You made it! The final chapter of my life so far...freshman year of college! This was one task I was very nervous for, being away from home for the first time was freaking me out, I already had a major panic attack with my audition into the music program, so I was very panicky about college all throughout senior year. Although, I was soon to find out that it was time for me to move on. But of course, there had to be one last Facebook fight before I left. It was the last day of the high school band camp, and the first football game. After the game, my friend Dan, who's usually pretty explicit on Facebook, said that the game didn't go as well as the football games last year (he was pretty right on that note). Plenty of the class of 2012 loved that status, but the rest of the high school footballers didn't, and they proceeded to call him names and bully him for it. Me, being the friend I am, once again decided to stick up for Dan, and my plan both worked and didn't. I took the attention off Dan pretty quickly, but soon I had the whole football team down my throat, and it escalated pretty quickly. But I have to say, I really should have known when to stop, because arguing with people from Tomah is like arguing with a brick wall, they don't listen to anything you're saying and they just say things that don't have any meaning or merit. I became very frustrated, I was 18 and I was being bullied by 16 year olds. Like I said, I should've known to just not rebut and let them be immature, but I was just easy prey, and they pounced on it like a pack of hungry wolves. Although, if that wasn't bad enough, I had to keep up with two personal messages, one was my friend Josh telling me how much he hated Tomah as well, and the other was my friend Heather who basically said it was all my fault and that I should be apologizing to them. I really didn't take that well, because honestly, in that whole Facebook fight, I was not the problem there, but I had to remember, it was always my fault, nobody else said anything incredibly nasty to me or anything, they were all perfect angels and I wasn't. I argued with her for a while and then I just gave up, I was so tired, but then someone else messaged me. It wasn't Josh or Heather, it was a girl that I hadn't met yet: Amy Greathead. She saw what was going on and wondered why I was so upset, I told her the sitch and she did her best to console me, I was only two days away from college band camp so I'd be moving on to better things soon enough. That really made my night because she didn't even know the whole deal and she supported me. She'll be more important in a few seconds. So, the next day, I took to my Facebook profile and posted five statuses, each explaining why Tomah was so bad for me and how I wished I could have gotten my underclassmen friends out of there, because I wasn't the only one suffering. I don't think I had much influence during my time there, but I tried, and you can't blame someone for trying. Anyway, I was packed up, and the next morning I left Tomah to start my freshman year at Eau Claire.
I got to move in a week early because of the Blugold Marching Band's (BMB) band camp, which takes place 1 week prior to classes. I'll let you know right now, moving into a dorm for the first time is not pleasant...at all. It was hot, my parents were tired, and soon after they just left hurriedly and left me on my own for the next few hours. I was soooo nervous, but once I got to the first BMB rehearsal I felt better. However, there was one problem: my 'big' Andy was supposed to tell me where to get an instrument for practice...and he didn't. I showed up to the first rehearsal without an instrument, but I wasn't all that phased because bad luck is so typically me, so I just rolled with the punches on that one. More importantly, I got to meet my fellow mellos. Remember Amy? How about Meredith and Nicole from part 4? Well guess what? They were all mellophones too! After rehearsal we had a bonfire at one of the section leaders' houses. There I got to know the rest of the section: the section leaders Megan and Plato (yes, he called himself after the philosopher), were the bom diggity, really fun and helpful people! I also met my pep band buddy Alex, my future chauffeur Shane, a really friendly junior Christi, and my Starbucks buddy Shelby. They all became good friends of mine as the year went on. But anyway, college marching was the shit, I had so much fun meeting new people. Amy was really helpful in this regard because she introduced me to all her friends: Alycia (another chauffeur and a master driver at that), Sam, Trent, and Becky. I also loved my new RA Tyler, who was also a music education major! Life actually went really well for the first few weeks, my roommate was Daniel (or Dizzle), and he brought a microwave, a fridge, and a TV! I mean, I was making friends all over the place, but my bestestest friend in the entire wide world came to me when I was taking the music theory placement exam (I placed into second year theory...just sayin). Her name: Briana Buchholtz. I LOOOVVVEEE this girl, we have so much in common: our music tastes, our friends, our majors, it was just a perfect fit! Then when school started, after my first written theory class, I chatted with another best friend of mine: Kelly Noltner. She never got mad at me, like ever...if you know me, you'd know that that's extremely hard to do, but she did it, she just understood me. Now there's another fellow mello, Elizabeth, who I very well could have been good friends with, if she hadn't introduced me to Rosie. Rosie Evans, a french horn player who is one of the coolest people you'll ever meet, she didn't mind any of the stupid things I'd sometimes say. Pretty soon I hung out with Rosie alot more than Elizabeth, mostly because I saw Rosie alot more. Oh, before I forget, remember Adam from part 4? He was also in the BMB :) I did meet many more awesome peeps throughout the marching season, like Hayley Kubler, Haley Reichardt, Nathan Cicero, Andrea Ranzau, Kyle Launderville, Dani Schmalz, Brielle Cummings, Bryan Kujawa (KUJ!!), and alot more, but those are the ones I can remember off the top of my head. Anyway, life was going up, and it was such a relief, I needed some nice people to talk to for a change, people that didn't go right for the jugular, who gave me a smidgen of a chance (for the most part anyway, I'll get to that in a few minutes).
