I'm a music-hater
So because I am a mature and responsible adult (right) getting ready to start life in the real world, I've been gradually getting myself into a better sleep schedule over the past few days (I went to sleep last night at 11:15 and got up at 7:00 this morning as the last step of preparation for getting up at 5:30ish for the next three days). Naturally, it took me a while to adjust and there were several nights of lying awake in bed for a few hours thinking about all sorts of crap. The other night, for some odd reason, I was thinking about NYSSMA and how much I hated it as a student. Then I went to go accompany some of my Dryden students in April and I hated it on their behalf. This year, I'm sure I'll be prepping my own students for it and I'm sure I'll still hate it. It sucks. As I was thinking about it, I realized that there was ONE year where everything went well. Let's look at the breakdown:
6th grade: I came down with the flu on that day. I couldn't breathe through my nose and breathing through my mouth wasn't working too well either. The sadistic judge looked at my piece and said, "Oh, the sections aren't that long...why don't you do all of the repeats?" Yeah, that was fun.
7th grade: Somehow, my order for music got screwed up and my piece didn't even arrive until four days before NYSSMA. I didn't even go.
8th grade: The music actually arrived this year, but it was crappy. There were no dynamics or other artistic markings anywhere. There were mistakes in the judge's copy all over the place. I explained this to the judge and even gave him a note my teacher had written and he acted like he understood...but then he took off points for mistakes I didn't actually make because his copy was incorrect. Fabulous.
9th grade: My first year going on more than one instrument. Something got screwed up with the dates and I, along with a few others, wound up going to a different festival a month earlier than everyone else in the school. This was the year I started playing the bassoon and in one of my lessons, as we were going through my NYSSMA piece, my teacher said, "Well, at least you have another month to learn this."
I said, "Actually, I'm going to NYSSMA this Saturday."
I had a lot of lessons that week. I did okay on bassoon, despite having a killer migraine and only knowing how to play the instrument for six months, and flat-out nailed my saxophone piece because I am fucking awesome. Because of the date mix-up, I didn't get registered through my school for piano, so my piano teacher and I lied and said I went to his school and I went with his students (and I nailed that one too because I am fucking awesome).
10th grade: The year everything came together! Everything was scheduled correctly, all my music was where it should be, and I was well-prepared! I did well on all three instruments AND I accompanied Tina's oboe solo (my first time on an electric piano, that was fun). Tina and I played our woodwind instruments in the same room, so that judge saw a lot of me (and loved me, of course). Life was good.
11th grade: Aaaaaaaand...this is where it gets good. First, I shall state that everything was fine for piano, and despite majorly screwing up the left hand on one section, I did really well (apparently, the judge didn't notice that I TOTALLY FUCKED UP). Okay, now the fun part: I decided that my goal was to try really really hard to get into All-State (a reach, but I guess it was possible) and I figured I had a better shot at doing it on bassoon rather than the saxophone, so I chose not to do a saxophone piece so I could devote all my time to the bassoon. Good plan, right? Yeah, it was actually working well for a while.
Now we need a little backstory (because every good story has a backstory...or something). Since this was spring of 11th grade, I had already broken up with Marc and I think I had just started dating Ryan (after ending things with Forrest). Marc's crazy behavior (threatening Forrest, leaving stuff in my mailbox, etc.) had already started to come through a couple of months before this, but I thought everything was okay. (It actually was, but certain coincidences led me to think otherwise. Read on.)
About two and a half weeks before NYSSMA, I was hanging out with a bunch of people in the music hallway. I put my wallet in my purse and put my jacket and music folder on top of it and left it on the table with a lot of other people's stuff (not the smartest thing in the world, I know, but there had never been any other problems). I must have been in another room or something because when I got my stuff to leave (about half an hour later), my wallet was gone. After double-checking that I didn't, in fact, leave it at home, a tiny little voice in the back of my head said, "Marc was in the hallway in the afternoon..." I ignored it. It did turn up (minus the three dollars I had in it) in a garbage can two days later and a janitor turned it in. Okay, not so bad.
