It's more than a band, it's a (more-than-averagely dysfunctional) family. Legit.

As anyone who knows anything about me knows, I'm a band nerd. I put more time and energy into marching band than anyone knows. Except for my fellow bandies, of course.
I'm a sophomore this year (a junior in band), and I play flute in my high school's marching band. Band isn't a seasonal thing. It's year-round.

Fall: marching band.
Winter: pep band.
Spring: concert band.
Summer: conditioning for marching band.

I know, I'm such a nerd. But if you've never been a part of a band or a huge team, then you have absolutely no idea what I'm talking about.

As the title of this post states, it's more than a band, it's a family. An extremely dysfunctional family. But there are countless people in that family that I can hug, say hi to, and expect a shoulder to cry on, on a daily basis if necessary. I'm not exactly sure how else to say it. But here's an "anecdote" (?) I wrote at the last basketball game of the season.

"18-19. The current score. But I see so much more than the score, the players, the game. I see my family. The people that mean the most to me. The circle of (intimidating) guys I wish I knew, the exes standing with their used-to-be other halves, and their current other halves. The little boy at the drumset and the flash of silver as an instrument catches the light. The couple in the corner, actually talking, nothing more. The orange, the orange, oh and the orange. The sound of the buzzer and the sound of my family coming together to make my favorite sounds. Oh, wait. The score's tied now. I see the cheerleaders now. The almost couples, the enemies, the best friends. Last game of the season. How many more days til the next season starts?

The shouting of correct pronunciations, and sex slave!

The looks and the laying on the ground, not able to breathe,

but only because we were crying from laughing too hard.

Possible groping and the fake cries of hypothetical "don't touch me!"'s."

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The feeling of closeness and hatred that you experience from this band cannot be described as anything but a family. A huge family. And families are the type of thing where age only matters if you're really the oldest. You can pretend and make up fancy names (like freshmores), but it never matters in the end. See, I started marching with the high school as an 8th grader. This happened because they had more spots than they did bodies, and here I was. Now, all of the 8th graders that started early, including me, like to pretend that we have more power because of this.

So not true.

Banner girl. :)

I've been waiting for a while now to have something really good to blog about. And I didn't realize until just now that I've had this topic for a while. It was this post http://thesceneextraordinary.blogspot.com/2010/07/july-7-2010-839ish-pm-sports.html that actually enlightened me.

My little brother, Kelley, has played baseball in our town's Pony league for at least 3 years now, multiple fall and summer seasons. This summer was the first season that I started going to his games. My best friend's little brother, who might as well be my brother, Ryan, was on the same team. I now had two players to cheer for. My dad coached this season. Yet another reason to go. When I got to my first game, I cheered for who I knew. Halfway through the season, there were maybe 4 kids I didn't know. Final game: I cheered for everyone. Not only will I have known these great kids, all amazing players, but I'll also have seen their ups and downs as a team, witnessed their excitement to hang out with each other outside of the ball field, and will always remember the difference the season has made on some of their friendships (literally).

While it got tiring to come home from a game smelling like sunscreen and bug spray, listening to my dad rant about some player who never listens, there were a couple things that made up for it.

Such as:

~ Kelley's face when I gave him his quarters as part of our get-a-hit deal,

~ listening to AJ telling me he's my conscience and that I need to give him $5,

~ Danny (someone from another team that my brother knew previously) shaking a player's hand after hitting him with a pitch,

~ celebrating after Ponyfest and Kelley's All Star game,

~ but mostly, sitting on the sidelines and cheering.

Kelley's games are almost the only thing I've looked forward to this summer, considering the only thing that could get in the way of them was bad weather. I have to admit that I love sitting in our lawn chairs with my mom talking about whatever, and also eavesdropping on other parents' conversations. It's funny how often people stick their feet in their mouths and don't even know it.

And there's one more thing that made up for all the bad stuff (Kelley striking out over and over again, watching kids get hit with a pitch but not getting up for a few minutes, terrible umpires). And that was being the banner girl. About halfway through the season, I decided that I wanted to be the only person handling the team banner. I named myself the banner girl, and everyone on or related to the team knew that they weren't to touch the banner. One night, our game was over and another team needed to settle into the dugout. One of their coaches tried taking down the banner and I was about to get upset. My dad started telling him off, and when the guy wouldn't listen, my dad told him it was good luck. The guy listened. My dad must have been speaking the language of baseball, a language I can understand but can't speak. This was actually the night of our second-to-last game. I was touched. I didn't think it was anything special, and I honestly think we lost at one point or another once I started doing the banner. But it didn't matter. I was the banner girl. That banner is in my room, at the moment. I'm still trying to figure out where to put it.

