High School! Those 4 years that are supposedly the best of our lives...safe to say that wasn't the case in my regard. But I was just happy to get out of middle school, 8th grade was so terrible that there was nowhere else to go but up, but that doesn't mean I didn't deal with alot of crap along the way. It's Tomah, Wisconsin, bullshit is now par for the course.
Freshman Year. The fun actually started before, when I had to go to band camp. All the students were delivered with the news that the high school band director, Mr. Waldhart, was leaving THS and moving to West Salem. We were also told that Mrs. Smith, the totally awesome middle school director, was also leaving for Idaho. That was a sad moment for all involved, those two were very integral to the strength of the band programs, so their fate was now uncertain. They did replace them, with two guys called Mr. Tubbs and Mr. Zweig. Mr. Tubbs will be the most important figure in my high school career, for reasons I will get to in a moment. So band camp, that week when everyone is required to show up for the whole day and learn/re-learn our marching skills, show music, and all of the other stuff like fitting for uniforms and taking band pictures. Since I was a freshman, I had to go to a 4 hour freshman camp, and then go to a 6 hour all-class camp in the afternoon. The first day was brutal, I was about 215 pounds at that time and the extreme heat and humidity instantly took its toll on me. I just couldn't handle it, and I'm sorry to say that I almost quit band after that day, I didn't feel like I was cut out for it. My parents didn't like that, though, and they told me to take a shower and go to bed, I was going to band camp the next day. The rest of the week was better, but still very hot. After band camp, I then had to go to this thing called link crew, which basically told the freshman class the common aspects of high school that anybody could figure out in the first day. It really was a waste of time. Lastly, I auditioned once again for the LaCrosse Youth Symphony Orchestras, and three days later I got an e-mail saying that I had graduated from the Phillharmonic and was placed in the Youth Symphony! That was a good day, a good day indeed.
Anyway, during band camp I would meet some people that would make my life awful through the rest of their time at high school. There was Kyle Farrand, a senior with a big ego and a nasty demeanor to match. He hit me and shit-talked me, he was just not a nice guy. Then there was Ben and Garth, two juniors who were secret lovers (ok the secret lovers is a stretch, but they hung out so much it made me question...). They were very full of themselves, they both continued the sexual harassment and they were really just immature, about everything. Then there was a sophomore who was named, big shocker, Nick. He was a tall guy who walked funny and talked in a way where you couldn't understand him half the time, and he was also full of himself. Remember Lakeisha from fifth grade? Nick was my modern day Lakeisha, everybody was inferior to him, especially freshmen, especially me, and he would always put me down and try to make me feel worthless. But, I also met some very awesome people too, like this one girl, Jessica Retzlaff. We became friends real fast, she was a blonde with a cute, nasally voice and she was just funny. She opened up to me fairly quickly, and I in turn let my guard down, and she's also the reason why I adopted the nickname 'Maestro'. That's what I was to her, through my playing and composing she started calling me maestro and I loved it. When freshman year began, she was there ready to help, and I was going to need it. Remember Nick, Sandra, and Kayla from 8th grade? Well they were all in band and in my high school, so their abuse continued, in more ways than one. When Nick and Sandra weren't picking on me, they began to really pick on my other friend Miranda. Actually, I think Kayla started it, and Nick and Sandra hopped on and just began to really bully her. Me being the friend I am, started to stick up for Miranda, and then Nick called me a bitch and a slut for doing so and went on to say that nobody likes me and I should just quit. Now, I should say that, that statement had no meaning coming from him, because his endless drama had alienated him from my class and the band in general. He said nobody liked me, when in actuality he was the most hated person in the band room. Anyway, pretty soon everyone I knew started to say really nasty things about Miranda, and I continued to stand my ground and I stood up for her whenever I could, the backlash was completely unnecessary. So yeah, between Kyle, Ben, Garth, Nick (both of them), Sandra, Kayla, and the people constantly picking on Miranda, I completed the task in becoming one of the most unpopular kids in the school. And that high school was 1000 people, that's not easy to deal with. But I never backed down, I was always myself and I just concentrated on my music. I also had a really great group of friends: Jessica, Tiffany, Cole, Brooks, Swany, and Nikki. We all had our own drama but it was always resolved, and we helped each other through the year. Also, when marching season was over, the band was split into two groups: concert band and wind ensemble. Wind ensemble was where it was at my freshman year, and most people auditioned to get into it. The day the bands were revealed was a very good day, I remember walking to the doors, seeing both sheets and I went straight to the wind ensemble horn section: 1st name, not mine, 2nd name, not mine, 3rd name, not mine, 4th name...was...MINE! One semester of band and I was already in wind ensemble! I was extremely happy, but then sad when I found out that both Nicks were also in it, and Jessica was in concert band :( In the end, though, the people in the band didn't matter, the music we played was amazing! Needless to say, that was the best part of freshman year, and I really started to enjoy band more than, well, anyone I think, I just loved it, I was always in the band room, Mr. Tubbs was just an awesome band director. Before I knew it, freshman year was over, and I was now a sophomore!
