Showing posts with label high school. Show all posts
Showing posts with label high school. Show all posts

Friday, June 6, 2014

The Best Day of My Life


Today, Sonshine graduates from high school. We've had some rocky times over the last four years. But we've had some fun times as well. Each fall was busy with band and football games. Sadly Senior Year wasn't all it should have been for Sonshine, especially in terms of band, but we made it!

From this...

 (five months gestation)

(eleven and half month old)


To this...

(Spring 2007)

(Christmas 2009)

And now this...


 
(Early spring 2014)
 OOOPS...I meant this...
(Late Spring 2014)


You've come a long way, kiddo. I love you bunches...



Friday, October 12, 2012

Fed up...


Sonshine is some kind of pissed.

So last night, we head to the football game, everything is relatively good. We're playing a huge school. And the game (not the football game, cuz we got our butts handed to us) was on. They played, we played, back and forth with the musical challenges....



Then comes half-time. The other band plays first because they're the away team. So they take the field and our band, except the pit percussion and color guard, are on the back side of the field awaiting our turn to perform.

You'd think a group of 15- to 18-year-olds (who think they're grown) could stand quietly for less than ten minutes. But do they? Apparently, a handful of them were chatting and then got argumentative when the drum majors told them to be quiet. So there was a bit of a kerfuffle within our group.

So fast forward to after we perform and have headed to the equipment truck to load the pit percussion and give the kids their snack. It seems everyone can tell when Sonshine is upset. His posture, his attitude, etc. Even the band director knows, either first- or second-hand, that he's upset. Eventually, she goes in search of him and drags the story out of him. It's verified by a few others. He wasn't one of the troublemakers, just in case you were wondering.

I finally start rounding up the kids to head back to the stands--to get them ready, 'cause we don't go any where without the band director's say-so--and then she calls then together a chews them out. Basically she tells them that they're a third division band and they'll always be a third division band because, while they have the skill to be a first division bad, they lack the self-control to behave and comport themselves properly when at games and contests. It's so definitely true.

The kicker in all of this is that the school we played was the school Sonshine wants to transfer to.

On an unrelated note, as I was revising yesterday, I discovered I'm lacking conflict in my current book. That's not good, people, not good. So it'll be time for some plotting/brainstorming this weekend to try and fix that problem.

Also...taxes this weekend. Ugh.

Have a great weekend. Hope it's better than mine. :)

Tuesday, June 15, 2010

A Time to Step Up...

For my son.

We went to a meeting for the band last evening. It was little overwhelming, even for me. But what a great experience for the boy. The teacher has been teaching at that school seventeen years and at one of feeder middle schools for several years prior to that. She knows what she's about. It's apparent that she loves music and she loves kids. She hosts extra band camps in June and July that she doesn't get paid for in order to ensure the band has a leg up in learning the music and routines.

He won't get to slide in his school work any longer--there will be weekly grade checks in order to play at football games. Band practice every morning and on Tuesday evenings.

The Band Booster raises/spends close to $30K a year. Wow! But they provide everything from instrument lube oil, the sheet music, reeds for the woodwinds, drum sticks, etc... I guess I'll be a busy band mom this year. I think it's going to be an awesome experience for him (and me). This is a fairly protected group, for which I'm glad. It sounds terrible, but he'll have little time for the two friends I don't care for that are a grade ahead of him.

Plus he wants to play baseball in the spring and we've convinced him to take JROTC, as well, as he wants to join the Marines. He's going to be a busy, exhausted boy. He'll have little time to get into trouble.

So I dropped $100 last night to get him up and running with a uniform and marching shoes and other band paraphernalia. Of course, now I have to buy him an instrument. Yikes! Keep your fingers crossed we can find a good used one for a reasonable price.

The cool, but curious thing was that the teacher has made him first trumpet already. She knows him from last year as she spent some time with his middle school band and she is familiar with his ability, but he's a freshman. What happened to all the other trumpet players? Did they ALL graduate? Interesting. A good opportunity, to be sure, but odd.

Look out high school, here he comes!