So classes started, and I liked most of my professors. But, Orchestra was the class I was most excited for. The conductor is Nobu Yasuda, who has lived in America for about 30 years but still has a thick, Japanese accent (it's really awesome!). Anyway, I had already completed an audition to get into the music program, but now I had to do another audition for seating placement. Well, as typical me would do, I walked into Nobu's office, and I completely sucked, like for real, it was so, so bad. However, Nobu must have saw something in me, because I was placed in the first violins! 10th chair, but still, I was already in the 1st violins as a freshman, do you know how good that feels? Especially for someone as shy and as un-confident as me, I was ecstatic! And yeah, orchestra was pretty eventful all year, through our orchestra tour, holiday concerts, the Viennese Ball, it was such a great experience playing with people who actually cared about music! BMB was kind of a different story, because after band camp, the cracks started to show. Drama began to rise in the mello section fairly quickly (you don't get the term "mello-drama" for nothin), as my friend Amy had her disputes with a couple others, and I was at ends with a few girls in the section. Actually, by the end of the season, I could tell they were all extremely annoyed with me. I was used to the feeling, but it still didn't feel that good being an outcast in college as well.
Now, I'll say this before I go on: Tomah was so fricken bad, that after high school, there was nowhere else to go but up. For real, Eau Claire was a MAJOR improvement from where I was, but as I progressed through 1st semester I realized something: since Tomah was such a hostile environment for me, in order to survive, you have to start thinking and talking like your peers, and that's exactly what I did. It wasn't my intention at all, but after a good 8 years of living there, I had inadvertently become one of them. That was the biggest problem I faced last year: I wasn't in Tomah anymore, the things I said to get by in high school were actually going to offend many people in college, because no one screws around there, you're treated as an adult and nothing less. That's what got me in trouble with many people that could have been good friends of mine. So anyway, 1st semester I kinda dug myself into a hole, and 2nd semester I had to find a way to get out of it, but that wasn't going to be easy. 2nd semester came with some changes: a new RA, a new orchestra seating (8th chair!!), new classes, and an entirely new schedule. But the changes weren't all that bad, I still made some new friends and I started to work out some issues in my life. However, that wasn't going to be easy, especially once I butted heads with the BMB director, who we'll call Dickerson. He was pretty weary of me from the get go, as I completely botched my BMB application and I almost didn't make the cut, but he reconsidered once he met me in person. Throughout the year my absent-mindedness was kind of putting a rift between us, and I didn't completely know the extent until February. He called a meeting with me and told me that I was going to be kicked out of the music program if I didn't work on my communication skills. Turns out, there were alot of people unhappy with me, more than I ever realized, and you better believe it was such a hard pill to swallow. Thankfully, he decided to give me another chance that day, and from then on I knew I was going to have to make some pretty big changes. Especially with this blog. As you know, I started MaestroBlog in November 2012, not as a professional column or anything, but just a way for me to communicate my love of music and music-related interests with others. I never meant for it to be taken so seriously or treated like a professional blog, but others didn't feel that way, especially Dickerson, who periodically reads this blog. My life soon started to tumble downwards once again, as I felt disconnected from everyone around me, even my closest friends.
You see, there were really only two problems I had with my freshman year. The first, was that is was so, God-fricken political. Between the election, the Sandy Hook massacre, the bombing in Boston, and the drama in America in general, I was constantly in a fight with somebody over politics. It was mostly Tomah people, but still, my life turned into one political debate after another. The other problem I had was another shared problem from Tomah, regarding fitting the mold. I felt that alot of people wanted to shove me into their own little box of what I should and shouldn't be, and when they realized that I wasn't going to fit in said box, that's when they started to get frustrated with me. I've said this many times throughout my life: I can't be someone else, I can't be what others want me to be, I am me and I can't change. It's a sad thought, but I'm pretty sure most people want you to be what they want you to be, instead of you just being yourself. I mean really, think of all the things we do just to impress the people in our lives, is it really worth it when they still don't like you? That was something I eventually learned: you can't get every single person to like you, all you can do is be your true self, and those who follow you are the people you should care about. Everybody else who hates you for no reason at all, or any good reason, shouldn't run your life like I let them run mine. It's all about confidence, remember?
Anyway, as my freshman year came to a close, I took the time to think about what I needed to work on. I'll dive into the specifics in a later blog post (it will also be a multi-parter), but basically I came to the conclusion that I need to do what I didn't do after I graduated high school. I was free from Tomah's petty problems, what I need to do now is actually start the healing process. I obviously need to work on my confidence and my focus, I'll become better at communicating once I believe in myself. Most people say that I'm very conceited, and I honestly don't think I am. I realize a 5-part life history doesn't do anything to dispel that argument, but I know who I am, I've never lost sight of that, and I know that I'm not full of myself, I just can't properly express confidence without it seeming like arrogance. Really, I have like, zero self-esteem, and it might take the rest of my life to get to a place where I'm completely fulfilled and genuinely happy (I will also discuss this in another post later this month). That's for the future, though, meanwhile in the present: I just started a new job at Fort McCoy here in Tomah, and I will head off to my sophomore year of college in August! I am truly grateful for what college has given me, and I really can't wait to go back!
Before I go, I want to lastly express what music means to me. Through all this, I focused alot on my personal turmoil, but not much about the music. Why do I love it so much? Why has it become an integral part of who I am? Well I'll put it to you this way: we all have a purpose for living, we all live for something, and for me, that something is music. I can't describe my pure affection for the greatest form of entertainment and art in full context, but I do know that I don't just simply love it, I have a greater need for it than most people do. I'm not sporty, or good with words, or super-intelligent or good looking, but one thing that I always excel at is music. I have alot more to learn, but that's the fun part, there's still so much left to explore, and I can't even wait. One day I hope you too will realize how much I care for music. So, with that, you've reached the end of my life story (so far!!!). Hopefully there will be many, many more chapters to be lived, but I'm not going to take my life for granted, everybody I have the chance to perform, compose, or listen to the music around us, is a good day, a very good day indeed. I realize that my life hasn't brought much happiness, but every single thing that has happened to me has been an essential part of who I am, and one day, it will all make sense.
This is my story, this is what my life is all about, and don't worry, I'll keep sending you post cards ;)
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