Speechfest 08 - Nerdcores Go Hardcore.

Saturday, September 20, 2008

So before I do this, let me just say that the Song Interpretation is probably the most coveted prize in Speechfest, especially for seniors. It's the only event that represents a section.

It started out in chaos. We hated our song. We hated our choreo. We hated not being able to practice when we so wanted to get our game on already.

In the beginning...we were so bummed out.

Then Abby found a David Phelps song none of us had heard of before. Well, we don't know who David Phelps is either, only that he has the same last name as the Michael who set the new record for the most number of medals in the Beijing Olympics. :)) Kung tutuusin, every since last year, our songs weren't popular. Most classes got the carrier singles of CCM albums or something. Yung last year na You're Still You, it was Josh Groban, but no one knew had heard of it before. Nabawasan nga kami ng points kasi hindi daw malinaw na si God yung "You" dun sa song. Ganun yun ka-unknown.

Anyway, we had two song choices. We were the only ones who hadn't picked out our song or started on choreo yet. We totally hated the first song: it was rock. But when No More Night was played, we were all enchanted. It was an amazing song. We screamed for it.

No More Night
Performed by David Phelps
Words & music by Walt Harrah

The timeless theme, Earth and Heaven will pass away.
It’s not a dream, God will make all things new that day.
Gone is the curse from which I stumbled and fell.
Evil is banished to eternal hell.

No more night. No more pain.
No more tears. Never crying again.
And praises to the great "I AM."
We will live in the light of the risen Lamb.

See all around, now the nations bow down to sing.
The only sound is the praises to Christ, our King.
Slowly the names from the book are read.
I know the King, so there’s no need to dread.

No more night. No more pain.
No more tears. Never crying again.
And praises to the great "I AM."
We will live in the light of the risen Lamb.

See over there, there’s a mansion, oh, that’s prepared just for me,
Where I will live with my savior eternally.

No more night. No more pain.
No more tears. Never crying again.
And praises to the great "I AM."
We will live in the light of the risen Lamb.

All praises to the great "I AM."
We’re gonna live in the light of the risen Lamb.

And then came disagreements. We all clashed with everything: practice times, steps to the choreo, and of course, being stuck and trying to think of what comes next. We were behind every other class, who were finished, and we were hardly even started.

And then we understood what went wrong. Or specifically, what we did wrong. It was not choreo, it was not song choice.

We did not have God.

Since then, we prayed before and after every single practice.

And THEN somehow, we got through. We got periods off for practicing. Our song started to finally build up from where it was stuck. And we got closer, started listening to each other. People really wanted to practice. It was amazing what the Holy Spirit can accomplish.

A lot of things went unplanned after it was too late to change anything.For one thing, the costume was all wrong. We were going for white satin, and filmy see-through gold sleeves. We got white nursing cloth and scotch tape-yellow sleeves. Which were kind of short, by the way. Choreo also shifted around a lot. We had trouble transferring from small practice areas to the wide audi stage. But these problems, which sound big in words, went by easily.

I don't know about everyone else, but I did not feel queasy at all.

We were kind of going wild around ToPo. Some of us didn't have our makeup yet, some didn't even have their costumes. When we got to the back and the stage cleared out from ToPo and for us, we hesitated like we couldn't believe it was our turn, that this was it.

And I don't about everyone else, but I knew God was with me while I was up there. I made no mistakes (hooray! I usually do in Song In) except for briefly stepping on my skirt while standing up. It went by perfectly, in a flash of scotch-tape yellow...este, gold.

And I do know this: when the crowd screamed and roared with applause, we went crazy with delight, though we were frozen to our last positions and it was the end and the lights went out on us. I mean, these people were our competition, and they were clapping for us. And they weren't supposed to clap at all, because everyone was supposed to clap only after every class had finished. We gave the same support to our fellow fourth year batchmates, who came after we did, but we couldn't clap so hard or they wuld be disqualified, so we just waved around our hands like monkeys. I bet they had a hard time trying not to laugh.

When a 15-minute break was called before awarding and Earth Wind and Fire's Dancing in September came on us, we boogied like there was no tomorrow. Imagine the nerdcore not going to recess!!! :))

AND. When Maam Hazel said, after a long pampa-climax pause, "Humility", we went mental. All those hours of practices. Bickerings, shouting. The expensive costume that didn't even amount to our expectations, the tiresome polishing, the body aches and the bruises, even to the last scurrying around. They were all worth it.

After endless batch and class pictorials (and even after), we called for the one thing that got us through: prayer. Our adviser led, saying that kailan lang, nagprayer din kami after winning first the Home Setting for the Nutrition month.

People say that we won kasi magaling naman talaga kami, because we were the first section, because we were seniors, etc. They can go on and on. But I know we won because we were truly blessed and guided. It's not our hand playing at this. It's His.

To God be the Glory.