*bzzz…..bzzz….bzzz….* my alarm goes off at 5 in the morning. I  roll out of bed and change into my dance leggings and state t-shirt. Then I had to get my hair and face competition ready by slicking my hair back into a circulation-cutting bun and putting on base makeup. When I was all done getting ready I darted out the door.

   Almost immediately after arriving at the school, at 6:30 a.m., my team and I had to go to the gym for our floor practice.  We ran the routine a couple of times and nitpicked some of the forms, 10 minutes later the floor practice was over, but not without the lack of exhaustion afterward. Once floor practice was over, us dancers were left to finish getting ready and taking care of our host teams. Basically, the entire morning was spent going back and forth between the dance room and my host teams room, each time coming out with a little bit more makeup on than before.

   Finally, at 11:00 a.m., the 1st round was begun by the national anthem sung by our very own, Natalie Sato and Gavin Lickey, my favorite power couple. Immediately after, my team and I were standing in the hallway waiting to perform. Then I heard the announcer say, “Welcoming Centennial High School….”

   “5, 6, 7, 8…..”

Before I knew it I was back in the hallway gasping for air and getting ready to get to the stands to watch the rest of the teams. Once the first round was over we had a break and ate lunch. The rest of the day was a lot less stressful as we were scheduled to be the last team to perform for the 2nd round. So, we spent the rest of the time sitting and watching the teams until it was our turn to perform. After our final performance, the event was wrapped up with drill down, senior speeches to the coaches, and awards. Once the awards were given it was now time for everyone to leave while us dancers stay behind and clean up.

After cleaning up the school from the competition, I went to Red Robin with my parents. We walk into Red Robin and right away the waiter seating us notices my crazy robot makeup and says excitedly,” Dance! Centennial! Yeah?”

   I raise my eyebrow and respond, “yeah.” Honestly, I have no idea how she knew I was from Centennial without seeing the back of my jacket, but anyway then she sat us down to our table. Then our waiter came and took our order and I ordered a big tavern double ‘pig out’ style and a freckled lemonade, yumm.

   After waiting a little while, the manager came to our table and told my parents that they just started a new pot of soup and then began to state how this afternoon was the busiest lunch rush he has ever seen. My parents told him that it was probably because of the Metro dance competition. The manager responds saying how he did see a bunch of dancers with crazy makeup and concluded that that must have been the reason. Then, suddenly, the manager’s face lit up.

With an eager hopefulness to his voice, he asked, “Will there be another dance competition tomorrow?” My parents replied to say that it’s just a one-day event, but there will be another one next year and it will be the 50th Metro dance competition so it will probably be even busier.

The manager then tells my parents that their soup is on the house since the wait was a little long and he left our table. Finally, we all got our food talked a little bit and then went home and knocked out.