The Rose Bowl (T-Shirts, More Money)

If you're wondering what the title above means, it's this thing the band says while high-fiving during field practice.
If you're wondering what the Rose Bowl is, it's the bowl game of all bowl games.
And if you're wondering what a bowl game is, well, Google is your friend. (And so am I, of course, so I'm just gonna tell you that it's basically a post-season college football game played by teams who have won at least six games. The bowl game you go to essentially depends on your placement in your conference.)
And if you're wondering why I'm writing this post, it's because USC WENT TO THE ROSE BOWL this year! And we won! And I was there for it!

But yeah, if you hadn't figured it out by now, going to the Rose Bowl is a big, big deal and a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity for most band members (well, except for dr. Bartner, our band director, who's been 18 times to date). The hype around the game was so huge that even though I wasn't entirely feeling those five days of torture that it was to come with, there is just no way I would have missed it. And, well, I also really needed that Rose Bowl patch for my jock jacket next year.

So if you're interested in what the Rose Bowl was like for band members, continue reading.

December 29

After a blissful week of sitting on my couch and eating corn flakes out of the box (well, excluding the two days I was on RA duty for), my alarm rang at 6:30 AM and it was time for us to begin our "five day season," with nothing other than breakfast burritos and a 9 to 5 field practice. Aka my favorite things in life NOT. But that's okay, it it's all worth it, I told myself, even though I surely did not mean it at the time.

After going over band camp fundamentals and speeding through the first segment of the show during field practice (which literally took us 9 to 5), we got on our buses to the Americana at Brand, which is essentially an outdoor mall that is exactly like The Grove, except it's in Glendale. We did a mini-parade there and performed some rock charts, which you can watch here. 

After the performance, we left for Paramount Studios to see the pre-screening of xXx: The Return of Xander Cage or something equally ludicrous. I spent the entire film trying to decide whether it's meant to be ironic or not, and if you're interested, here's a plot description: basically Vin Diesel wears a big fur coat and says a bunch of improbable shit while doing work for an evil-looking lady who, in the plot twist of the century, actually turns out to be evil. And then things blow up and five minutes before the film is over, Ice Cube arrives to save the day. The end. Three hours of my life wasted.

December 30:

On this wondrous day, I decided to forego the phenomenal breakfast burritos and just chill in my apartment, which was probably why, for once, they decided to make a change and have Chik-fil-A for breakfast. Why you hate me so? On the other hand, it was raining so hard that they had to cancel field practice, and we just had a three-hour sectional instead. It may not sound like it, but trust me, I'd take sectionals over field practice any day. 

The highlight of our day, however, was the trip to Disneyland that followed. The entire band got to do a parade through the park and perform at the train station, and we also got to go behind the scenes of Toontown, which meant that a few of us had the once-in-a-lifetime opportunity of seeing Goofy change. I know it sounds exciting, but what it was in fact was the very definition of disillusionment.  After finishing the parade and having our childhood ruined, the lovely people at Disney gave us free tickets to the park, meaning that we got to spend the rest of the day walking around the rain, because yes, if I forgot to mention before, it was still raining. Also, just a heads up: Minnie ears and rain don't work well together, and you will end up looking like me in the photo below, and all your friends will Snapchat you.

When it's raining but you gotta wear those Minnie ears.

Squaaad ft. random girl in the back? (PC: Ben Chua)

When you find a decent photo of yourself and can't believe it.

When there's a 5 minute wait for Splash Mountain so they force you to go.

That's that for that. Also, shoutout to the band for giving us $20 to waste on churros. And shoutout to the churro vendor guy who delivered the following line: "I always wanted to be in the USC band but I never quite made it." #sosad

Here are two videos, pick your favorite.

December 31

Also known as the day I spent 50 minutes in line for In-n-Out, in the pouring rain, only to have my burgers completely soaked during my walk back to the bus. But hey, at least I wasn't the one who accidentally sat under a drain during what was probably the worst rainfall I had experienced during my time in California.

Clearly having the time of our lives.

Also, just FYI, if you're thinking of spinning a wet flag in a poncho, don't. In the best case scenario, your flag will get stuck and you will get water all over you. In the worst case scenario, you will rip out your earring and start bleeding everywhere, like I did. And you might not even notice until 30 minutes later when you're already back on your bus and your friend asks you why your ears are covered in blood. Sorry for putting that graphic image in your head.

If you're by any chance interested in this disaster, here it is.

But yes, the 31st was the day of a short field practice,followed by Bandfest, which is basically performing your show for an audience of like 300 people and feeling completely underwhelmed. So it's already miserable to begin with, now imagine topping it off with pouring rain. The only highlight was dr. Bartner's meme-inspiring act of cultural appropriation, which I won't link here because I'm an RA taught to be inclusive and respectful, but if you're interested, you can follow this link. (This is also a prime example of how RA life and band culture aren't exactly compatible.)

