Hi, I'm Amanda and I'm a Band Nerd...

it's true. I was one in high school. I took band seriously. I volunteered for everything possible. In eighth grade, I was the color guard helper. My freshman year, I volunteered for drum line. My junior year I campaigned like a mad man to become band president. After my successful election, :-D, I worked hard to pull off the best band banquet ever. I became a music major in college (for a year). I joined a student group just for performing percussionist. I marched drum corps. My sophomore year of college, I started teching high school lines. At first it was just my high school. Then, the unthinkable happened. I actually got hired by someone else not my alma mater. I started working at schools across the state. I TAUGHT drum corps. NOW, at twenty-six years of age, I still teach band. I can't get away from it. It's a part of my life.

That's me in the red shirt, don't pay attention to that bass drum.
I'm teaching with an indoor drumline at a school in the Houston area. This Friday is STATE CHAMPIONSHIPS. I'm a little excited and a little nervous all at the same time. You see, we, the staff, have been working on this program since mid-December. It comes up in conversation at least once a day. I have no had a free weekend in 2009 YET. It's all been dedicated to indoor. Last year, I taught with the same staff, different kids, different school. We won EVERY competition we went to. Except of course, championships. It was a total killer. Those kids worked their little A's off and they deserved it. The hooker school that got first at championship was a bunch of tools and acted like because they were the bigger school and bigger name, they should have gotten it simply because they had for the past 5 years or something ridiculous like that. F'em....Anyways, I'm still bitter about that. Not even gonna lie. These are my kids from last year. Notice how only two of them are smiling; the rest were fighting back tears.


I'm so nervous that it could happen again this year. It's been almost an exact repeat of last year. We got bumped up to an advance class. We've won first every competition, except for one. I'm hoping that's our only second place we get this year. There's nothing worse than to look in the eyes of a kid who's been defeated/disappointed/had their spirits crushed. We have one last rehearsal tomorrow and the big show is Friday evening. I hope this one has better results!