Sophomore Year. A year of many beginnings. But something serious happened before, on July 4, 2009. There was this really awesome guy called Jesse Parker, who was nice to everyone and was always just happy and was very helpful. His family was coming back from Georgia on July 4, and their car was hit on the highway. His sister Bria was critically injured. Jesse didn't make it. A couple hours later I received the news. His death was devastating, to everyone really, and that was a precursor to my sophomore year. About 30 kids quit band from the previous year, so our band was at already a low point, and our drum major, Elizabeth, tried her best to get us to do what Mr. Tubbs wanted, but we were all uninterested. Actually, there was this one day where the percussion section was playing the cadence for the first time in front of us, and people started making fun of them, including me, I'm afraid. The percussionists weren't blind or deaf, they knew we were making fun of them so Mr. Tubbs and Elizabeth were promptly noted, and they both told us straight up to stop or else we were in for a hard marching season. Now remember, since this is Tomah, nobody took responsibility, and instead just shit-talked Elizabeth and even the most mature upperclassmen were all being really childish about it. That's when I realized a glaring problem about Tomah: respect. Nobody there knows the meaning of that word, my school-mates didn't respect the percussion, Mr. Tubbs or Elizabeth, they didn't respect each other, and as far as the rest of the school goes, they didn't respect the teachers or staff either. For real, the way they talked to them was vile, I have never been surrounded by such a rude bunch of people in my life. Anyway, in LYSO I was promoted to a 1st violin (!!!) and the wind ensemble, as small as it was, continued to play really great music. Then there was biology class with Mrs. Jackson, who was married to vice principal Mr. Jackson. This is important to know because one day in biology, after years of constant abuse, Nick (from 8th grade) once again brought up the four-square ball hitting me in the face incident, Sandra soon joined in the taunting, and they kept it up for 10 minutes or so. Class ended and I was crying, I couldn't take it anymore, and I told Mrs. Jackson that I was done. Mr. Jackson intervened and after I demanded that something be done, and Nick soon had a meeting with him, and since that day, hasn't bullied me at all :) Then near the end of the year, something amazing happened. During the annual German class event Spaßabend, my group went on to perform, and I had a solo in many parts, not singing, but dancing. I came up with all these BS dance moves and I just did my thing, and that struck a chord with the audience, because after that, I kinda became a mini celebrity. Really, people started to like me, and I was hitting strides in all sorts of areas. My grades, my music, my friends, all of those things culminated in what was actually my best year of high school. That year had not as much drama, and by the end of the year, I looked to upperclassmen-ship with great expectation. Before I forget, I should also say that this was the year I got a Facebook. It would soon take over my life.
Junior Year. Preceded by my best year of high school, this turned out to be my worst. True, Ben and Garth graduated, Kayla moved to another school (!!!), Sandra was barely around, I was finally an upperclassmen and in LYSO, I received the great news that Jessica was in it as 1st chair trumpet, and I was 1st chair, 1st violin! I was concertmaster!!! I jumped up and down and did a happy dance, I just couldn't believe it. But that was the only good part of junior year, the rest of it through and through just sucked big donkey balls. The seniors were tired and over it, my class was, well, my class, the freshmen were your stereotypical immature, hard to deal with freshmen, and the sophomores...oh my God, they were so arrogant, they were 15 and 16 and already acted like they owned the joint, it was real bad. Marching season was bad, the seniors and juniors did all the work, the sophomores tried to skate by, and the freshmen had the rehearsal maturity of a newborn. Now I will say that there were some good apples in that class, but they were so buried by the rest of the rotten ones. But anyway, a girl named Kyra started to really get on my nerves at the start of the year. Now, let me tell you this, even though everybody in the school kissed her feet and worshipped her, she was EVIL. Okay, she was E.V.I.L, she was Every Villain Is Lemons evil, that's Spongebob level evil, okay? That's the shit I don't like, like, forreal. She was so high maintenance and was very, very rude. I actually dared to call her out on her bullshit, she didn't take it well, but I didn't care, someone needed to say that she was not a saint and she is just not a good person. However, with her endless cattiness, she wasn't my biggest problem that year. No, that honor went to a different girl...Jeanette. Now, she's an