Things I liked and helped me:

1. flying JetBlue – The seats were so comfortable with personal TV screen and plenty of legroom, clean and simple flight area, respectful and efficient flight crew.  I also love their logo and colors.
2. flying in a day early – I liked doing this at the time because I had a whole day to get in the zone, and I did pretty well.  I had a great isolated room at the end of a hallway in the Holiday Inn hotel (king size bed too!).
3. planning my practice and day as I go – I’m not a spontaneous person, but I can go with the flow.  I plan out what I want to practice by chunks of time with set goals, then take a break by going out for a walk or snacking, then I have a “mock audition” practice and/or “slow and careful” practice.  I alternate these chunks throughout the day.
4. eating right – For me, the act of eating meat gives me energy, so since I was in Buffalo, I made sure to eat a roast beef sandwich for lunch everyday, with granola bars and yogurt for snacks, and a salad for dinner.  Haha, for some reason, I really just wanted to eat well during this audition.  Maybe I should’ve cared more about what I drank too.

Things that can be better/improved/re-thought:

1. drink just water – I made the awful mistake, and realized too late, that I’ve been drinking small amounts of caffeine on my audition day.  It’s an energizing tea that I usually drink everyday, so I never thought twice about it until it was too late and I was well into my Mozart 39 excerpt.  Luckily I didn’t crash and burn, but I was so close.  The scary thing was that it was totally out of my control and that’s not a good feeling.
2. booking a hotel and flight too early – Basically I was out there for one day too long.  Audition was Monday afternoon, so I could’ve flown in that morning, checked into a hotel for 3 hours and practiced, taken the audition and then leave.  But might be too radical.  Next time i’ll just buy a refundable hotel and flight, and stay longer if I have to :)
3. play for more people and get nervous – Definitely need to do more of this!

So it looks like this wasn’t a wasted trip.  I felt lucky that I had smooth trip logistics, audition process, and weather.  Things actually looked like there were working for me.  However, I missed one small piece and it threw me off track.  I felt bad after my audition, but mostly because my body was unfair to me and prevented me from sounding my best.  I’m determined to do everything I can in my control for my next auditions in August.  Wish me luck!