My Best For You

Good, better, best

Never let it rest

Until your good is better

And your better is best

When I was younger, a banner with those words hung in the foyer of my elementary school.  Today, a banner with those words hangs in my high school band hall, and it was in that room that those words became more than a phrase, more than a banner.

They became a mantra, a saying that the Lewisburg Band lived by.  By my senior year, I believed it wholeheartedly, and I loved everything that it represented.  

We have this tradition in the band.  Before every performance, our director says, "freshmen," and the freshmen say the first line: good, better, best.  The sophomores continue with the second line, and the juniors with the third, and finally the seniors close it out with the last line.  After that, our director shouts, "My best for you!" and the whole band repeats, "My best for you!"  It started my freshmen year, and I said, "good, better, best," knowing I was a part of something bigger than me.  Every year I moved up the ladder, and every year it became more important.  My senior year, when it came to us, me and all of the other seniors screamed our part at the top of our lungs, full of emotion and pride.  

My class had seen all of the ups and downs of the Lewisburg Band program.  We knew what it felt like to shock the world and come in second place our first time at State Championships, we knew the disappointment to be so close to first the very next year.  We knew what it felt like to be one of the first Lewisburg Bandians to have a gold medal placed around our necks, knowing we still had three years ahead of us to become even better than we were.  We were there when we dominated practically everyone our sophomore year, becoming back to back champions and scoring two points higher than the first place 5A band (in band world, that's a lot, especially when the only bands that scored higher than us were 6A bands, the highest division).  We felt the regret and guilt as we stood on the field during awards our junior year with tears falling on our silver medals, wondering how much more effort would it have taken to three-peat.  

Senior year, we were determined.  We were determined to take back the gold medal, to take back the title.  Soon though, we learned that the first place title wasn't what My Best  For You Was all about.  After we learned what it really meant, we embodied, "My best for you," in every sense of the phrase.  "My best for you," means doing your part and setting the example for others to follow.  It means learning your music, it means perfecting your drill, it means coming to practice ready to work.

It means realizing that band is a team effort, a huge family project of sorts, with everyone working together towards one common goal.  What is that goal, you say?  Not a gold medal or championship trophy as some would believe, but satisfaction.  The goal is having that satisfactory feeling, knowing that you did your part to help the group succeed, that you didn't hinder the progress.

When that was the goal, we've always done exceedingly well.  When we could walk off of that field after a finals run and know that that run was the best, there was nothing we could have done differently, that's when we were the real winners.  That's one thing we didn't exactly have in 2011, and that's the reason why I was so disappointed with the results.  I knew I could have tried harder.

And so, with this being the week of State Championships, that's what I want this year's band to know.  I want those kids to know that the medals aren't the final destination, the feeling of satisfaction is.  The goal is walking back to the bus that night after such a long day with a smile on your face.

The goal is believing the words that they'll say before a performance, the words that the parents and families and alumni in the stands will shout as the band sets up on the field.  

I know I'll shout it for them at the top of my lungs.  I'll cheer for them the entire day, I'll applaud their efforts.  Because I believe in the Lewisburg Band.  I believe in My Best For You and everything it stands for, for the encouragement it has given us over the years, for the numerous alumni that have said it in the past.  It's a feeling you never forget, that feeling of satisfaction, and it's a feeling that I want every Lewisburg Band to have.

And so I'll never stop supporting the Lewisburg Band, I'll never stop believing in those kids, because as long as that banner hangs in the band hall, as long as everyone that walks through the door knows what it means, as long as every band member takes it to heart, they'll always give me a reason to believe.

MY BEST FOR YOU

Mo

 

My band family from senior year

New to This Blogging Thing

I asked myself why I wanted to try my hand at blogging, and here's what I came up with:

If there's one thing I learned through my countless hours of English in high school, it's that I don't like writing on assigned prompts.  You know the type, the prompts that you have no more personal connection to than a lion does to Antarctica.  After many essays, I learned to write how the reader wanted me too; I gave my arguments, I gave my evidence, and I did it in the way that English teachers across America would want me to.  Most of the time, the only emotional connection I had to my essays was to the numerical value and letter at the top of them when my teacher returned them to me.  Now there were a few, a select few, that I didn't mind writing and wouldn't mind reading again.  With most of them though, however, even I get bored halfway through the second paragraph.  

There are people in the world that enjoy that kind of thing, and to them, writing on assigned prompts is fun.  Me, I'm that freak that does calculus for fun.  I seriously downloaded all of the free-response sections from every AP Calculus test that College Board had online, all with the intention to try and work them one day just to see if I can.  I'm a freak of sorts.

That all being said, one thing I have found is that I do enjoy writing, but only when I decide what to write or when it's about something I enjoy talking about.  My essay I submitted for my National Merit Finalist application?  It was a down-right amazing essay because I wrote about my best friends and their influences on my life, and those are people I could talk about all day long.  I'm also very proud of my valedictorian speech, because, hey, I had been looking forward to giving that thing for four years, and I was determined for it to be awesome.  From all the compliments I got, I assume I achieved that goal.  I even heard that a quote from my speech was being tweeted and retweeted that night after graduation.  That's really cool (I don't have a twitter FYI).  The paragraph I wrote about the teacher I selected as Star Teacher?  I love it just as much as I love her (which is a whole awful lot).  Her paragraph about me was equally as flattering.

Now I say this in the least cocky way possible when I say that I don't know which of those three things is my most favorite thing that I've ever written.  Most people I'm assuming would say the valedictorian speech, because, you know, it's a pretty big deal.  But my Star Teacher paragraph really was the perfect explanation of why I think my English/PSAT teacher is by far the best teacher ever and why she's such a fantastic person.  And plus it's in everyone's yearbooks permanently.  Very few people will ever read my National Merit Essay, but trust me, it had my heart and soul in it.  The thing about those essays is as follows: the National Merit people basically expect you to write an essay about an important moment/person in your life and in the process pour out your heart and soul to them.  They want to feel your emotion, they want to know why this moment/person is so important to you.  I struggled for a few days trying to decide what to write about, trying to ignore the elephant in the room that I knew I should write about.  I just didn't think I could tell a complete stranger all about that.  But as I was talking to my Star Teacher about how I still didn't know what I wanted to write about, she looked me in the eyes and said, "You know what you need to write about," and I did, and I went home that night and wrote the first paragraph in only about fifteen minutes.  I only had to do minimal revisions on it.  Most of it came straight from my heart, and I suppose when you're writing about your best friend since kindergarten, that's the only place it could come from.

Long story short, I've got opinions and I love typing them out.  It gives me a chance to think about them and why I feel that way.  Sometimes it's just for me to get it out of my system, like I'm venting to my computer because I don't want any human being to hear the things I'm saying.  It's probably a pretty safe system, because who knows what kind of mess I'd be in if I had typed those things in a text message as opposed to the word document they're safely saved away on.

So who knows what all I'll write about, all I know is it will be about something, and that something will be something I care about. 

So let the blogging begin.

Mo