After the rainy tragedy that Bandfest was, I retreated to my apartment, took the best shower of my life, and headed over to our wonderful band New Year's Eve party at the Radisson, aka the overpriced hotel across the street from campus. And tbh, I feel like when the band organizes parties, they're expecting people to already show up drunk, because otherwise it's just boring af. And even watching all your friends completely drunk gets boring after a while. The only reason I even stayed until midnight was to get my "special gift," which -- ironically -- turned out to be a champagne glass. I mean, it actually came pretty handy a few days later, but that's not a story that you will ever hear.

January 1

When official call time is 11:15 AM but you're already there at 9 for extra practice so they'll keep you in the pregame show, but then they take you out anyway. Nothing else to say about that. "You're all 100% ready to be in pregame, but some are more ready than others" said our TA. You know, the way all animals are equal, but some animals are more equal than others. 

On another note, this was also the day 24 people squeezed into a four-person apartment in order to make flower crowns for the next day instead of sleeping, because who needs sleep before the day they continuously referred to "the longest day of our lives?"

January 2

It's GAAAAME DAY...I said at 1:30 in the morning when I got up to straighten and then re-curl my hair only to have the whole thing fall flat before the parade even started. But yeah, I'm sure they didn't make up that 3:30 AM call time at the Radisson with the Silks in mind.

Here's a cute pic from Donee's Snapchat bc my phone is perpetually out of storage.

After about 2 hours of breakfast and flower crown pinning and stretching and changing into uniform, we were finally on our buses, on our way to the Rose Parade. Umm...what do I say here? There was a 6 mile parade ahead of us, it was cold af, and I really needed to pee. Yup. But then somehow, miraculously, all of those issues sorted themselves out before the actual parade started, which was -- in all honestly -- a lot of fun! Probably my favorite experience in band so far. And those 7 minutes of spinning Fight On! non-stop really didn't seem so bad. The TV cameras, the people, the flower crowns, the spinning, the smiling, the cheering, and the Pasadena streets all added up into one of the best experiences of my lifetime. Those 5.5 miles did not feel like 5.5 miles, and I was honestly ready to do another parade once we were finished. Well okay, that's might be an exaggeration, but I would much rather have done that than stand at the game for 4 hours.

When they finally give you food.

Version One: The Non-TV Segment

Version Two: The TV Segment, aka 7 Minutes of Non-Stop Fight On

Which brings us to...the game. Oh yeah. That legendary game. Now, I'm sure you've heard what a game it was, and if not, you can always read better summaries online, but since this is my blog and my personal experience, I'm just gonna go with what the game felt like for me: cold. It was fucking freezing and I kept going to the restroom just so I could warm up but there was no hot water. It was miserable. It was already miserable when we were winning, and became even more miserable when we were losing. It was miserable until the very last two minutes, which turned everything around and made it all worth it. 

The Rose Bowl halftime show! Watch on YouTube for a better resolution.

"Hurry up and lose!" is what the band chants when the opponent is obviously losing and there's not much time left, but I found myself silently mouthing it to our own team instead. This was already the longest day of our lives, I was not about to go overtime. And then we had a touchdown. The score became 49-49. The game suddenly became a lot more interesting. I wasn't cold anymore. I had no idea what was going on, but I was certainly not anticipating anything great. I wanted to go home, but I wanted us to win more. We had about a minute left and another touchdown didn't seem likely. I was looking around confused, and it was in that moment of utter confusion that something happened, I wasn't sure what, but people started hugging each other and tears were running down faces, and there was confetti and people were hugging me, and I was just like "what the actual fuck?" The game was over. 52-49. We had won. How? With a field goal the last 5 seconds. It was a miracle. It was so fast that I didn't even see it happen. Or even if I did, I wasn't sure what it meant. But it didn't matter. It happened and we won, we had won the Rose Bowl!!! It was truly unbelievable.

Not every photo needs a caption.

We played Conquest about 30 times and then marched back to our buses. I still couldn't process it at that point. But, as cliche as that sounds (and yes, saying that is also a cliche), I knew that history was made. And I was part of it. And I think that last sentence is dramatic enough to end with.

Also, if you've read this far, here's this special gem for you:

When all the cameras are on you and you're just like 'nah'

PS. Also, if you're interested in an alternative perspective/are more into videos and such, Katherine, a trumpet in the band, posted three vlogs on the Rose Bowl, which you can watch here. She's awesome and she makes me want to start vlogging, but alas, some people are just cooler than me and can do things that I can't.

