Sorry for not posting last week. I’ve been really exhausted. AP English, Pre-Ap History, and marching band take a lot of a person. Still, I’m starting to get adjusted to school, which is good. This week has been crazy.
Monday was Labour Day, so I had it off school. I went to this service project where we were helping somebody fix up a ramp. It turned out that there were more people then there were tools, and we ended up being unneeded and leaving early. I think though that part of service is showing up. Showing up even if you don’t know how your going to help, and just being there if you’re needed. Sometimes you won’t be, and other times you will have to be doing a lot of work. You show up, and whatever comes, comes.
Most of the rest of the weeks has been spent on marching band, school, and seminary. Basically, my schedule has me waking up at 6 am every morning to do seminary (I’m in an online class and the lessons take about half a hour) and then doing studying for spanish, and relaxation exercises before getting dressed and heading to school. I arrive at school early so I can talk to my friends. And then I’m at school until 3, and then I have a half an hour break to do homework, get a drink, and maybe do saxophone practice before marching band starts at 3:30. After that I’m at band practice until 6. At 6 I go home, give myself about an hour down time, because if I don’t relax I’m going to scream, usually in the form of cooking (I’m a stress baker) and then do saxophone practice until about 9 (counting in the time that it takes to get home, relax, and eat dinner, my saxophone practice is usually about an hour, give or take) and then do homework. After that I read my scriptures, and usually get to bed at about 10:30 to 11:00 at night.
Now, my after school schedule changes on Fridays. I don’t have band practice on Fridays because of the football game, but I do have to be at the football game to preform. I usually have to arrive somewhere between 5 and 6. Usually, that’d give me an hour or two to work on homework, but now I’m starting robotics club meeting. They started last Friday, and we’re having meetings on both Thursdays and Fridays (I’m unable to attend Thursday meetings because of band practice) and they go until 5. Despite that, I’m really looking forward to robotics this year. My friends Hannah-senpai and Alex, and my brother Jacob joined this year, so I actually have people I know with me. Last Friday we mostly just introduced the club, told a few stories about last year, and organized the room we got (the robotics club actually have our own room this year! Well, technically we share if half and half with the engineering class which we just got this year, but it’s still way better than last year where our club room was the physical science classroom, and we had to tuck everything away so that the teacher could have classes). It was really fun, and since we finished early I got to take a much needed trip to the library.
Unfortuently, robotics leaves me with the only time I have over the weekend to do homework is around band competitions on Saturdays. (I don’t do homework on Sunday because it’s the Sabbath) so I have to do my homework on the band bus, and in the stands watching the other bands preform. (Bands preform in order of the size of our band. Our band is extremely small with less then twenty musicians, four guard members, and a drum major we usually preform first or second, so usually we have a lot of time to sit in the stands and do homework)
Speaking of band competitions, we had one of those this week. And what a competition it was. First of all, I had miserable morning. I kept coughing and I felt super exhausted, so all throughout the practice that we have before a competition, I felt really awful. Eventually I got better, and even got kind of cheerful as a few of our problems got fixed. I rested up on the way to the school we were preforming at, and though I felt drowsy, and like I didn’t really want to be there, I was in horrible condition. It was cloudy, but not raining as we unloaded the trailer and got out our instruments and warmed up. The rain clouds looked like they might past us, and while the wind was annoying, I wasn’t expecting much to happen. Then we were told to head inside because of a lightening warning. Just as we headed in, we heard the thunder. Loud. Us, and all the other bands headed inside. So, we sat around inside (or in my case walked around-I have a hard time sitting still) and waited for the lightening and rain to pass. Eventually, I ended up sitting next to Rachelle, Emily and Tari-senpai (my closest and dearest friends in marching band) and playing a weird variation of Apples to Apples, which was both verbal and forced to confess your deepest darkest secrets (yeah, not normal Apples to Apples). Eventually, it was decided that the competition would be done inside, as a stand still performance. We were all still scored, but we would not get any points for visual, just for guard, percussion, and music. It was pretty chaotic, since no one really knew what we they were doing. All the bands were everywhere at once and it was really hard to keep track of what was going on, but we managed to head into the gym we were preforming with all the confidence a day as crazy as this had been could muster.
Our performance went really well. After we finished the Night on Bald Mountain part of our piece the audience clapped so loud that our drum major almost cried, and we had to force ourselves not to smile and keep playing.
I could see the judges from where I was. At one point in Movement II one of them gave us a thumbs up. I was pretty satisfied.
After our performance though we had to go out into the rain to put our instruments back on the trailer, get off uniforms, and try to protect everything the best we could from the rain. Luckily, we had a new electronics cart built this year for situations like this, so none of our electronics got wet. We still had to rush around to get woodwind instruments into cases, because woodwinds and rain do not mix. After that we had to run back to the band bus to get out of uniform, and I mean run because it was thundering, and then after that we went back inside while Mr. Bush decided what to do next.
In the end we ended up going to Pizza Hut to get dinner. We all sat around, and talked and took pictures, and I had some of the best time I’ve had with my band all season. I’ve been so stressed, but that day was a saving grace, because it reminded me of just how much everyone in the band means to me. I get mad at them. I get annoyed at them. I get upset at them. But there is not a person in that band that I can honestly say I hate. And there is not a person in that band I would not do my best for. And sometimes I feel like I don’t belong with them. I felt that way Friday. Sometimes I feel overwhelmed. Like every day pretty much. And I’m stressed and I’m tired, and so are they.
You make it work.
Though seriously, I have to thank the Huddlestons who paid for the food, and encouraged us to eat as much as we wanted, the Pizza Hut workers for dealing with suddenly have over twenty hungry teenagers to feed, Drew for giving me his left overs during lunch, and Emily for letting me much off her for food all the time (why are all my thank yous about food) and Mr Bush for not giving up on me (a thank you that was not about food!
Near the end of the bus ride home Mr Bush gave us the results of the competition. We got second place in musical performance for 1A bands, first place of 1A bands for guard and percussion, 3rd place for guard and percussion of 1A and 2A bands and 2nd place overall for 1A bands, and I could not be prouder of our guard and percussion. YOU GUYS ROCK!
Anyway, it was an amazing day.