China - Aug. 5

August 5th

I got out of bed at 7:20, Angela, my roommate, had to remind me to get up before she left. I ate a little breakfast quickly and headed out to the rehearsal. All the bands performed songs for each other and then we all practiced our block for the performance in Tianjin tomorrow. They changed up the order of how we stand, so it took quite a while. In the picture to the right, is the Yellow, Chinese band, performing their marching show for us.

Once I got back, I went straight to see Natalie, who left before she started feeling sick, and we went to the sports complex and played ping-pong until lunch. They had egg soup again, so I had a lot of that. Afterwords, she and I left for some relaxing at the hotel where she did sudoku and I wrote in my journal in the lobby of the hotel. We then went up to her room and found out that the schedule had been changed. We were now going to take full band pictures in full uniform at 2pm, instead of having rehearsal at 5pm. We were all pretty darn tired, so I was happy with that.

Except the pictures took way longer than expected. After taking a block picture (that took too long - and it was oppressively hot and sunny out), I told Natalie to leave so she wouldn't get heat stroke again, because we had to try and get into our charted Olympic rings. I made the hour of standing around go better by pretending I was doing something important. A bad attitude is poisonous to oneself and to others. And since I was one of the few people with the chart (I thought to bring it at the last moment), I actually did other people a service, so that was nice at least.

After they let us go, I went into my room and lounged on a chair and finished yesterday's journal. I then lay down on the bed and read over my favorite Bible verses and songs from my book. That was very refreshing.

At 6:30, Natalie came by and wanted to go around and take pictures before the "banquet". :) We get along well.

The banquet was where everyone was going to eat at the same time and then have some sort of gathering afterwords. I was entirely wiped out, so I just went back to my room and went to sleep. That was around 8:30.

Jp