to guide us. We sang I Am Australian while we were waiting, then on the bus we sang Can You Feel the Love, and then something else. The bus didn't have to go very far, just one block, but it took us to the stage door entrance of the Sommet Centre and then we started the traffic pattern. Scioto Valley were just coming off, and Waikato Rivertones were llining up to go on, as we made our way to the warm up room. There was hardly any time at all before we were lining up to go on stage.

I don't remember much about our 6 minutes of fame, to be honest. It went according to plan, and I didn't make any major mistakes, and it was over really quickly. It felt quite relaxed and fun to do, and the audience was great, very welcoming.

Because we were the second competitor, we were able to hear all the other choruses. The standard was very high, so there was lots of interesting stuff to hear and see. I had fun (again) recording the costumes and picking which choruses would make the finals. Lions Gate was our pick. Considering it's an international competition, I thought some of the costumes were horrific, and I'm very proud of ours - we had lots of compliments.

After the competition finished the Ann Gooch award was presented to Lea Baker, and then the Melodeers performed, including their Geek package from Honolulu which was very funny and clever. Then they announced the 10 finalists - not us, of course.

We headed back to the Hilton to wait for Vicki and Di to bring us the results. Vicki and Kaitlyn were in a rehearsal for the family chorus, but Steph picked up a copy of the chorus results when it was published so we found out that we had scored 1110 and come 25th. We were all up on the Mezzanine screaming with joy, hugging and taking photos of each other being ecstatic. Di Huber came by, and some of our River Blender friends. We moved to our CKC room to wait for Vicki, and spent the time drinking and gloating and taking more photos.

Vicki and James and Di and Kaitlyn and Liam arrived around 9:30 and we formed an arch of honour to welcome them. We all sat down and Vicki read out the comments on the score sheets. There was nothing to surprise us, and some encouraging comments that we were heading in the right direction.

We voted where to go for a late dinner (downstairs to the Sports Grille) and took over a room there for a spontaneous celebration.

And so to bed - late again, it's now half past midnight and we need to be up early for a class with the Melodeers.