When My Mind Went Blank
Have you ever experienced your mind going white right when it is the time to present or perform on stage? The sheer fear and panic are traumatic enough for you to hate going up on stage every again. Before my first year in my previous university, UC Riverside, I never had the opportunity to perform on stage in front of an audience. College, after living our whole lives monitored and supervised by our parents, is an opportunity for students to make new experiences and take risks for themselves in a new phase that can help a teenager transition into their adult life. Moreover, only with the minimal knowledge we have about the craziness of college life, we are shipped off to survive all by ourselves.
The first week of university at Riverside was very chaotic, getting situated in the new dormitory and seeing all the new faces that I would be encountering for the next year. This week was not only filled with overly excited self introductions, but it was crowded with frat members and various clubs at the freshmen dorms trying to lure the new comers into joining their organization.
Maybe it was my clothing attire or the overly excited demeanour I exerted, but I was approached with, "do you like to party?" by many upperclassmen who were trying to recruit new freshmen members. As an extrovert, I took this opportunity and went out to a different organization every single day. Through this crazy week, I was introduced to the club that I would be heavily involved in, KASA, Korean American Student Association. My prior knowledge before entering this club was its notoriety of being a club for partying and drinking, hence their nickname Korean Alcoholic Smoking Association. I mean, Koreans aren't known to be heavy drinkers and smokers for no reason.
During the first general meeting, I realized that my misconceptions about this club was a biased generalization of what Koreans liked to do. The members seemed really enthusiastic about the club and their mission to spread awareness of the Korean American culture on the school campus. One of the reasons that drew me to this club in particular was that through it, I would be able to meet other members of KASA from different schools all over California. What really stuck out to me during this meeting was when they made an announcement of an event that the club took part in annually with all the other KASAs in the other UC's and Cal State Universities in California.
This event was the freshmen dance off, where dance teams of freshmen from many different California universities would compete in a dance off. Right after announcing how big this event was, the staff members showed the newcomers the dance off video of Riverside KASA from the previous year on the big screen. Watching this video, I felt a sudden rush of pride flowing through my veins and I felt a burning desire to represent my school.
The actual competition was only a month away and our team needed to get down to business if we had any chance of placing in the event. The next month was filled with night practices almost everyday, practices even going through the next morning through the latter half of the month. Some practices, after practicing for twelve hours through the night, the team would often eat breakfast at the dorm cafeteria talking nonsense due to being delirious from no sleep.
Having to endure the cold desert nights of Riverside and having to memorize numerous difficult choreography pieces in less than a month, the practices weren't easy. Moreover, the majority of us never had any prior dancing experiences and the group that started out with more than 50 freshmen, ended up being left with the twenty something of us.
Even until the day before D-day, we weren't ready. Spending the night before the performance day dancing away like machines rehearsing our six minutes dance set countless number of times, I can remember the zombie like face expressions of the other members. Thus, none of us were able to go back to our dormitory rooms until we had to change into our outfits and prep ourselves to go on stage.
With no sleep, I did not feel tired at all because of the jitters and excitement of finally being able to perform on stage. Our school was the third from last to perform and we weren't allowed to watch any other schools to perform until we finished our performances. Waiting backstage with all the other schools in their uniforms left me feeling more nervous.
"Riverside, you guys are up."
I remember hearing this and feeling my heart drop. To top that, when I got on stage, I remember looking at all the blank face expressions in the audience since it was a competition and other schools didn't want to express any kind of support other than their own team. This didn't help my already pounding heart and all of a sudden, my head went blank. I felt stuck and my body froze. A voice was screaming inside my head, "oh my gosh, Alex, you are screwed. You are going to fail the team. Where are you supposed to be standing in the beginning?" I couldn't remember literally anything I had been practicing over the past month, let alone know the position I was supposed to be in. I thought I was going to have a panic attack.
Suddenly, I heard the opening of our song being played over the huge speakers. At this moment, I still cannot truly understand what had happened to me that moment. It was as is if something had took control of my body. Without actually being aware of what I was doing, my body began to move on its own to the music. Muscle memory had come to rescue and in the end, the countless hours I had put into mastering all the dance pieces had paid off. This scary experience had a happy ending, but it was all due to effort. Hard work paid off, and we ended up placing third out of twenty different schools. For sure, I will never be able to forget that feeling of sheer terror when my mind saw white.
Kim Young Woo 20123937
It must be one of the unforgettable memories. I think going up on stage is good experience even if it is just once. It changes many things.
ReplyDeleteYou used a variety of words without repeating same words, and I like it as it is not boring.
