I'm feeling way better than the other days. I could get up and go run a marathon right now (probably not a good idea), but that's how better I'm feeling.
I woke up this morning feeling really bored. I feel like I am stuck in a hospital and can't leave my room. I know if I go hang out at one of my buddies place, my illness is going to come back. So since I'm trapped in my room, I decided make use of myself.
I got so bored, I cleaned my side of my room; got done in 10 minutes. What the hell! I thought cleaning my room was going to take at least an hour or so.
As I look around my clean room, I saw the ukulele my mom and sister had sent me through my care package the other week. I decided to pick it up and play it.
I am no pro at the ukulele. I bought it as my own birthday gift back in 2011 because I wanted have a new hobby, which I really never picked up on. So since I have all this time in the world until Monday comes along, I decided to learn the bad boy.
Playing the ukulele reminds me of the days when I use to be in band. Yes, I was a band nerd, geek, whatever you want to call it. I started off playing the violin back in elementary school, 2nd grade to be exact. I dont know why I chose to play an instrument but I enjoyed it.
When I switched school districts back in 1999, the elementary school I transferred to didn't have an orchestra so I had to choose to play another instrument. I went to the music shop with my dad one day and I told him I wanted to play the drums. I thought it would be pretty cool to play drums but my dad refuse to buy me a pair of drumsticks and a drumset so I settled with an alto saxophone.
For the next nine years until my senior year of high school, I continued to play the saxophone. I thought I was just mediocre but when I joined the high school band as a eighth grader, I was given one of the higher parts of the music to play over the sophomores and juniors that have been there for a couple of years.
I also remember going down to Candy Cane Lane in South Torrance around Christmas (for those of you who don't know what that is, it is a whole neighborhood with decked out with Christmas lights. Definitely should go check it out if you can.) with my buddy and his dad with our instruments and go caroling from corner to corner. Looking back at that experience, I really wish I could go back and do that kind of thing again.
I didn't just play the saxophone. I did end up playing drums, starting in the eighth grade as well. When I first joined the high school band, I was ahh'd by the drumline and wanted to join the next year. Luckly for me, for drumline, there is a fall season and a spring season, so I decided to join the drumline then and played the drums ever since.
Since joining band and drumline, it was the first time that something showed me the meaning of bonding, chemistry and family. At my high school, I never hung out with them at break or at lunch, but we were basically together for most of the time. We would have practice from 7 a.m. until our first class of the day started, practice from 3:30 p.m. until 9 or so. During the summer, we would spend about two to three weeks working on music, marching, working on our on field show, eat, play games, etc from 9 a.m. to 9 p.m.
I could never get away from those guys.
While playing baseball and being in the band, I really wanted to strictly focus on baseball and quit band but my mother wouldn't let me. I told her, "It's not like I'm ever going to be playing an instrument after high school anyways." I wonder if i chose the other way, if I would have been a really good musician.?
In retrospect, I'm glad my mother kept me in band because it's something I value now than I did before. Who knows, if my mother didn't talk me into staying in, what kind of mischief I would have gotten to.
Now, I am sitting here reminiscing old times that I cant go back to. But everything happens for a reason, maybe for the good or the bad.
Now some of you know something that you didn't know about me. I don't really talk about it because I don't know if I'll get made fun of or get the "One time in band camp..." line, which has happened quite often.
-Jun
My younger sister's last band show in 2010, which they got first place in their division at the California State Competition
No comments:
Post a Comment