My first note was a good one as was the band’s. Another great note followed and another one. I nailed all of my notes, well for the first song at least. We played 3 songs that were all preformed very well. We hit most of our notes and I hoped we impressed the audience. I had a very good performance, but then came sight reading. I hate playing on mallets, it’s my least talented instrument. My band teacher assigned us instruments and my heart sank when she told me mallets. We practiced the song 2 times, but I was still unsure about how I would do. It was time to play and I knew I was going to mess up. I hit wrong notes throughout the song. My heart was gripped with fear as I hit each wrong note. Although I did terrible, the band did fairly well. I was terrified to hear what the judge would say. I was surprised to hear him say we had very nice sounds and we would do very well at UIL. So overall we had a good band performance.

“Nick would you like to go to the grocery store with me?” My dad says. “Uhh…” Is my usual response. “No thank you.” I say. I think to myself, I don’t want to do anything today. My dad usually goes by himself, but sometimes I have no choice. Grocery stores are annoying.

I think grocery stores are annoying because it feels like getting the stuff on the 500 paged list is impossible. All of the people taking as long as they can to push their carts and pick what kind of foods they’re going to have for the week. Every time I think we finally found all 1 million things on the list, we remember the toilet paper.

Another thing that happens often is my mom adds something to the list. For instance, “Can you get oatmeal raisin cookies?” Then we have to walk behind the mass of slow people. After we’re done getting the load of stuff, we have to wait in a HUGE line. After a couple of minutes (what feels like hours), we look at the damage. Usually the cost of all of our groceries are about 200 dollars.

Grocery stores really irritate me. Unfortunately, getting food from the grocery stores is important, but why do I have to go?

No homework, nothing to worry about, and I can always have friends over. Well, almost always. Summer time is enjoyable.

One of my favorite things to do is go on vacations. I have gone to New York, Canada,The Galapagos Islands, Panama, Vermont, and Maine. There are always a ton of activities to do. For example: fishing, swimming in an ice cold lake (in Maine), hiking, and play video games in the hotel. I also see family that I only get to visit on special occasions. I see 2nd cousins, grandparents, great uncles and aunts and the other 50 people that I have never met before.

My other reason why summer time is enjoyable is I get to hang out with my friends more often than when I’m in school. There’s pretty much no limit to how many friends I can invite over. We swim in my pool, pass around the football, and play video games. I have a lot of fun when my friends come over.

There are tons of reasons why summer time is enjoyable. The reasons that I stated are just a small portion of all the reasons why summer time is amazing. I think most people would agree with me when I say summer time is fun.

“Letter I to the playing chair letter J to the ready chair.” This is it. I’ve played already, but why am I shaking? I get up to the marimba, send a worried smile to my friends, take a deep breath, and play. I had practiced for months so, I should do well.

It got towards the end of the song and I was excited to be done. A little too excited. My stomach plummeted as I realized I hit a wrong note. I was absolutely horrified when I hit a second and a third wrong note but, kept going and I think that was the best thing I could’ve done.

When I finished the song, I went back to my seat palms sweaty and quivering all over. My friend smiled at me to make me feel good about my performance. She wrote a note that said you did really well, but I was kind of disappointed about my performance. I was too excited to be done with my piece. I told her I messed up badly, but hopefully I could do a lot better on the snare drum etude and the tympani etude.

She did really well on the marimba etude, better than I did. I hope we made the same region band. There are 2 region bands. One is concert, which is the worst, but the people in it are really good and then there is symphonic, which is the best and has the top people who advanced from region in it. Everyone in the room advanced from district. We all played the same pieces in district but there were different cuts in the music. These cuts were longer and harder to play.

The next 2 pieces we were going to play were the tympani and the snare drum etudes. It felt so long because people played both of the etudes. The other people were very good but I was confident I could beat them. “Letter I to the playing chair letter J to the ready chair.” I didn’t feel as nervous as before, but I was still shaky. I did a lot better than the first etude, in fact I nailed it. Absolutely no mistakes! I was very happy and anxious to see what the results were. My friend did really well also. So we were both excited to see the results.

The results came out and everyone crowded the percussion paper. I saw people smile and people who looked disappointed. There were mixed faces so I had no idea what was coming. Some of the other people in my band made it to the percussion results before I did. They yelled, “Nick you got seventh chair and made symphonic band!” I didn’t believe them, so I went to see it myself. They were right! I made symphonic! I broke out in a smile. I ran to my band teacher and my mom and said I made region and got seventh chair! Everyone congratulated me and I felt really happy. My percussion friend also did well. She made concert and was tenth chair. She was happy also. I went home feeling relieved and happy.

I had accomplished something big, something that I will always remember. I learned that no matter what happens, you have to keep going and that’s how I made symphonic band.