Now onto the relevant part: A week after this incident, I was back in the music hallway. Ryan was around the corner working on his NYSSMA voice piece and I was waiting to drive him home. The band room was about to be locked, so I got my stuff out of it (most importantly, my school bassoon so I could practice). I put my jacket and folder on the same table and put the bassoon underneath and went around the corner to go get Ryan (taking my purse with me! I am one smart cookie.). He took just a few minutes longer than I expected, but I didn't have to be home at any certain time, so I sat down and waited. When he was done, he grabbed his stuff, and we went to go get my things before we headed home.
Panic struck as I turned the corner and didn't see my bassoon anywhere (as usual, my jacket and folder were still there). After quickly searching the hallway, I went into the orchestra room, where I found Mr. Bjorkman (one of the best teachers ever, everyone will agree) and told him about the missing bassoon (he had also been around for the wallet incident). He asked me if I had looked everywhere and then asked one of the janitors if he had seen it (he hadn't). After remembering the wallet, he said, "I don't really want to tell you this...but someone may not like you." I told him that this thought had already crossed my mind, especially since that little voice in my head reminded me that I had passed Marc in the hallway when going to get Ryan. Since he is not one to fuck around, Mr. B called the Haverstraw police as I tried incredibly hard not to break down in hysterics in his office.
The next few days were FUN. Ms. Lang (the school bassoon teacher) worked on tracking down another bassoon for me to use (countdown to NYSSMA: a little over a week). She snatched a few right out of the hands of some middle school bassoonists and Tina had a school bassoon at her house, so I sat down with all of these and decided which one I liked the best. Naturally, all of my reeds and swabs and whatnot were in the other case, so I got to break in a few new reeds as well. Meanwhile, back at school, I spent quite a bit of time with the school's police officer and a detective from the Haverstraw PD as we went over everything that happened. During all of this, Marc's crazy behavior came out (I was DEFINITELY not the only one who thought he might have had something to do with this), along with all the threatening emails and whatnot. Because I was stupid and hadn't done anything at the time, they told me that it was too late to do anything about the emails now, but something went on file should anything have happened in the future. A lot of people actually came up to me and said, "Jen, I don't know if you know this, but I saw Marc in the hallway the day your bassoon disappeared..." I actually spent a lot of time worrying if he was going to do anything to me personally. I don't think I ever went home alone that week.
(I'll put in the disclaimer now that I found out later that he had nothing to do with it. Tina and I found his blog one night and in one part, he expressed...annoyance at being suspected. I will say that I did feel a little bit bad about it after finding out, but most of me still maintains that if you act like a fucking lunatic and everyone in the world thinks you are a fucking lunatic, you should not be surprised if you get accused of doing crazy things. Oh, and he also wrote that I was stalking him because he saw me driving on his street soon after it happened. Dipshit apparently did not realize that my accompanist lived on his street. *roll eyes*)
NYSSMA was okay. I was a little on edge after all that had happened and fucked up my first scale. Everything else went well, except for some reason, Austen (my accompanist, who is an awesome pianist and I missed having him around all throughout college) started the third movement too slowly, and I got a point off for that. Oh well. Obviously, I did not get into All-State (I wasn't too surprised), but after all that happened, I was okay with how I played. I had been planning on getting my own bassoon during the summer anyway, so I did have something to play on after NYSSMA.
Interestingly enough, the "stolen" bassoon reappeared about six months later. There was a space between the brick wall and the wooden closets outside the band room where the color guard kept their flags. Apparently, there is a space on top of the closets and sure enough, that's where it was (someone found it while getting out one of the taller flags). I figure that it was just a practical joke that got way out of hand and no one wanted to confess, especially after Mr. B called the police (I have my suspicions as to who it was, but I will never know for sure).
