Hobbton High School, a place where everyone knows your name, your parents, your backstory, and how you will behave before you even walk into your first class. In a school with barely five hundred students it’s hard to hide anything you did. Influences surround you at all directions, negative and positive. Pulling away from the mainstream of social conduct is nearly impossible. Friend groups grow thinner and fade away as the semesters pass by. The lie that everyone tells is “High school is the best years of your life.” The devastating truth for me was that I didn’t qualify for that high school experience. Overcoming that truth was hard, it was hard because I didn’t want to accept what seemed like my fate.

Did I mention that I lost many friends? All for mainly all the same reason. Different interests, and not scholastic interests at that. I don't think it sounds like fun to not remember that "fun time" the next day. Therefore I don’t fit in at high school parties, or any get together my old friends would attend. I felt like there was something wrong with me, I never got invited anywhere. I thought the issue was myself, I thought something was wrong with the morals my parents taught me from such a young age. It took me finding my own interest to overcome all the negative thoughts that flooded my mind.

Band. I found my place in high school with the band. They became my family, my go-to when times get hard, and the friends that replace those that I lost. The best friend circle I could ever ask for I found in the band. As I look back at my years at Hobbton all the good times came from times with the band.

I’m not the best at my saxophone nor am I the best marcher, but I sat in class through practices like everyone else and enjoyed every minute of it. I was beginning to think something that most would have thought impossible. Being part of a band can, and will teach a student more than any common core or curriculum ever would. You learn the more important stuff in life, like how to work with people. Ten years after you graduate you will not think twice about how to graph a polynomial function, but every single day you will work with people, even difficult people, for a common goal.

But now, I have an even bigger assignment to complete. Drum Major. It's many jobs in one and all the responsibility from it sits on my shoulders. I have this to occupy my time now and it really helps keep me motivated. I have found that when life gets you down its best to have something positive to bring you back up. I am lucky to have found what motivates me to do my best even when I feel my weakest. Nothing bad in my life can ever take away my time in band, and I am so thankful for all the life experiences I gained from it.