interesting subject because she started out really nice, then someone flipped a switch or something and she just started lashing out at people. I got the brunt of her frustration and soon THS was World War 3: we HATED each other. We argued over every single thing, however insignificant it was, and she bit my head off whenever she got the chance. I don't know what I was doing to warrant all of that treatment, but it came on like a rash, there was nothing I could do to stop it, she just became impossible to deal with. And soon everyone else started catching on, even though the seniors still loved her to death, the rest of the school was over it. I had many conversations with people, coming up to me and telling me they couldn't stand all of her bad moods. Junior year was pretty much consumed by my constant fighting with her, even on our best days it was just awkward. Now, I know that a man is not supposed to hit a woman, but I really just wanted to punch her. To make matters worse, I also started to fight with my other friend Jenny, who was EJ's older sister. She was just done with me, and she too started to say things that were not in any way warranted, and I just didn't really know how to deal with it, she just didn't like me that year. Before I go any further, I will lighten things up once again and inform you that this was the year I met Ms. Bridges. She replaced Mr. Zweig (he moved to Oshkosh), and she was sooo nice! And funny too, an all around great person. And junior year was the year I went to honor bands! At the all-state honor band, I met these two kids, Adam Wysocki and Sarah Kramer, who were the best people ever! I also met Meredith Enjaian, but she'll be important later. Oh, if you were wondering how LYSO and Wind Ensemble went: LYSO was great, just fantastic, I loved being concertmaster and we played great music too! Wind ensemble...Kyra was in it and her bad habits soon started to show up everywhere else, the passion for band was gone and we could've been a lot better if more people would have put more effort into it. All in all, though, junior year was the final straw, I was over the drama, the immaturity, the blatant disrespect for everything, nobody cared about anything either, really, it's like they had no soul and their hearts were made of stone or something. I was done, that was the year I just started coasting by and I didn't go to any big social event like prom, I didn't go to the pool or any club, I didn't want to deal with them anymore. My friends tried to help me the best they could, but even they couldn't save me from the turmoil I was in. I thought it couldn't get any worse, though, that everything would be up from there because the next year I was going to be a senior, and that's always the best year of high school, right?
Senior Year. It was both good and bad. I'll get the good parts out of the way first. I was concertmaster at LYSO again! I got accepted into the University of Wisconsin Eau-Claire! I completed the daunting task of auditioning for the music program there (really, I was so utterly and completely terrified), I turned 18! I went to all three possible honor bands (I was the only one to do so) and I saw Adam and Sarah again, and I met another cool kid, Paul! I met Nicole Densmore at another honor band (she'll be important later, too), I finally got a 1st rating at state solo/ensemble! And I also started to branch out, it was my last year so I thought that I would go out with a bang. I joined interact club, I started to go to more parties and hung out with my friends alot more, and there's one more thing I'll get to at the end. Now the bad stuff, and sorry, but there's alot of it. Before senior year started, I tried out for drum major a second time, I really had high hopes since I practiced and learned everything I needed to. The audition day was a mess, I was overpowered by the other auditioners David and, guess who? Jeanette. Yeah, when she was drum major and I wasn't, that didn't go over well, I think that actually made things worse, I mean we didn't get into as many fights, but the tension was still there. But in the end, it didn't really matter who was a leader and who wasn't because the sophomores and juniors (the bulk of the band) never listened to her, or any of the seniors, anyway. They and their infinite wisdom, completely overstepped their boundaries and made it well known that they thought they not only knew more than the seniors, but that they just knew it all, period. They didn't listen to us, and the poor freshmen, who were actually well behaved, were just kind of there, trying to make it work but the drama between the upperclassmen definitely started to wear on us after awhile. That marching season was easily the worst one I ever had, everyone just checked out and didn't put a smidgen of effort into it. Concert season was only slightly better, but I was still fed up with all the wrong notes, everyone talking while playing, no respect for Mr. Tubbs was given what-so-ever, the maturity and passion was not there at all.
