The bus revved to life as me and 10 other students in the French program loaded up for the second day of French Symposium. In the preliminary round, I had forgotten a stanza of my poem, flopped a 16th note run, and cracked every high note in my music round.
When we arrived at Clear Lake High School for the second round and testing on Saturday, I didn’t think much of advancing. I knew poetry was completely out of my mind and music had slim chances. I still filed into the testing room with everyone else.
I completed what felt to be the hardest test in my life. The test is designed for students in level four French, and I am only in level one, so I did not expect to do well. I proved myself right, ultimately choosing C for 56 of the 90 questions and only answering two sentences for the short answer. I only got 32 of the questions correct.
After testing, preliminary results came out. I saw my name listed under instrumental solo, but not under where it said semifinals.I was not upset I didn’t make semifinals, so I stayed positive. I sat around and waited for everyone to finish their semifinals round.
An hour after the music semifinals had finished, I heard “you did make music semifinals.” My head whipped around so fast, while my brain was filled with thoughts of confusion. One of my fellow competitors in music said we had made music semifinals, but read the chart wrong. She has also made semifinals and missed the round because of misconception.
I looked up and instantly was hit with regret. I frantically searched around for a schedule, but it was over an hour after the music semifinals had finished.
I had missed it because I hadn’t properly interpreted a chart. I was obviously upset with not doing the event, but more nervous my French teacher would be mad at me for costing points.
I quickly reached out to my teacher, but she said there was nothing I could do but simply enjoy the rest of the events at the competition.
I really was not feeling up to anything, and I wore shoes that gave me terrible blisters, so each step I took hurt. I didn’t do much for three hours until many people were done with their preliminary rounds.
Despite the debacle of the music round, I had already made many new friends with people I would have never talked to if I had not done the event. The art room was still open, so I walked around the whole school looking for the gym with one of my new friends, and we walked the entire bottom floor before we found it.
The art was fantastic and seeing it brightened my mood.
All that was left for the evening was the short culture bowl and the award ceremony. Both flew by, with the awards being a time to see the countless hours people around me had put into their French education.
The event was overall a learning experience, and although I didn’t get to compete with the music I had spent months on (and placed second in the preliminary round with), I still found good out of it. I met a lot of other people who are passionate about French, and got to celebrate the success of everyone’s hard work.
And after came the best reminder. My Nona texted me “Ecclesiastes 3:1 there is a time for everything and a season for every activity under the heavens,” which is exactly what this event taught me.
