What a month. Immediately after SwampHacks on January 18th, my three consecutive weekends were taken up by the start of the Raas season. For our first comp, Beat of Raas, we traveled to New Jersey; we went to Virginia for East Coast Showdown and Texas for Raas Rodeo. Needless to say, while the comps may have been worth the experience, we were all fatigued. But those long hours of practice (through a lot of sickness and little health) paid off. One especially memorable moment for me was at Rodeo. Right after we performed, I felt GOOD. We've danced a lot as a team last year and this year, and after those performance I've been tired and satisfied, but something about this show was different. I don't know if it was the cheering people on the sidelines, or the fact that I was finally starting to feel better, or just the adrenaline, but for the first time after those lights shut off, I really felt like I "put it all out on that stage". All the doubts I had about doing raas this year were forgotten and I remembered why I dance. One of the comments the judges gave was that it felt like we wanted it because it thoroughly looked like we were enjoying ourselves. I love this circuit and I love my team. And there was one more cherry on top: We managed to place first at all three comps and confirmed a spot at Nationals! More than anything I am so proud of our captains, Vik and Komal, because it wouldn't have been possible without the passion they have and the countless hours they put in. They deserve it more than anything. GatoRaas, let's do this for them. Fun Fact: during ECS and Rodeo, 90% of the team was sick, getting sick or getting over a sickness, and we managed to pass it along the circuit. We really loved to throw up into trash cans and potted plants right after the performance. >> This is from a group chat between GW and Gatoraas, a few days after we went to ECS, our first comp together. Apart from them, we also got Virginia Tech sick and the next weekend, we got at least part of DSD sick. lol whoops.
0 Comments
Transitioning from vacation to work mode wasn’t too hard this semester because of how ready I was for SwampHacks. This was my first year on e-board -- I was a sponsorship coordinator. Though we all worked rather individually over the last year in preparation for the hackathon, seeing the efforts of all the separate board members come together to create a well run event was such a rewarding experience. I am already excited to see what next year is going to bring! |
Author25 Archives
November 2023
|