“I play the drums, and even though I’m just a role player right now, I’m crossing my fingers for senior year. Last year, I really struggled with knowing how to stick the stuff. I didn’t know how to play a lot of things, and I didn’t know how to read the music efficiently, because I didn’t know what drums were where. This year, it was a lot easier because I had muscle memory of the drum positions. I was also able to get over that learning curve of playing the note that corresponds to the sheet music and the actual drum. I’ve been doing band since sixth grade and last year for band camp, I was on bass drum and then during the class, I was on tenor. This year, I’m on tenor for both band camp and the class. Compared to last year, I know all the cadences and I know the majority of the band music. [Band camp this year] was a lot more fun because I knew almost everyone and I was tight with them. It was really fun because I was like, ‘whoa, I understand it now’ when I was playing. It was cool to be able to understand the music that I was playing and understand everything by the end. At camp, we were running through the music when the seniors were out watching, and I was like, ‘whoa, I’m like Christian’s replacement, bro.’ It was a confidence boost. My favorite memory from Band is when Jonah Smith, this kid from last year, wrote this sad message in my yearbook about him leaving, but I thought he had another year. Turns out it was his last year and he was leaving as he was homeschooled. But when we were playing on the last day of band camp, he showed up and he started to play with us. He played on my drum, and to finish it out, he threw a stick on the ground, and then caught it, and then hit the last note, and it was really tough. He’s my GOAT. Shout out Jonah. He’s very inspirational, and Top 10 on my GOATs of GP list. He inspires me because he was always super nonchalant and nice, and he would sometimes help me with stuff whenever I needed it. Just overall a really cool guy. Another good memory from band was going to Disneyland, that was cool as well.”