12th grade: I stayed the fuck away from NYSSMA. I was already accepted to college, I didn't want to go just for fun, and I even refused to accompany anyone (I made sure the word got out before anyone asked). I went to the mall that day.
So yeah, I was not reminded of happy things when I went to go accompany students. Some students did exactly as I expected, some got higher than expected, and some got lower than they deserved. I don't see this changing any time in the near future. I'll let you know in the spring.
6th grade: I came down with the flu on that day. I couldn't breathe through my nose and breathing through my mouth wasn't working too well either. The sadistic judge looked at my piece and said, "Oh, the sections aren't that long...why don't you do all of the repeats?" Yeah, that was fun.
7th grade: Somehow, my order for music got screwed up and my piece didn't even arrive until four days before NYSSMA. I didn't even go.
8th grade: The music actually arrived this year, but it was crappy. There were no dynamics or other artistic markings anywhere. There were mistakes in the judge's copy all over the place. I explained this to the judge and even gave him a note my teacher had written and he acted like he understood...but then he took off points for mistakes I didn't actually make because his copy was incorrect. Fabulous.
9th grade: My first year going on more than one instrument. Something got screwed up with the dates and I, along with a few others, wound up going to a different festival a month earlier than everyone else in the school. This was the year I started playing the bassoon and in one of my lessons, as we were going through my NYSSMA piece, my teacher said, "Well, at least you have another month to learn this."
I said, "Actually, I'm going to NYSSMA this Saturday."
I had a lot of lessons that week. I did okay on bassoon, despite having a killer migraine and only knowing how to play the instrument for six months, and flat-out nailed my saxophone piece because I am fucking awesome. Because of the date mix-up, I didn't get registered through my school for piano, so my piano teacher and I lied and said I went to his school and I went with his students (and I nailed that one too because I am fucking awesome).
10th grade: The year everything came together! Everything was scheduled correctly, all my music was where it should be, and I was well-prepared! I did well on all three instruments AND I accompanied Tina's oboe solo (my first time on an electric piano, that was fun). Tina and I played our woodwind instruments in the same room, so that judge saw a lot of me (and loved me, of course). Life was good.
11th grade: Aaaaaaaand...this is where it gets good. First, I shall state that everything was fine for piano, and despite majorly screwing up the left hand on one section, I did really well (apparently, the judge didn't notice that I TOTALLY FUCKED UP). Okay, now the fun part: I decided that my goal was to try really really hard to get into All-State (a reach, but I guess it was possible) and I figured I had a better shot at doing it on bassoon rather than the saxophone, so I chose not to do a saxophone piece so I could devote all my time to the bassoon. Good plan, right? Yeah, it was actually working well for a while.
Now we need a little backstory (because every good story has a backstory...or something). Since this was spring of 11th grade, I had already broken up with Marc and I think I had just started dating Ryan (after ending things with Forrest). Marc's crazy behavior (threatening Forrest, leaving stuff in my mailbox, etc.) had already started to come through a couple of months before this, but I thought everything was okay. (It actually was, but certain coincidences led me to think otherwise. Read on.)
About two and a half weeks before NYSSMA, I was hanging out with a bunch of people in the music hallway. I put my wallet in my purse and put my jacket and music folder on top of it and left it on the table with a lot of other people's stuff (not the smartest thing in the world, I know, but there had never been any other problems). I must have been in another room or something because when I got my stuff to leave (about half an hour later), my wallet was gone. After double-checking that I didn't, in fact, leave it at home, a tiny little voice in the back of my head said, "Marc was in the hallway in the afternoon..." I ignored it. It did turn up (minus the three dollars I had in it) in a garbage can two days later and a janitor turned it in. Okay, not so bad.
