Weeks like the past few can really leave students and directors feeling worn thin. Those parents that work so hard (often thanklessly) and are right there with us through it all can relate. Hours of bus rides, basketball games, pit orchestra rehearsals, sectionals, indoor drumline rehearsals and competitions, and multiple honor band clinics can certainly begin to weigh on everyone.
But let's step back for a second and look at the alterative. I see in the halls every day young men and women who come to school every morning at 7:45 and who go home at 3:18 just to get up the next morning and repeat the process. Their high school experience is limited to those 4 class periods and 4 sets of 4 walls.
For me, high school life was always defined by where the band was going next or what we were going to do in band on a given day. I was (and am) the stereotypical "band geek." In this sense, the idea of not being heavily involved in a school activity seems foreign to me and I find it really hard to relate to individuals who aren't and are, in some case, indifferent about such participation.
There are a few weeks every year that feel much longer than the rest because the demands we place on ourselves and the expectations placed on us by our school and community. But what is the alternative? A mediocre end-product and a school/community that is completely indifferent to us? Unacceptable!
How lucky are we to be a part of the BOP and have the obligations and demands (also known as opportunities) that we do? How lucky are we to be a part of DCPS and DCHS in an enviornment where we are well supported and are allowed to thrive? That exhaustion we occasional feel is the result of hard work and sacrifice toward a noble endeavor - how lucky are we to be able to feel it?
But let's step back for a second and look at the alterative. I see in the halls every day young men and women who come to school every morning at 7:45 and who go home at 3:18 just to get up the next morning and repeat the process. Their high school experience is limited to those 4 class periods and 4 sets of 4 walls.
For me, high school life was always defined by where the band was going next or what we were going to do in band on a given day. I was (and am) the stereotypical "band geek." In this sense, the idea of not being heavily involved in a school activity seems foreign to me and I find it really hard to relate to individuals who aren't and are, in some case, indifferent about such participation.
There are a few weeks every year that feel much longer than the rest because the demands we place on ourselves and the expectations placed on us by our school and community. But what is the alternative? A mediocre end-product and a school/community that is completely indifferent to us? Unacceptable!
How lucky are we to be a part of the BOP and have the obligations and demands (also known as opportunities) that we do? How lucky are we to be a part of DCPS and DCHS in an enviornment where we are well supported and are allowed to thrive? That exhaustion we occasional feel is the result of hard work and sacrifice toward a noble endeavor - how lucky are we to be able to feel it?
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