Needless to say, I'm really glad I became involved in this team.

Blackhawks: Stanley Cup champs!

Patrick Kane. :)
(Thanks for that whole winning-goal-thing, by the way!)

Mmmmm, Jonathan Toews. :)))

#19♥

So, anyways. I went to the Blackhawks parade/rally in downtown Chicago on friday.

It was...AMAZING.

The fans completely took over the streets. The cab drivers were not very happy about that.

And I got to be 20 feet from Toews! 20 feet from Toews!

Yeah.

Just wanted to, ahem, gloat a little.

:DDD

I hate to admit

that it's taken this website & my (best?) friend's blogs to make me realize how much I don't know her anymore.

I hate growing up.

Pathetic me.

So I just found an old blog I made on here.
The date was December of 2005. That was my 5th grade year.
I had two blogs, with one post each.
Both posts brought me back to a time and place in my life that was not healthy.
And they made me realize what a lost little girl I was.
And they made me want to help my brother not go through the same thing I did.
But I don't even know how.

It's that time of year again.

The time of year when we're all getting out of school.
Locker clean-outs and last minute "thank you, Mr/Mrs. _____! Have a nice summer!"
Only two more days of 5:30 alarms, and then it's summer...and my freshman year is over.
I honestly can't believe it's even gone by this fast. I feel like yesterday was my first day of school, my first high school football game, my first band competition, my first high school play.
Even though I have three more unbearable years of 5:30 alarms, finals study guides, and worrying about which teachers will round a 91.4% up to an "A" or not, I miss it.
Reading the senior issue of the Spartus, taking pictures with the seniors who are leaving, and seeing some seniors saying a final "bye and thanks" to their favorite teachers is already making me tear up... And I'm just a freshman.
I'm hoping that I will take to heart all of the seniors' advice: "treasuring each second," "taking these moments for all they're worth," and "enjoying high school."

But now that I think about it, the one thing I can remember most clearly about this year is
that one time I got pennied. :)

Figuring Yourself Out.

I'm going to be blunt here: yesterday SUCKED.
But I also found out a couple of extremely important things.

Long story short, I disappointed my parents with a certain behavioral choice that I made.
Nothing inappropriate, don't worry. Just extremely disrespectful. And here is where I come to one of the things I learned: I may be mature, but I honestly didn't even think about the fact that what I did was disrespectful. It just goes to show me that I'm not perfect (even though I definitely already knew that), and that I need to start thinking more before I do things.
Another thing I learned was how much I really do hate disappointing people. When I actually figured out how upset and angry my parents were, I literally cried for 20 minutes (ask Sam, Nick, Agi, or the security guard who asked where my pass was).

So, yeah. Nothing real exciting... I guess I just needed to explain (to myself).

Mini golfing, mini bus rides, mini fears.

So I'm not exactly sure what this type of writing would be called - it's
not a poem, it's not a story... maybe an anecdote? I doubt it. But yeah, I wrote
this while I was on a bus on the way to a mini golfing field trip.
Best. Thing. About. Geometry. All. Year.
But yeah, here goes.

Nothing like a loud school bus and a blasting iPod to put me in my thinking place.
What really makes me think are the people on this bus with me right now: the people in/taking my geometry class.
We're going mini golfing.
What I'm worried about, though, is if I'm going to be able to find a group to play with.
I've never really thought of myself as popular, but I never really thought I was an outcast either.
But right now, when I'm sitting here in this empty seat with myself and Alex Gaskarth* [♥], the truth is painfully obvious.
I might have friends in this crazy, eccentric group of people, but I'm pretty sure I also have enemies, and people who just plain old DGAF. I might also have friends outside this group of people, but that doesn't seem to matter much right now.
I can't think of a time where I've ever felt so ditched ... and lonely.

* Alex Gaskarth is the lead singer of All Time Low, who I was listening to at that moment.

- the not-so-original Bethany

You know what sucks?

When your situation is so unbelievably different from someone else's, it tears you apart. Or maybe rips. Or maybe just pulls, slowly. Like pulling off a band-aid, except someone who hates you is doing it excruciatingly slow, just to torture you.

It hurts. Hurts like crazy.
Especially when you've been friends with said person for nine-ish years? Awesome.

I know that this kind of thing supposedly happens to, like, everyone. But I think that subconsciously, I've been promising myself all these years that this would never happen. And BAM! It happens.

Hmmmm... Maybe that's a power that I can use to my advantage...

It kinda sorta makes me want to bawl when I realize that there is a beautiful, smart, courageous, hilarious girl that used to be my best friend... And I don't even know her anymore.

- the Not-So-Original Bethany.