*Cue Olympic Theme*

While this may surprise some people, I once had dreams of competing in the Olympics. I wanted to be a professional figure skater when I grew up. I idolized Kristi Yamaguchi. I started skating when I was 5 or 6, and took lessons for the next five years or so. I made it through the kiddie levels and into the ISI figure skating levels pretty fast. I passed the first three levels, but I couldn't get the jumps. As hard as I tried, and as much as I practiced, I could never land the jumps. I eventually got discouraged and quit skating.

Around this time, I joined band, which was probably the best decision I've ever made. I picked clarinet as my instrument, because there were too many people who wanted to play flute. I was a terrible player in the beginning, but with a little practice, I began to excel at it. In 7th grade and 8th grade, I was first chair in the top bands for the grade, but I had bigger ambitions.

Enter high school auditions. This silly little rising 9th grader scared some of the best high school players. I nailed that audition, and landed 7th chair in the top band. It may have been the 3-octave scales or the grade 5 solo I was playing as my prepared piece, but I owe a thanks to my band director for taking a chance on me, and showing me that I could play with the best of them. Now I had a new goal - to make all-state. This was a much tougher goal to accomplish. I ended up making district band all 4 years of high school, and qualified to audition for all-state my junior and senior years. I did complete my goal of making the all-state band my senior year. It's kind of like the Olympics of band, but no one gets medals - in fact, everyone is a winner.

I guess in the end, my 'Olympic dreams' were realized. Sometimes I miss the days when I would go ice skating two, three times a week. Then I realize band was my calling, and I will never regret my decision to pick music over skating, but....

...I still want to land that axel. :)