NBA National Anthem

BY BRYAN LAI 

     Today is January 29th, and it is the day I go to a Phoenix Suns NBA Tournament against the Minnesota Timberwolves to sing USA’s National Anthem, The Star-Spangled Banner, with my friends, the 8 Foundation youth volunteers.
    

      The entire trip was very long, nearly 6 hours. I left home at 3. When I arrived, I met all my friends, and we waited outside for about 25 minutes. After that, we went inside and practiced lining up to get in position. After we finished the lining practice, all of us went down to the actual court. Honestly, I was amazed by how big the court actually was. It was as huge as a palace.
The rehearsal went well, and I think we sang the song pretty good, even better than we did in the weekly practice. After the rehearsal, we went to have a break. At this point, I was getting really really hungry, and so were my friends. A nice mom bought us some water, chips, and popcorn. The snacks gave me a lot of energy to keep going. I don’t know her name, but I really appreciated her generosity.    

       The actual performance was very straightforward. Before we went on the court, we were behind the stand's backstage, and I saw many other people in the band. When it was time for us to go on the court, I was a bit nervous. However, the final performance needed to be very, very excellent.     

      Once we were done with the performance, we went to go get our stuff. And after that, all of us went to watch the game. My dad met me at our seats with pizza, water, and popcorn. The game was very interesting. At first, the Suns were ahead by about 6 points. Unfortunately, The Suns ended up losing in the end.
       After the show, I thought of all the work we'd put in for the past 2 months. Before the game day, we went to 7 rehearsals, and each session was more than 1 hour long. All 7 practices happened over the course of 2 months, from Thanksgiving, to Christmas, to New Year, and finally to Chinese New Year. Many people went to the practices, and at the end of each session, there were snacks that our group leader had prepared. She is my friend's mom, and she did a lot for us. Thank you, Henry's mom!!!
     

 During the first rehearsal, I didn't know how to sing the song, but after the first rehearsal, I didn't even need the lyrics anymore because I had already memorized most of the song. It was not just practicing at the sessions; my friends and I also practiced the song a ton at home. Whenever I had nothing to do, I would practice the song many times. Thanks to our hard work, each time everyone got better and better. By the time of the final rehearsal on January 25th, we had already sung very well.
     Overall, the rehearsals and performance were very successful, and I had tons of fun with this performance.