You Have No Idea

I've been really busy. Monumentally busy.

I've had a dog die, a brief mental breakdown, finals, the begining of winter guard... I'm honestly entirely exhausted. I feel like all I need right now is to just sleep for a good two days while lying about, alternating between reading and staring at the ceiling.

This all, added with the fact that I know my privacy has been breached here has honestly kept me away. But I've missed this and you so much, and I just need this so badly, you can have no idea.

I've pulled off the near impossible this semester. Assuming my English stays the same (some grades have not been put in, including my final, but I should come out on top of this) I will have straight A's.

Well rather, straight A minuses, coupled with two A pluses in band honors and AP music theory. But they are straight A's. And I'm just going crazy thinking about it. I took five AP classes. FIVE. And here I am, after honestly pushing myself past the limit of where I ever should have been, and having had stressed and worked so hard for this... And here I am. Straight A's. I haven't had straight A's since the seventh grade, the grade I only spent a semester in before being moved up to eighth grade. It's as if I'd finally caught myself and climbed back up to the cliff I'd been pushed off of those many years ago.

I've been accepted to Butler University, and have since scheduled an audition. The band director from my old school left me a note on facebook telling me that she was so proud of me. Coming from her is just... well... amazing. Like I'm almost at tears thinking about it because what she did for me and my schoolmates just meant so much, and it's hard to imagine much higher praise. She means enough to me that when I was asked in a different audition about the music teacher that I admired the most, I immediately started spewing about her, and what our program had been like before she came.

I'm not in anyway trying to discount my current band director. She's absolutely wonderful as well, but she's just had a different role in my life than my first high school band director did. If not for my old band director having come in to my school, I probably would have quit band. I love band and music so much, and I've wanted to be a teacher since forever, and a music teacher since slightly less than forever... but I'm positive that if my old band director had never come, I would not have worked my butt off to become nearly as good a musician, or worked as hard to get into college, because I've had one goal since high school started, even discounting my screw ups, and that has been to become a music teacher, and that has been because of her.

And this semester. This semester with all it's ups and downs has been both amazing and horrible at the same time. Easy and frustrating at the same time as well. So much has happened and changed, and I feel like this semester I've managed to put myself together and grow up, and put everything into perspective.

I'm babbling on, and I probably will sound so stupid for saying this, but, I'm proud of myself. I don't think I've ever really given myself that credit before. I can do this. I'm ready. I've always put myself down, but I just find it really hard not to feel good about myself lately.

And so, I am going to rightfully take this winter break to read the books I've put off, and call the friends I haven't talked to in ages, and just relax.

I think I deserve it.
~Jess the Nerdfighting BandGeek