I wanted to be a writer, but I was given the wrong careers advice. [Birmingham part 1]

At 12.30 on 26^th November, I left lessons early in order to commence the long journey up to Birmingham with Highworth Jazz Orchestra. I've never been to Birmingham before, although I have attempted to master the Brummy accent. When I met two girls from Birmingham on a camp I went on, they attempted to teach me the ins and outs of their accent. Nevertheless, my terribly limited repertoire of "me dook's in a baath in Burrmingum" and "paasta cheese and chocolate saouse" was not needed as our visit mainly revolved around two short performances in the closing of a teachers' conference at the ICC.

Travelling from Kent to Birmingham meant we had a long journey. However, we managed to keep ourselves occupied! Our journey began with a safety video explaining what we should do to ensure our journey was as safe and comfortable as possible. Besides staying in our seats and fastening our seatbelts, the video suggested doing small leg exercises periodically throughout the journey. The cartoon lady then proceeded to stretch her legs out in front of her. Being the cool teenagers that we are, my friend and I promptly started doing the demonstrated exercises, only to discover that we did not have enough room! In the video, the lady had ample room to stretch her leg out to almost full length. However, we were unable to do so without kicking the seat directly in front of us. After we established the pointlessness of these 'safety' exercises, one of the younger years also decided to ignore the "stay in your seat" aspect of the safety video. She was soon sneaking up and down the central isle, attempting to avoid the attention of the teachers. My friends and I stayed 'safely' in our seat with a Rubik cube. I spent most of my time eating, teaching people how to solve a Rubik's cube, and getting over excited about the guy we were soon o meet for rehearsals.

After terrible traffic causing us to be pretty much an hour late, we arrive at the ICC for our rehearsal. We thought the guy we were to rehearse with may have got fed up with waiting, or at least be annoyed with us, but no: Gareth Malone was there with a warm smile and his Tennant-esque glasses. Welcoming us all, he started handing out music, eager to get started.

As Gareth explained, these two pieces had only been completed a matter of hours before. A small group of teachers had written the song in a workshop two days previous and Gareth Malone had devised an accompaniment so that Highworth Jazz Band could assist them as they performed. Although these teachers were heads of departments and head teachers, few of them had any musical experience and the tune was simple but incredibly catchy! Most of the orchestra (me included) have had the lines "This is my dream... This is my dream... Nothing can stop, or cut, my dream!" going round on constant repeat since! Our cue lines were hardly forgettable either: "I couldn't believe it was living, living in my school!" and "I wanted to be a writer but I was given the wrong careers advice." (Hence the title of this blog!)

This first evening practice was rather surreal. I seemed to be constantly flicking from concentrating on flute playing to amazement that there wasn't a TV screen between me and Gareth Malone. I watched his series on BBC 1 called 'The Choir', and his program on how a choir works, and I couldn't quite get my head around the fact that it was the orchestra that I was playing in that he was now conducting. I suppose, the fact that he bares a certain resemblance to David Tennant also had a part to play considering I'm such a big fan of Tennant as the Tenth Doctor! Nevertheless, our rehearsal was soon over and we were whisked off for something to eat.

Somehow, I don't think the organisers quite realised the numbers of us in the Jazz Orchestra. Half way through serving us our food, they ran out of plates! Furthermore, those who did have plates ended up sitting on the floor to eat their dinner. Nevertheless, we were just happy to have some food after a long afternoon of travelling. The vegetarian lasagne and chicken a la king dish with rice rapidly disappeared leaving a group of tired, but happy and contented teenagers.

Next, we headed off to the hotel to get a rest before an early start the next morning. After being informed to look after the sheet music, we collected our room key (well, one of those funny credit card-like swipe-card things) and headed up to our third floor room. After a squished journey up in the lift with a small family of foreign visitors, my friend attempted to open the door. When I say attempted, I mean she managed to try the key in the door every way up, except the correct way! Eventually, the door opened to reveal a box. Three of us were sharing one room and it seemed that to entertain us for the night we had a TV and a space not much bigger than my bedroom at home. The first thing we noticed (besides the size) was the beds. There was a double bed with a single bunk on top. This meant two of us had to share. After we decided that I would be one of the ones to share, we settled down to watch the TV. (Well, what else was there to do after we had already been talking for about five hours on the coach up?) Later, when getting changed into our pyjamas, we discovered just how small the toilet was. I concluded that there was no room to swing a cat and the lack of lock was just bizarre. Additionally, to wash our hand, we had to leave the toilet and use the little sink in the corner of the room. Next to this sink there was also a small shower. Although we didn't use this as we were only there for one night, we discovered that the handle was a terrible design. Instead of a handle, it had a hole. Therefore, if anyone had used the shower, we could have easily seen through, whether we wanted to or not! There was also a distinct lack of plugs. Apart from the one for the TV, only one other could be found. This left us competing over who should use it to charge our phone and prevented the simultaneous use of straighteners and phone charger!

During the evening, we inevitably spent a large portion of the time talking. I love how, on sleepovers and when room sharing, you always end up talking about stuff you'd never usually talk about. And, just and inevitably, the teacher will always knock telling you to keep the noise down whenever you're talking about the things you would never want them to hear! It's also nice to share with new people: people you've never shared a room with before and have a chance to get to know them. Nevertheless, it's still odd sharing a double bed with someone you don't know particularly well!

I spent most of the night being woken up by the traffic. Being used to the near silence of the house on the outskirts of town next to a field, this was inevitable. Eventually, the morning came and at 5.55 am, the teacher came knocking on the door. Ironically, this was exactly the same time as my alarm went off! This meant we had to attempt to wake up and get up despite the chilling temperature of the room. (It felt like the hotel was still yet to discover the modern marvel of central heating!) Dragging ourselves out of bed, we got dressed, gathered our stuff together, and performed 'idiot checks' as our teacher calls them! Making our way down the stairs, (after the lifts refused to comply with our request to descend,) we grabbed a bite to eat. As usual, we spend ages waiting while the teachers panicked about everything: people missing, music missing, keys not handed in, and instruments missing amongst other things. Eventually we got going (even though the teachers' delays could have given us another half hour in bed) and arrived at the ICC at approximately 7.15am for another practice with Gareth Malone!