But during all the drama in marching season, my parents' marriage began to crumble once again. My dad was contacted by his ex-girlfriend, and when he wrote back, my mom was infuriated and demanded that he stop. He didn't, though, and she soon started to threaten divorce. By the start of the year everything was sorted out there, but then mom met McKenzie, the daughter of my sister's best friend Eden. My mom loved that baby, she adored it and worshipped it. Soon McKenzie was at my house every weekend, and kept me up all night, when I had a parade to go to the next day. I became very pissed off, and I told her this, but she did not care at all, she actually started to say that my dad and I didn't care about her and that McKenzie loved her more than we did. Ironically, my mom left me on my own at that point, I could tell she cared more about that baby than she did about me, and we soon butted heads everyday because of it. She completely left my dad and I to fend for ourselves and she just fondled over that baby instead. I really needed my mom at that point, though, because my senior year was already down the drain. Remember in 8th grade, when I said German class was going to be important? Well much of my senior year revolved around my German V class, which was the same class as in 8th grade only 9 people instead of 20. About three weeks into it I was tired of it, not because it was hard, but because my classmates just picked on me, every single day, it was like a chore to go to class because I would have to sit through all of them arguing with me and biting my head off over every single little thing. I soon became the butt of every joke and even when I didn't say anything they still attacked me like a pack of hyenas. It got so bad to the point where I just started asking Mr. Tubbs for a pass to the band room, I made some excuse, and I didn't have to go to German when I didn't want to, even worse, my German teacher who at once was really nice and very supportive, didn't do anything at all, he just let them tear me apart and that really did not sit well with me, even now. Then add Psychology class, if you remember my "In Defense of Lady Gaga Part 2" rant, my teacher, who I'll now reveal to be Mr. Briggs, was also a source of frustration. Everybody I knew talked him up like he was some sort of God or something, and I thought I would like him too, but I really didn't, at all. He was rude, he cut people off, his opinion was the only one that mattered, and all he did was hate on Lady Gaga, and quite frankly, I didn't find him to be all that funny, and he says "real quick" WAY too much. Between German V and Psychol...I mean, the "I Hate Lady Gaga" fan club, 1st semester of senior year was just dreadful.
2nd semester was slightly better. I was finally free of Mr. Briggs, but I was still forced to endure German V. Also, this is when I just started falling apart all over again. Remember when I said that EJ would be really important? Now he is. By senior year all of my friends had graduated, so he was the only one I had left, and I started clinging to him. It reached a point where he started pulling away, but I only clung to him more, and we started fighting more and more. I did have other friends, but I have to say, they weren't that supportive, and at lunch they just made me feel worthless, especially my friend Megan. I was very tired, of everything really, and I really struggled to make it through the last months of the year. It all came to a head two times: the first one is when we had an assembly where they gave out student of the year awards, and music was one of them. I actually thought I had a fair shot at receiving it, but alas, the other Nick, 8th grade Nick, won it instead. School was over after it and I was kind of numb at that point, I drove around in the pouring rain for awhile, and when I got home I was sobbing. Yeah it seems so silly, but back then, it really hit me hard, and I then decided to call out Mr. Tubbs on every single problem I had with him and the band in general over the year and his blatant favoritism towards Jeanette and Nick (among other students). The next day he was more than prepared to talk to me about it and we worked everything out for the moment. However, the next week is when I completely lost my mind. There was one day when I was having a really bad day in general: German class sucked as usual, Jeanette and I got into yet another fight, and even Mr. Tubbs snapped at me. That's actually what set me off, when Mr. Tubbs is mad at me, something is very wrong, let me tell you that. I was once again just feeling lonely and sad, and I once again just drove around trying to calm down, but it was pretty pointless, I had reached my end for a fourth time. I got home completely hysterical, and before my mom could catch me, I went off on this huge Facebook rant, basically saying that hell is a better place than Tomah, I really would have chosen to be with Satan than all of the mini-devils I was forced to interact with every single day. Once I was done my mom finally caught me and finally gave me the support I needed. We talked over everything and she explained to me that I was beyond the point of "reaching my limit", after 11 years of non-stop bullying, I had reached my limit for the billionth time, and that's not easy for anyone to endure. She and my dad told me that I'm stronger than I thought I was, and to live my life takes an incredible amoount of tenacity. After that I took down the FB rant, and the next day I once again sorted everything out with Mr. Tubbs, and then he explained something to me, he said: "Nick, we make fun of what we don't understand, it's easy". Yes, I am pulling the "I was just missunderstood" card because I was, I mean, I'm a little weird, and I don't fit into Tomah's little mold, so everyone just decided to pick on me instead of taking the time to really get to know me. That was the problem, they thought they knew everything there was to know about me, when in reality they didn't know that much at all.
That was an eye opening day, and about two weeks later, all of my hard work paid off. At my senior band concert, I received the John Philip Sousa Award for excellence in band. My name was going to be on a plaque in the band room! And then eight days later, on a Saturday morning (ew), I finally graduated. I finally made it through all of the bullshit, and I was ecstatic to see where my life would take me next. I still have my freshman year of college to go over, but I'll end part 4 here, because the summer would bring a whole new battle to begin. You're almost done, but thank you for still reading my story, part 5 will be the happiest part of all, I promise!
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