The marching band show this year, music from the Finale of Dmitri Shostakovich’s Fifth Symphony, runs a strange parallel to my life. Entitled “Assertion of Personality,” I find that I can strangely relate to it.

For the first part of the school year (and likewise, the marching season), I kept my feelings and emotions constrained inside me, afraid of the suppression and rejection they would recieve should they be exposed. Much in the same way Shostakovich’s music is confined and controlled because of his fear of the Soviet government.

After struggling to be joyous beneath a pall of confinement, I showed my true colors to a few key people. This is nearly a direct parallel to the show, where Shostakovich writes what we call “forced rejoicing.” And like my life, I forced myself to believe exposing myself was a happy thing—my forced rejoicing. But alas, it was not so.

And at the very end, when I thought things might turn out as I had hoped, the show, the season, and my hopes came to a bitter end simultaneously. I started out constrained, became more colorful, and now it is all over forever. It is strange how I can draw such parallels… maybe I’m weirder than I think.

That’s it for now. Bye!

A graduate from Enloe with the Class of 2003, I must profess I only know her via proxy. By that I mean I wouldn’t really have met her at all if it weren’t for Will. I dislike using that term because it has such childish connotations. But that is all I can really say. She now goes to UNC, and I have been but once to visit all of the Enloe people when Robert and Emliy went.

She’s also eerily good at reading farther into what I say than I’d like to admit. She was the second person to catch on that I liked someone, and the first to ask me about it openly. I only found out about Will knowing beforehand after Anna had told him and confirmed his suspicions. Luckily I didn’t have to worry about telling her, since she wouldn’t tell everyone, and those she would tell, I can rest assured they wouldn’t betray my trust either.

She’s a very strange person, but she’s listened to me do a lot of complaining about life this year. For that, I am grateful, but for the times she tries to embarrass me, I’m well… embarrassed. And generally it works.

All I can say is this—thanks for listening to me, though sometimes it seems like you plot against me… And if not against me, then at least behind my back… have a nice day.

And the competitive season has come to a bittersweet end. Our last competition was yesterday—Saturday November 1, 2003 at Cary Band Day. I finished my Park Scholarship application before leaving for rehearsal, so luckily I didn’t get screwed over. So we had rehearsal until 3PM, and then had food, but I’m not sure if it was lunch or dinner. Then we all loaded the buses to drive to Cary.

And then I ended up in a somewhat sour mood about life, triggered by several things, such as facing the last competition of my marching band career, but that wasn’t the only reason. So we got there and warmed up, all the while I was dodging the presence of certain people. So we warmed up and had our performance. Some of the stuff we added worked really well, while some of it kinda flopped. I came back out and we had the post-performance talk.

I did cry. Nobody noticed, but I did cry. Four years of hard work, dedication, and some of the greatest times with the greatest people all coming to a final close, never to happen again. The phrases “final” and “never again” are probably two of the most difficult things I must face this year. Then I stayed in uniform and went into the stadium and sat in the away stands with everyone else. Oh yeah, and one final round of pizza, since it’s the official food of marching band. I’m tired of it now.

So after about an hour, my dad tells me that he can’t find my brother, so I spent the next hour walking around the stadium looking for him. And finally someone found him, as he was hanging out with Tim, David, and Alyssa at the long jump area, at the end of the away stands, when they all should have been sitting with Enloe in the stands. I wasn’t happy, but didn’t tell them. They claimed to have been there for over an hour, but knowing them, God only knows what they had been doing.

But that issue aside, there were other things that troubled me more. About three weeks ago I said some things that I now regret, as it appears that I made a fool of myself by meddling in affairs that I shouldn’t have. I’m probably going to spend the next week trying to undo any damage I’ve done, and try to carefully sever any ties I have forged against the will of others. For involving myself where I don’t belong, I apologize. I hope the person to whom this message is directed reads it.

So then Enloe got some awards. 3rd place Music, 3rd place Drum Major, 3rd place Marching (“Visual” as they called it), and 3rd place overall. Given that there were 7 bands in our class, that’s pretty blasted impressive. And what’s more impressive is our score—we had an 84.7. 1st place, Athens Drive High School, had a 85.3. God, how a sweet and maddening way to end the season—only 0.7 points from winning our class. What I would have given to win that.

Alas, the competitive season is now over. To every marcher, I am glad to have had you with us. For all the clarinets, thank you for making my senior year so wonderful, even if I did seem fairly irritable at times.

My life is somewhat in turmoil. The joy of marching band is all but over, and the social endeavors that I began pursuing nearly 3 weeks ago have proven both foolish, selfish, and fruitless. I apologize to everyone involved in that emotional roller coaster. I have no excuse for my behavior. Now I can only attempt to repair whatever damage has been done. There are no words accurate enough to describe the sadness that wells within myself, due to the simultaneous end of these joys. The fun of marching band and the hope of other things—both ended on the same day.

Both came crashing down upon my head, but I must admit, I saw both of them coming… I just never prepared for their impact. And now with a newly dismal outlook on life, I suppose I must trudge on and clean up the mess.

Thank you all for spending the time to read, and I apologize for the length and melancholy nature of this article. I’ll talk to most of you later. Thanks again, and goodbye!