I am proud to be proud. I can honestly say that I am very content to be the person I am today, and I cannot think of anyone who I'd want to trade lives with. Not that I don't respect other people's abilities and accomplishments; I know lots of people that can do things that I never will be able to, no matter how hard I try. But in a mathematical representation of all my abilities, I think mine add up to a high number and I'm happy with that.

However, I can, on occasion, really mess up. Most of the time it's in a setting that I don't really care about, and so I don't mind. This story is an example of a time when I blew it, and I know that I'm going to regret it for the rest of my life.

I've been playing trumpet since 5th grade in the school band. Also, I took private lessons for several years (from 5th to 8th grade). Not to toot my own horn, but I'm a talented trumpeter, and especially in the last year I've discovered how much trumpet and music as a whole really mean to me.

While athletics all have their championships and meets and stuff (which I do take part in), band only has All-County Band, and then in 10th, 11th, and 12th grades Area All-State Band and All-State Band are added in. Each of these band require a tryout to get into. All-County is the easiest to attend, then Area All-State, then All-State, as each draws from a larger pool of applicants and still only takes the same number of students. The tryout which you perform to attend these bands is called NYSSMA, which occurs in late April of every year. NYSSMA scores from one year count towards the next year's attendance, so my audition sophomore year, for example, counted towards whether or not I would attend the three bands this year (my junior year). Scores are out of 100%, and typically you need about a 94% to go to All-County, a 96% to go to Area All-State, and a 100% to go to All-State. This year was my last chance to try out for All-State because I'm a junior now.

An audition consists of playing a chosen piece that you prepare, performing a sight reading (playing music you've never seen before), and playing 3 scales. The scales are easy if you prepare, the piece is difficult because it needs to be almost perfect to get a top score, and the sight reading is the wild card-you never know how tough it's going to be.

This past year, I played Mozart's Concerto in B flat, 1st and 2nd movements, for my chosen piece. In the audition I nailed it, and I remember being very happy with my performance when I left. The sight reading was fairly difficult, but I was confident after my prepared piece, and that also went very well. The problem was the scales.

For you non-musicians out there, the scale is incredibly simple, just going up and down 8 notes. And I messed the second scale up by missing one note. Just one note, because I wasn't perfectly focused on what my fingers were doing. That mess-up cost me dearly; instead of a 100%, I lost a point. Further, the judge (the same judge that I had last year) took off appoint for vibrato, which is a very difficult musical technique that doesn't really have a place in my chosen piece. So I got a 98% instead of the 100% I needed to attend All-State next year.

When I received my score, I remember my heart plummeting. I know that I will never go to All-State, and that is almost a physical wound to me. All my hard work on the trumpet has amounted to nothing. Not truly nothing, because I will still get to go to Area All-State and All-County, but it feels like nothing. I feel like I've failed. I know that I'm good enough to go to All-State. But I didn't prove it when it counted.