Winter in California

Summary of my winter break: Waking up at noon. Eating cereal without milk. Assuming the Internet browsing position. Watching Vlogmas videos and living vicariously through them. Noticing that it's 7 PM already. Eating a Babybel. Watching a bad movie, because good movies make me feel too many things. Crying anyway, because feelings. Also, (500) Days of Summer was just too soon. Not writing my RA application. Attempting and failing to take care of my friend's basil tree. Going to sleep at 2 AM. Repeating all of this the next day.

Of course, there were exceptions. I went to Target once. I went to get food a couple of times, though that was only after my trip to San Diego (more on that later) and me realizing that I sorta need to eat, and not just live on corn flakes without milk. I also went to The Grove to get into the Christmas mood on the 23rd, that was sorta nice, and you can see some photos of that here:

My roommate invited me to spend the 24th with her family, and since she is the best and I really didn't want to spend Christmas Eve alone in my dorm room, and also since it seemed like a good idea, I of course said yes. And it was a good decision, except that there were some minor problems. 

See, after The Grove, I didn't go to sleep. I spent the entire night Skyping my family, watching them decorate the Christmas tree, watching them eat their Christmas dinner, watching all the food and then looking at my empty fridge, singing Christmas carols with them, and then repeating the same thing with my dad's family. Just after my dad lit the sparklers on the Christmas tree and we sang one full song before my Internet started lagging, however, my roommate texted me that they were on their way.

And I was tired AF. So tired that I even fell asleep at one point during the day. As on the party, the whole thing was pretty informal. We were eating on paper plates with plastic forks and playing Apples to Apples all day, which is, well, quite unlike what we do with my family, because you all know my family. We wear fancy dresses and high-heels and usually spend 15 minutes driving around in circles before arriving at my uncle's house not to disturb the meticulously planned order of arrival, we all drink expensive champagne while standing upright in the middle of the room and eat using such a wide range of silverware that I'm always afraid that the spoon I'm using to eat my soup with is in fact some obscure fish knife. But I'm not saying that there's anything wrong with that, of course, this is what I'm used to, and this is what I love. That said, I really loved how laid back everything was at Joanna's. Except that everybody was speaking Spanish and although I mostly understood what they were saying to me, there was no way I could reply. There are only three things I can say in Spanish, and I am pretty sure "I am a girl","I am pregnant" and "rice" weren't answers to the questions they were asking me. Yep. Apart from that, I also started randomly crying on two separate occasions  because although Joanna and her boyfriend were adorable together and I'm so happy for them, they kept reminding me of how f@#$%!&g heartbroken I was am, and since we all know how I emotional I am, it was given that there were gonna be tears. Oh well. Just a piece of advice here: your failed relationship is not something you want to be reminded of on Christmas Eve.

After Christmas Eve, I came back to my dorm and returned to my winter break shenanigans, preparing for the long awaited Bowl Game, which brings us to the third part of this post. USC was headed to the Holiday Bowl in San Diego this year, and of course, as a band member, I got to go as well. Now, you all know that I'm not the hugest football fan, so what I was looking forward to the most was 1) going to Disneyland before San Diego 2) getting to see San Diego and 3) getting to see *somebody* again. As it is, of course, none of these three things worked out, as 1) Disneyland was replaced by a Star Wars screening 2) apart from some sketchy streets and a harbor (?) with obnoxious seagulls, I barely saw any of San Diego and 3) I talked about one minute with said person.  Also, we had to perform in the rain, and spinning soaking wet flags is not fun, I had to sleep on the floor for two nights as, well, how do I put this, people did stuff in my bed, had coffee spilt on my uniform, and had the band director yell at us, as he decided to change the entire pre-game show last minute. But yeah, Dr. Bartner, blame it on the Silks... And on top of all that, we lost the game.

That said, there were some better moments. The view from our hotel was gorgeous, I had an amazing time with some of the Silks, I had decent food at Tender Greens after eating corn flakes for weeks, and had a privilege of witnessing a conversation in which our sketchy waiter asked my Chinese-German friend if she's Mexican, and then proceeded to talk to us in French. Also, the Wisconsin band was kinda cool and we almost hung out with them. The best part, though, was when we got to perform at the Holiday Bowl parade! It was just 28 minutes of smiling and doing cadence and spinning Tribute to Troy and people admiring us. You can see that below or on YouTube here, and you can even see me mess up walking at 1:40, because I suck. 

The parade.

The one picture I took in San Diego, from our hotel room.

And that is it really. Classes start next Monday. I have submitted my RA application. The dental students are back on campus (the greatest enemies of all SCA people), the dining halls are opening on Thursday (I actually miss dining hall food), and my roommate plans on coming back soon as well. I'll spend the rest of my break ice skating in Santa Monica, seeing Patti Smith on Saturday, freaking out about how my friend will react to seeing her plant again (I mean, at least it's still alive...) and probably crying. 

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PS. This is sorta badly written. Sorry about that. It's 3 AM.