Now onto the relevant part: A week after this incident, I was back in the music hallway. Ryan was around the corner working on his NYSSMA voice piece and I was waiting to drive him home. The band room was about to be locked, so I got my stuff out of it (most importantly, my school bassoon so I could practice). I put my jacket and folder on the same table and put the bassoon underneath and went around the corner to go get Ryan (taking my purse with me! I am one smart cookie.). He took just a few minutes longer than I expected, but I didn't have to be home at any certain time, so I sat down and waited. When he was done, he grabbed his stuff, and we went to go get my things before we headed home.
Panic struck as I turned the corner and didn't see my bassoon anywhere (as usual, my jacket and folder were still there). After quickly searching the hallway, I went into the orchestra room, where I found Mr. Bjorkman (one of the best teachers ever, everyone will agree) and told him about the missing bassoon (he had also been around for the wallet incident). He asked me if I had looked everywhere and then asked one of the janitors if he had seen it (he hadn't). After remembering the wallet, he said, "I don't really want to tell you this...but someone may not like you." I told him that this thought had already crossed my mind, especially since that little voice in my head reminded me that I had passed Marc in the hallway when going to get Ryan. Since he is not one to fuck around, Mr. B called the Haverstraw police as I tried incredibly hard not to break down in hysterics in his office.
The next few days were FUN. Ms. Lang (the school bassoon teacher) worked on tracking down another bassoon for me to use (countdown to NYSSMA: a little over a week). She snatched a few right out of the hands of some middle school bassoonists and Tina had a school bassoon at her house, so I sat down with all of these and decided which one I liked the best. Naturally, all of my reeds and swabs and whatnot were in the other case, so I got to break in a few new reeds as well. Meanwhile, back at school, I spent quite a bit of time with the school's police officer and a detective from the Haverstraw PD as we went over everything that happened. During all of this, Marc's crazy behavior came out (I was DEFINITELY not the only one who thought he might have had something to do with this), along with all the threatening emails and whatnot. Because I was stupid and hadn't done anything at the time, they told me that it was too late to do anything about the emails now, but something went on file should anything have happened in the future. A lot of people actually came up to me and said, "Jen, I don't know if you know this, but I saw Marc in the hallway the day your bassoon disappeared..." I actually spent a lot of time worrying if he was going to do anything to me personally. I don't think I ever went home alone that week.
(I'll put in the disclaimer now that I found out later that he had nothing to do with it. Tina and I found his blog one night and in one part, he expressed...annoyance at being suspected. I will say that I did feel a little bit bad about it after finding out, but most of me still maintains that if you act like a fucking lunatic and everyone in the world thinks you are a fucking lunatic, you should not be surprised if you get accused of doing crazy things. Oh, and he also wrote that I was stalking him because he saw me driving on his street soon after it happened. Dipshit apparently did not realize that my accompanist lived on his street. *roll eyes*)
NYSSMA was okay. I was a little on edge after all that had happened and fucked up my first scale. Everything else went well, except for some reason, Austen (my accompanist, who is an awesome pianist and I missed having him around all throughout college) started the third movement too slowly, and I got a point off for that. Oh well. Obviously, I did not get into All-State (I wasn't too surprised), but after all that happened, I was okay with how I played. I had been planning on getting my own bassoon during the summer anyway, so I did have something to play on after NYSSMA.
Interestingly enough, the "stolen" bassoon reappeared about six months later. There was a space between the brick wall and the wooden closets outside the band room where the color guard kept their flags. Apparently, there is a space on top of the closets and sure enough, that's where it was (someone found it while getting out one of the taller flags). I figure that it was just a practical joke that got way out of hand and no one wanted to confess, especially after Mr. B called the police (I have my suspicions as to who it was, but I will never know for sure).
12th grade: I stayed the fuck away from NYSSMA. I was already accepted to college, I didn't want to go just for fun, and I even refused to accompany anyone (I made sure the word got out before anyone asked). I went to the mall that day.
So yeah, I was not reminded of happy things when I went to go accompany students. Some students did exactly as I expected, some got higher than expected, and some got lower than they deserved. I don't see this changing any time in the near future. I'll let you know in the spring.