We begin...

Thursday 7:00 am
On the bus. Chilled with Rebecca, Dave, Emma, and Liz. My cello actually got to go inside the bus so I was totally excited. Rebecca and I pretended to be mad at each other to annoy Dave. It was fun and funny. Towards the end he actually started believing us (he denies this, but he really did).

9:15 am
We arrive at the Boston Park Plaza Hotel. I love it there, by the way. Such good memories. We waited around for a while so Mucci could get us registered and stuff. It took longer than he expected and we were late to rehearsal. I hate being late to rehearsal. Anyway, our conductor was this really chill asian dude. He was awesome. My stand partner was this cute little freshman boy. He looked SO YOUNG. I also sorta ended up sitting next to the principal bassist named Carl. Carl's a senior. He's funny. Anyway, rehearsal till 1.

1 pm
We go to lunch at the hotel. It's salad. Just salad... Back to rehearsal afterwards till 3:45. A short break and then rehearsal from 5:30 - 7. I had to wrap up my right arm from wrist to elbow with an ace bandage. I also worre a wrist brace on my left wrist. People felt sorry for me. I felt sorry for me.

7 pm
Dinner. Met a lot of Dave's GBYSO friends (I pretty much had no friends in the orchestra. Pathetic, I know. Well, except for Kiara). Kena was nice. She reminded me of me in a lot of ways. Peter was just funny. Almost the typical high school guy, almost... More rehearsal till 9. Then us Longmeadow kids plus Peter Scuderi (different Peter), who is an absolute darling, hung out in one of the random meeting rooms at the hotel. At around 10, we made some friends. These kids were from Cape Cod and hilarious. Brandon the Pirate was a riot. We made a map of Massachusetts with Chewy bars and peanut butter crackers and then marked off where everyone lived with M&Ms. It was great fun. We were hearded into our rooms at like 11. Total bummer.

Friday 8 am
Wake up and get ready for a LOVELY day of rehearsing. We watched Rugrats and Sponge Bob while beautifying ourselves. You know what they gave us for breakfast? Muffins. Just muffins. I ended up sharing the Poptarts I brought with me and Rebecca had her Chewy bars. More rehearsing.

1 pm
Lunch, which again was just SALAD. I watched the Accidentals perform. They are so amazing. Poor Susie. I was so amazed at their professionalism. To keep going after someone gets sick on the stage and the director leaves to help her out. How many groups do you know that would do that? More rehearsal till 4.

4 pm
Our director was so chill. He let us off way way early because he said we were working hard and sounded really good. Basically, Dave and I chilled because all the other groups were still rehearsing. Finally, band finished up and Rebecca and Emma and Peter S. joined us. The basses did a smart thing and ordered food in and had a bass dinner. The rest of us just ate the food provided. It wasn't actually too bad. We did run throughs from 7:30 - 8:30 and then were off for the night.

8:30 pm
Lots of chillin'. Certain people are funny when slightly tipsy (don't worry, I'm a good kid. So are Rebecca, Emma, Dave, Peter, and Liz). Isaac (not my brother) was on the prowl. I tried to protect my babies from him. He wouldn't dare mess with them. Lots of fun and funny things said and done. I don't want to mention some of it here because it's possibly incriminating and I wouldn't want to do that. Herded back into our rooms around 11.

11 pm
Chilled with our roommates Justine P. and Sarah. They were cool. Justine actually is in MYWE with Mucci. We swapped Mucci stories. It was fun. Bed time.

Saturday 5:40 am
So we overslept and got ready for breakfast in the grand space of 20 minutes. Impressive, eh? A breakfast of bagels this time. An interesting time loading buses for symphony hall. Again, GBYSO bass players are funny, in a good way. We had a bit of downtime before our dress rehearsal. I basically just sat and spaced out. Somewhat interesting run throughs. I absolutely love playing at Boston Symphony Hall,. It's a great place.

9:30 am
We chilled in the concert hall with the band people and listened to jazz. They were okay. Then we had lunch and basically wandered around. It was a good time.

2:00 pm
Showtime. We rocked it out on stage. I played 95% of the music. My rock stop slipped sorta halfway through (I know, I know, isn't the rock stop supposed to keep the cello from slipping? It's a long and complicated explanation).

4:00 pm
Dinner at Fugakyu with my parents and brother. Good Japanese food. We decided to stop by my grandparents apartment on the way home. I fell asleep there. We ended up leaving Boston at 8.

9:45 pm
Home sweet home.

So that was my All State weekend. If you hear any strange stories about me, they're NOT TRUE. I swear I was a good child.