Also, I appreciate your explanation about background situation. It makes readers follow you well.
But I think if you can shorten your explanation and focus more on the main story, it would be greater in terms of your topic and message.
Thank you for nice story.
Yousun Jung
"oh my gosh, Alex, you are screwed. You are going to fail the team. Where are you supposed to be standing in the beginning?" This part looks so real. I can't agree more about your feeling because I also have a similar experience. I think at "as is if" from the last paragraph, "is" is not needed. And Starting the writing with question was goog, but the content of the hook looked a little bit general for me. Your basic past verb tense goes along with your writing. More explanations about "we weren't allowed to watch any other schools to perform until we finished our performances." seems to be necessary.
ReplyDeleteChoi, Won-joon
When my Mind Went Blank
ReplyDeleteFeeling like a zombie from over practice, how was I going to perform on stage in the next ten hours? Even until the day before D-day, we weren’t ready. We couldn’t even rest until the last moment. Spending the night through the morning of the performance day dancing away like machines, rehearsing our six-minute dance set countless times, I remember the dead face expressions of my team members. It was crazy. This was the condition of our team on the day of a competitive dance contest.
When we arrived at the venue, I did not feel tired at all because of the jitters and excitement of finally being able to perform on stage. Our school was third from last to perform and teams on standby weren’t allowed to watch the other schools perform until they finished their performance. For hours, I waited backstage with all the other teams in their uniforms. This left me feeling more nervous.
“Riverside, you guys are up!”
The first week of university at Riverside was very chaotic. This week was not only filled with overly excited self-introductions from the people living on my dormitory floor, but it was also swarming with frat members and various clubs trying to recruit the new freshmen into their organizations.
During this hectic week of free partying and getting lost on campus, I was introduced to the club that I would be heavily involved in, KASA, Korean American Student Association. Although my prior knowledge of this club was its notoriety to party and drink, hence their nickname Korean Alcoholic Smoking Association, I realized that my misconceptions were nothing but a generalization of what I thought Koreans liked to do.
At the first general meeting, I experienced a kind of pride one had in their own culture. They devoted to promote awareness of the Korean-American culture on campus. Another factor that caught my attention was the members’ pride in representing the Riverside branch of KASA. KASA was a club that existed in universities all over California, and even though UC Riverside was known as the school of rejects amongst the other UC schools, the members were not ashamed of their campus, but actually proud to represent it.
Their pride was never more noticeable than when they made the announcement of the event that the club participated in annually with all the other KASAs in the other UCs and Cal State Universities. The event was none other than the freshmen dance off. On the Tuesday, before the five day Thanksgiving weekend, at a clubbing venue, dance teams made of only freshmen students from different California universities would compete in a dance off. The announcement was then shown as a video of the dance off performance from the previous year. Watching this video, I felt a sudden rush of pride flowing through my veins and I felt a burning desire to represent my school.
With only a month away from the actual event, our team needed to get down to business if we wanted any chance in placing top three in the competition. The next month was spent with all night practices that even lasted well past sunrise. During the last couple weeks of practice, the team would often end the session by eating breakfast at the dorm cafeteria while the team talked about nonsense due to being delirious from sleep deprivation. Also, having the endure the cold desert nights of Riverside and having to memorize difficult choreography in less than a month, practices were painful. Hence the group that started out with more than fifty freshmen, ended up with only the twenty of us.
ReplyDeleteAt the moment right before going up on stage to perform and hearing our school name be called to come up, I remember the feeling of my heart dropping all the way down to my feet. When I got on stage, I was welcomed with blank face expressions glaring at me from the audience since it was truly a competitive contest and schools didn’t even express a hint of support to any teams other than their own team. This didn’t help my already pounding heart and all of a sudden, my head went blank. I felt stuck and my body froze. A loud voice screamed inside my head, “oh my gosh, Alex, you are screwed. You are going to fail your team. Do you even remember where you are supposed to be standing in the beginning?” Everything that I had been practicing the past month, I literally couldn’t remember anything, let alone know the position I was supposed to be in. I thought I was going to have a panic attack.
Suddenly, I heard the opening of our song blaring through the huge speakers. Even until this moment, I cannot truly understand what had happened to me. It was as if something had taken control of my body. Without awareness of what I needed to do next, my body began to move on its own to the music. Muscle memory had come to my rescue. The countless hours I had put into mastering all the dance pieces had paid off. In the end, hard work paid off, and we ended up placing third out of twenty different schools. For sure, never will i ever be able to forget that feeling of sheer terror when my mind saw white.