Casting La Academia - L.A.

Yesterday after we got back from the preliminary auditions, my mom decided she wanted to come with me to L.A., but that she wanted me to drop her off at the auditions so she could camp out the night. She wanted me to drive to my aunt's house (where I was originally going to stay) and spend the night there and meet her in the morning. (she's a great mom!) Sammi also decided he wanted to come along and drive! (awesome cousin) So I just went shotgun and enjoyed the ride and bed.

OK, when we dropped off my mom there was already about 150 people camping out. Even while I was getting my mom her chair, blanket..etc., a line kept forming behind her. She would stay in good company, another mom and an older contestant. So she would not be surrounded by young kids. She said that the contestants who did stay in line sang all night long!

I met up with my mom at 7 am, and they let us start going inside and get our official numbers at 7:30 a.m. I was number 19274 :D By this time my mom and all other family members had to wait outside the gates, along with remainder of the contestants who were in line out there.

OH wait. At this point I also had learned that I needed to have 5 songs of different genres prepared to sing! arghhh, I only had 1! haha. And believe it or not, I don't listen to spanish music to much, so I had no idea what I was going to sing. (Good thing for my iphone, I started searching lyrics and listening to music)

At this point I was also asking myself what the heck I was doing, there were some amazing voices in the bunch. A lot of hopefuls in line were singing away, and they sounded great.

So there are 4 small tents, inside of each you have either the director of the show, the vocal teacher of the show, the 2 other judges who right now I can't remember what their role is on the show.

I go in. I start singing my song, the judge stops me. He says "ok, I've heard your voice now I want to see you move, interpret. Sing a ballad" I started singing the first song that came to mind, the stopped me and said "another one", I start singing the next song that comes to mind. He stops me again. He says, "do you understand what you're singing? tell me the word of the song"....So I start telling him the words. He says, "I see here that you're 28 yrs old right? I can assume that you've been in love? " I said yes, and I've had my heart broke too. He says "THAT'S what I want to feel, I want you to sing it again but this time make me feel that" I sing it again and he stops me and says "ok. you're off to the next round" :D

I must say it felt pretty good. I could not believe this. By the time I gave my mom the thumbs up she was already on the phone calling my dad and other family members giving them the news. (again, I still could not believe this) haha.

Only 60 people out of close to 2,000 were chosen to go to the 2nd round. Some amazing vocalist did not make it through to the next round so I was a bit intimidated thinking, "what the heck am I still doing here?" hahah.

The next round was going to be held there in a couple of hours. Once the next round started, we were going to go in in groups of 6. This was hard on a lot of people. All of the "Top 3" (40 of them) from the preliminary auditions (we figured out what "guaranteed auditions" really meant) got to go in before us. From them only 4 people made it through to the 3rd round.

We just stood there watching people come out and not making it through. Some crying some just in shock. We went into a mini studio version of the show. The director and one of the main teachers were going to be judging us. They had it set up as if you were performing in the actual show. They had a see through stage, lights, cameras and we were to go on the stage one by one and sing with a mic.

I was the second one of my group to go up. After my whole group performed we all went up to the stage again and they would let us know if any of us made it through. They thanked us all, said we all had good voices and that we did good, but that it wasn't enough. (Don't get sad now!) So they thanked us again and did a Paula on us and told us to continue following our dream.

Soooooo, we all went down the stage, everyone in complete silence, me really relieved, the next round was going to be singing the different genres and dancing! (no one had told me about the dancing! haha) By this time only 6 people had moved on to the 3rd round. From this round, the few that make it through go to Mexico City and audition with the rest that made it through the 3rd round.

I walked outside where the family members were, and nodded no to my mom. A girl told me to go to the last audition city which is this Tuesday, but I won't. It was a very long day guys, it was tiring and its hard competition. I am so happy and in disbelieve that I made it this far! haha. I did it though, I went through the experience and I now have some stories to tell! Seriously I feel good.

So nowI have 1 more week for the online voting, but I seriously think that site sucks. I realized this weekend that it only counts 1 vote per server. So say here at work we have multiple computers...well its really only registering 1 vote from my whole office!!! even though my coworkers are voting from their own computers. So if this is the case, I don't know how I'm going to come up with so many votes in a week! AND I've been trying to log in to my page since Friday afternoon to upload more music but its not allowing me to login, its telling me "sorry for the inconvenience, we'll be back shortly" WTC??? soooooo, I don't want to get my hopes up about the voting thing anymore....the page, their system sucks. I've written them emails and have had no response.

Again, I'm happy that I did this and I'm proud of how I did.