My emotional sickie

And so I find myself sitting in front of my netbook at a quarter to one on a Thursday afternoon, listening to She & Him's new album, when I should be enjoying lunch at school.
Why do I find myself in such a position?
Well, I think it is only fair to say that I am not only physically tired but emotionally exhausted. Hence, my brain being tired.
This would most generally be due to my emotional roller-coaster of a day yesterday.
It began normally, with double French. Highly interesting. At recess nerves set in, due to the fact that my audition for the musical would occur in the next session. I felt prepared, do not fret, and I didn't expect to get a part, I'm too young. But nerves all the same.
Ellen is the first to go in and comes out with a devastated expression, pronouncing to myself and the others anxiously waiting outside that the accompaniast was playing her song in a higher key than she had been rehearsing. Not only did I feel terrible for her, it just heightened my fear. Deborah then went in, and came out with the same announcement, looking understandably upset.
I went in with trepidation and basically did what I was told. The song was in the right key (thank God) but obviously not everything was satisfactory since I was stopped and instructed to change my singing style. The lines were forgotten, they were only for call-backs. What a waste of time preparing them.
The audition wasn't bad, but it wasn't good. It was nothing, it left me feeling negative or just empty.
I retreated back to Literature and then watched a partial amount of a BBC adaptation of the Canterbury Tale, The Pardoner's Tale. It was rather bizarre, and again gave me a rather hollow feeling.
But I was not to be deterred. I had more exciting things coming! I left Literature a little early, packed my bag, retrieved my cello out of the music storeroom and met Katherine near the exit of the school.
We were off to record for our Music Performance Course. We were in the same ensemble and were rather excited. Our group had been going really well in rehearsal and had come up with two original songs to record. We had to catch a tram from Melbourne University (the very first stop) to Hawthorn Rd, in East Brighton (the very last stop). Never before have I travelled a tram end to end. What an adventure.
Finally we reached the unknown territory of Brighton. The ominous recording studio was, from the front, a black iron gate that led down a passage way to a courtyard. We waited around for others in the program to turn up and before we knew, we were in a mixing room, learning about the mixing process in sound. After a few more exercises it came for our time to record (we were the last group).
We had a few mishaps, (a buzzing guitar, a broken string) but running a little over time we began the recording. It was slightly dissappointing because we had found out that we could only record one song, rather than two, so I was only playing cello rather than singing but I didn't mind too much.
First off, the three guitars were recorded without any major problems. Then the drums and vocals were overdubbed. Atlast came the time for strings. Katherine and I put on headphones. It took ages to find the right level of sound, because I really needed to hear the cello to get the right pitch, but also needed to hear the recording to hear where the song was going.
When it came time to actually recording, it turned out I could only hear the cello and vaguely hear the song. I was in a stuffy little room trying to go a long with the song, without really hearing it properly. That did not work, I kept making mistakes and then nearly half way through I just lost the part in the song, it was practically inaudible. I had to stop.
But then my teacher comes in and says "Sorry, that's all we can work with, he have to stop, we've run over time. Everyone's waiting"
I was nearly on the verge of tears. I stormed on to the tram. I'd wasted the opportunity, hadn't even recorded the song properly. I felt like I'd let down everyone, and that the song was ruined. It wasn't actually, the song without the strings was fine, which made me feel really dispensable.
It was unfair that we were last, and I suppose I've learnt my lesson, but I'm still really dissappointed in myself and the experience.
I spent some of the tram ride voicing my troubles to Katherine, but decided I really needed to talk to other people and be a bit more social to get my mind off things. That cheered me up a little, and by the time I was finally in the city on the tram that would take me home I wasn't so distraught.
But the fact that it was nearing six thirty and that I had to go and babysit my cousins still loomed. Hadn't I had enough for one day?
Reaching home at eight thirty, I was extremely tired. Mentally and physically. The realisation that I had homework was just another annoyance.
I had to retell my day to Greer over the phone and by that time it was too late. After some consoling So You Think You Can Dance, it was bed time. No homework, just sleep. The song just went round and round in my head, so I decided to listen to Vampire Weekend on my iPod, because Vampire Weekend always make me feel happy inside, because I love them so. Not such a great idea, seeing as they have a lot of cello in their music and I kept picking it out in the music and felt inadequate.
This morning I was not feeling any better and decided to just go back to sleep.
And now here I am, skipping school mainly just because I had a bad day yesterday. I suppose you could call it pulling an "emotional" sickie. Sort of.

I realise that this post has not followed up the similar style of my previous entries, but that's because I'm not really in the mood of my usual crazy frivolity and humour. This blog still hasn't really found it's purpose or direction. It's just a young thing, it needs to discover itself.

Farewell,
I believe that writing this has somewhat relieved the symptoms of emotional exhaustion.

Mairead