It was really fun performing at Yardfest, although the crowd wasn’t that into it. At the festival, there were a few giant tireswings, and I definitely was close to falling off of them, but it was a huge blast and I got to feel like a kid again. There aren’t many times at Harvard when you get to just chill as an entire campus, and this was one of those rare moments when a lot of the students enjoyed each other’s company while listening to some dope beats. (Good music.)

Woohooo YardFest stage later!

Our Set list; we ended with Beyoncé's "Love on Top" and it was so good!

One HUGE perk to playing at YardFest (besides playing, obviously) was that we got to have a Green room in Sever to ourselves that we could chill in before and after our set. (It happened to be my Italian classroom in Sever, which was pretty funny.) We also got free YardFest shirts, and got to hang out with the other “bands.” The only drawback was that we had to go to class the next morning after playing, but I can’t complain as one of our guitarists, Will, ran the Boston Marathon the next day!

CUPSI 2012, OR HARVARD GOES TO CALI:

So, I’ve been talking about this for a while. On Tuesday morning, 4 of my fellow teammates/students on the Harvard Poetry Slam Team took the T to South Station and boarded a Bolt Bus to NYC, on our way to catch the flight to LAX for the National Poetry Slam Competition. We actually made it, because I’m sitting in the hotel room right now! Here’s a quick recap from the road.

15 minute break between bus rides to NYC for CUPSI!

LaGuardia, waiting to board American Airlines.

Gorgeous Clouds in NYC

Chicago O'Hare airport, lookin' green.

Creeping around the Airport! Yay Chicago.

Sunset in LaGuardia…before the ridiculously longggg plane ride.

Wooh! Is this Chicago or LA from the air, I can't remember.

Finally, we all landed in LAX (with a dream and a cardigan) and headed over to rent a car. The car lot was HUGE.

Yaaay rental car place! We got such a nice carrrr.

We showed up at our hotel late Tuesday night (very, very late; 5 am on Wednesday from east coast time) and crashed, hoping to catch some z’s before competing on Wednesday.

Our très chic hôtel

The next day was obviously gorgeous, as this is So-Cal and is so niceeee.

Look at all dem Palmtrees @ U of Laverne!

Yay, CUPSI! It's real!

We registered and everything! YEAH!

Woah, there's Harvard

The crazy athletic center at U of Laverne

So today we competed, and we did a pretty good job for the first time we’ve ever been in a CUPSI slam; I won’t go into all of the scoring details, as they are pretty weird and complex, but we rep’d. Then, we got some delicious free food (I ate too much icecream…but who cares?) and danced for a while with members of the 48 other poetry slam teams that are competing here. We just got back from a cipher (read:non competitive rap battle, if such a thing can exist) at the DoubleTree where the majority of the poets are staying, and I am exhausted. Tomorrow we compete again, which is going to be really fun but I need some rest. Pardon if this post is short.

Happy Happy VISITAS weekend, wish I could be there…but then again, this is what Harvard’s all about–opportunities to do crazy stuff like this.

Peace

-Reid