Personal Narrative Essay: Cyber Bands

Summer before junior year of high school, I was looking at a lot of standardized tests, essays, a heavier school workload, college applications, and getting a driver's license; my most immediate concern, however, was the soon to begin marching band season. Spring semester of sophomore year I had decided to audition for a leadership position in the band, and I suppose I was the best candidate because I managed to snag Section Leader for my instrument, clarinet. As the final days of July passed by, I anticipated the start of a season where I would be mentoring and teaching my fellow clarinet players the complex art of marching band. A few days before leadership camp I received a letter in the mail from the Head Band Director, Mr. Larry Brown, and immediately I knew things were not going to be what I expected.

When I was in marching band finding my identity was one of the hardest things that I had to do. It took me to my senior year to fully understand what it meant to fully identify myself as a member of the Titan Regiment. What made me understand that I was a member because of recognition that I received in my last two years? Having the honor to lead my saxophone section in marching band and to be an inspirational figure to them recognized me. When this happened, it confirmed to me that I was really a member of the Titan regiment. This community defined me because it's built on top of my leadership skills that I currently had and it also help me to make more mature decisions as I got older. This experience did that by challenging me

1. Thirty pounds of metal resting on my left shoulder, I marched for hours in the blistering hot sun. The sousaphone was my greatest enemy. In 6th grade I was chosen to play tuba for our middle school band, I didn't like it at first, but it grew on me. Two years later, I had gotten pretty good. I made all state band, won some awards, and was 1st chair. I had no intention in joining the marching band my freshman year.

We were this close to being stripped of our "Undefeated" title. The band sat there in the bleachers, stunned as the announcer pulled up the scores and was ready to reveal first place. Blood rushed through my veins and the butterflies in my stomach were more active as ever. After all of our hard work, it would have been a shame if we did not conclude the season with a bang. The announcer raised her microphone and everything seemed to come to a halt.

My satire group consisted of Nikki, Tessa, and myself. We are not preppy girls but we don't go outside much so, that's why we chose to do a hunting show. During the hunting show we spent a lot of time on filming and editing it together. I enjoyed spending time with my friends but filming a project just isn't for me. I didn't really like how we keep on having to reshoot scenes. Then every time we wanted to film it would end up raining and we would have to cancel our plans. Editing it together was hard because I had to download several apps to find the one that worked. This is definitely not a career I am interested in doing. One of the funniest parts is the satire was when we lost our fake deer so then we had to improvise but while we were trying

Marching Band has been a part of my life since I was about 9 years old. “I’m with the band” has been something I’ve said since I was in the fourth grade. In 2008, my band director, Mrs. Bollaro decided she would create a Pep Band, which soon turned into the ALJ Marching Band. My oldest brother, Eddie joined, and two years later, my other brother, Giulian joined. I was always mesmerized by the pretty flags and the spinning weapons, so it was not a surprise when I decided to join colorguard. When I finally made it to the eighth grade, I was allowed to join the colorguard. From the moment I knew what colorguard was, I wanted to be a part of it. My mom, and two of my aunts were in their high school colorguards, so being in colorguard meant more than just spinning. Joining marching band meant that I was following in my family traditions, and continuing what my family had started.

I woke up feeling like someone had put weights on my eyelids, because I could barely keep them open. Last night I had stayed up late to plan every detail of what I am going to wear to the Rave, what I am going to do at the Rave at every second of the night long festival that is this weekend. Also every other thing that can be planned. I don’t even know who is going to be playing there. The only thing I know is that I am going to be the coolest person with the coolest group of people there.

Over the last six years I've heard marching commands over a thousand times. They are easy to execute when called separately, but slightly harder when called continuously. The march off has been a tradition in the band for the last forty years. Always on the parking lot at exactly 11:45 just fifteen minutes before lunch. When asked what a march off is, the best way I can describe it is as a giant game of Simon Says but with marching commands.

Over the years, I’ve been blessed with the opportunity in being the twirling instructor for Goldthwaite Middle and High School. I have gained a lot physically and mentally while working with these young girls. Throughout this process I’ve realized I am not perfect and still growing. Which is why when I received a new twirler last year, I knew I had to step up my skills.

I knew I would need to stay as far away from Echo Guild as possible or… I can’t believe I had spent the night in bed with a man (not Conrad), showed with a man (not Conrad), undeniably enjoying feeding myself and the man who’s lap I was sitting in our meal completely bear butt naked with a school girl crush smile on my face (never done that with Conrad), and nearly forced myself on a man like a clinically insane nymphomaniac who was just released after serving their sentence of incarceration on multiple rape charges against several sport franchises and numerous boy only galactic universities (absolutely never felt that way around Conrad). It was as if someone had removed the word willpower from my vocabulary and the reason for clothing.

One extracurricular activity that I am heavily involved in is my schools Webcast. At the Webcast, we broadcast different sporting events that occur at our school such as football, basketball, and volleyball through the NFHS Network. The Webcast has been recognized for three years as an NFHS Elite School. NFHS uses our school's webcast as an example for other schools. I have been a member of the Webcast all throughout my four years at St. Pius. I had to film games, work the switcher/soundboard, and work on the computer that make sure everything is presentable. I also have commentated for Softball, Baseball, and Lacrosse. Currently, I am the Senior Leader/Producer of the program. As Producer, my responsibilities are plentiful. I have to create

I have been given the opportunity to participate in the only coed acapella group at my college. I am very grateful for all of the opportunities I get in my life, and having this chance to further pursue the joy of music has been great for me. Additionally, I have learned much about leadership and working with college administration through this group. This group is entirely student lead, so we rely on personal effort and initiative of our members to function. Most of the fourteen members have a specific administrative function to carry out in addition to continuous effort musically. I am the beatboxer of the group, so my participation involves maintaining the group at a constant tempo and manipulating the feeling of the song through the choice

When I first joined the band, I was a quiet, emotionless guy. I didn’t have any close friends in the band either, so honestly, I wasn’t having the best time. The people around me always seemed so happy to talk to others, and it confused me in a way. But then when band camp rolled around, people started to talk to me, so naturally, I began to respond to them, and eventually I began to start conversations for myself. I was a whole lot less awkward as days turned into months, my stuttering was reduced to almost none, I'm pretty loud, and I'm pretty friendly too.

Thanks for your time in reviewing my resume.  Thoroughly enjoyed working on your little hash project.  I believe me enjoying the work so is what would make me such a great fit at Fog Creek.  I love programming and figuring things out, while constantly learning new things.  I have been programming with such languages as Perl, Java, and PHP for over 15 years, and have loved every minute of it.  I have also been working remotely for one of the top mortgage servicing company's for over 15 years quite successfully.  While working for Midwest Loan Services I created and maintained their entire online system. This system utilized the LAMP stack, with the entire back end done in PERL. The front end utilized HTML, CSS, and JavaScript.

It started with an idea of wanting to play a game from his childhood, instead, this time speed running the game and streaming it online for others to see. To his friends it sounded like an odd idea, to begin with, streaming your game online for others to watch instead of just playing the game yourself? Loren didn't let this stop him, with the computer, stream layout and TV connected to the console all set up and ready to his satisfaction he was all set for the long haul. Setting up marathons that would include having snacks on hand to chugging energy drinks to stay away just to make that 24 hour stream time limit.