Poetry and its consequences - A Rant Pt. 1

Yesterday was the contest... no, I need more backstory. Much more.
Every year, there is a contest in the country's capital (which is where I live) for reciting poetry as a group. Each year, one of the groups of third years (there's six) from our school participate, and to pick out the one which will compete there is a contest between the six classes. That was yesterday.
Our Spanish and Music teachers were supposed to help us with our poem, but they barely did. In about a few weeks, we were supposed to memorize about five minutes of yammering and accompanying movements, under the instruction of said teachers. After about three rehearsals with the Music teacher, he said he was going to stop helping us due to the fact that we were not cooperating as we should. This was okay, because it wasn't his job to help us and never comitted himself to do so. It was the Spanish teacher's job.
We rehearsed with her, but for reasons unknown she had us practice the first two pages of our poem over and over and over again, changing bits and pieces, but few times going past this limit she set herself, and only to assign bits of the poem to the bits of the class who would recite them.
Then, after some three or so classes spent on our poem, she abandonded the poem, instead opting for actual Spanish class, under the valid argument that on our admission exam, nobody was going to ask us to recite this poem. We told her that we were not rehearsing in Music class, either, but she said, basically, "Meh".
And so it was left until Thursday, the day of the eve of the contest. Then the Spanish teacher was all, "Oh, let's practice". So, we were ushered down to the gym, where, once again, we didn't go past the first two pages, except for that time when she realized that she hadn't assigned the very last bits and pieces of the poem to different people, so she did.
Then, class 3F (in our school, every group of a grade is called by a letter, form A to F: thus there are groups 1A, 2A, 3A, 1B, 2B and so on.) trooped into the gym to rehearse with the Spanish teacher after a little while, and we were ushered back out of the gym, left to practice by ourselves. We did, for a bit, and then went home because it was the end of the schoolday.
The next morning, we are all sort of nervous, because we know it's the day of the contest, and nobody -nobody- has memorized the poem, except, of couse, for the first two pages. Go figure.
So we organize ourselves. Groom ourselves, all the girls pull their hair back in a ponytail, and we rehearse for about an hour, in which time we accomplished quite a bit, correcting errors and the like. Then its time for the contest. Ohgodpleasehelpus.
We go down and see Surprise, surprise! 3F is rehearsing and they've got got their whole poem down to pat, movements and all. "Hm," we think, "that's weird. It seems the teacher actually made herself useful with them. Why not us? Oh, well, it doesn't matter. The teacher told us that the judges were going to grade us on voice only, because nobody had time to do anything extra."
Then we all go into the gym, and a teacher (last year's Spanish teacher, not the current one) reads out some stuff, and then says "The aspects that the judges will evalute are: Tone of voice, memorization, yadda yadda yadda, and gestures."
Wait. What???
"And now one student from each of the participating classes will step foreward - come over here - and pick, out of this box, a ball with a number on it, to determine the order of participation."
We got #3.
I didn't even pay attention to the first two groups because I was desperately... well, being desperate. So was everybody else.
It's our turm. Ohmegod. We go onto the stage...
...and, beautifully, begin to recite our poem. Hey! This isn't so bad, I find myself thinking. And okay, we were just standing there and not moving, but our class has the best quality of voice. It was good! Good, I tell you!
And then, all of a sudden, disaster strikes.
We reach the part of our poem where our Spanish teacher always halted us, and we stop.
We stand there for what seems like hours, and nobody can answer the question echoing inside each and every one of our minds:
@$^*&!%, what's next????
And then, salvation! One guy remebers, and saves the day by reciting the next line, and everyone catches on and continues.
And then... Gawd. I still can't believe it.
We forgot it again. We recite half of the third page, and once again, and for the last time, silence falls. And this time there's nobody who can remember what goes next. We all stand there, petrified. Half a minute passes. I hear my friend, behind me, whisper something I won't repeat.
And then everybody starts clapping.
Suddenly a whispered fight springs up.
"Let's get off the stage!"
"No, don't!"
"Come on!"
"But..."
The clapping fades away. We're still standing there.
Then, slowly, the first guy turns and descends the steps.
And we all follow.

Oh, you thought that was the end, did you? We didn't leave it at that. We sought revenge. Read about it (and how it bit us in the butt) in Pt. 2, coming soon.