We had Band Festival today and it was pretty good. Our band, concert band, got 3 2's and a 1, so an overall rating of 2. I played the oboe, and I'm glad I get to stop playing it tomorrow. It's a very nasally and weird instrument that I've had quite the wild ride with. I get to play the flute, for those of you who don't know that that is my main instrument.

Now that I'm on the bus and all my friends are sleeping, I'm going to tell the dramatic story of how my nose started bleeding today.

It started when I was eating my pizza. I felt something in my nose, but since I've been sick all week, I thought it was just drainage. (Gross, I know, but it sets up the story.) A couple of seconds later, my nose starts dripping, and I lean forward, only to drip blood on the gym floor that I'm on and all over someone ELSES saxophone case. (It was a friends, luckily, but still - it was my blood. They disinfected it after.)

My two friends were freaking out when I yelled "my nose!" and got up, leaned forward to prevent getting blood on my WHITE shirt, put my hands out in front of me to catch some of the blood, and started to walk. To where, I do not know, but one of my friends told me to put my fingers to my nose to prevent dripping blood everywhere. I did so, splattering blood on my hands in the process to the point where it ran down between my fingers. And there it was - the bright red, metallic-smelling blood.

One of the chaperones saw, and as she came to my aid, three other chaperones did too. They swarmed me with questions, asking if I'd ever had a nosebleed before (I had) and when my last one was. I told them I'd been sick and my nose was dry. Both of the chaperones were paramedics, and one shoved a tissue to my nose as the other pinched it hard. She was trying to stop the bleeding, but it kind of hurt.

At this point, everyone was staring at me. I had a lady's hand attached to my nose as she was yelling for ice and I had a bloody tissue in my hand. It was quite the frantic situation.

Minutes later, someone brought ice. The lady holding my nose put it to the back of my head and asked if any of the blood was draining to the back of my throat. I told her no and she asked me if I was dizzy or feeling lightheaded. I answered no to both as one of the other chaperones walked away, notifying the band director of my situation. Then another chaperone walked up, giving me orange juice as one of the paramedics got me more tissues.

Now, my nose was only bleeding a little. When I took the tissue off of my nose, everyone prepared to have it gush again, but it was calm. The bleed wasn't gone, so the first paramedic that had the ice to the back of my neck rolled up some napkin and shoved it up my nose. We let it stay there for a couple of minutes while the other paramedic transferred the ice to a smaller bag for me to put on my nose, and when we took it away, we saw that the blood had clotted.

At this point, the blood started to flow again. The paramedic was genuinely concerned as she shoved another rolled up napkin up my nose and told me to grab my phone to call my mom. She said I may have to go home, but I told her that my mom couldn't take off work.

After they called my mom and talked to her and told her about what happened, we traded out the tissue again and noticed that the bleeding was stopping. The rest of the band left to watch the AP band from my school play while I stayed behind, drinking my apple juice and wishing I could finish eating. By now, I was sitting down, and the bleeding stopped entirely in mere minutes.

Yeah, so that was that. There's how my nose started bleeding and the chaperones and everyone was freaking out. Yay? I guess so.