[ehochstein]

Keehun, just being a city away and having not quite the same experience for the first half of your story, but the ending about choosing between band and Robotics/Engineering. I remember everyday at my elementary school going to the library and hoping, that there was a new robotics book in the robot section there. I wanted to know all there was about robotics since I was in elementary school. By my first grade year I had already read every book on robotics in the school library. But once fifth grade came around for me, I too joined the band group in Bloomington. Originally I started with the violin, but after playing the violin for about 6 months I switched to percussion. At this point I forgot all about robotics, band was my life I was in the marching band, I stayed after school every single day to practice my malleting skills on the marimba. I did this until my sophomore year, when I heard about this new thing at my school called "Robotics Club," now many of my friends were in this club, and they convinced me to join, because I too was the so called computer geek of my grade. They said I could fix a computer just by looking at it. My best memory of this was one day when the IT staff was gone, and I ended up fixing all of the computers in my elementary school because of a programming error Apple made with Appleworks at the time >.< anyways, I joined the robotics club and at the same time I joined the school play, which was Charlie and the Chocolate factory, now I admit that, that was a big mistake. I swear no one will ever see me dressed up like an oompa loompa for as long as I live. I ended up missing most of the robotics season because I was always at play practice. The next year I realized that robotics was a big thing in my life and I quit everything except for Band, Marching band and Robotics. I tried so hard for robotics that year (Which was last year) and I ended up becoming the team's driver that year, and the lead programmer. After winning the 10,000 Lakes regional (which I must say REALLY inspired me) and going to Georgia (I must recommend you to going to this even if your team is not going Keehun, It is an amazing experience to have in your life.) I became the summer captain of the team, and ran meetings and events for the team throughout the summer. After the summer past, so at the beginning of this year I was voted captain of the robotics team. Now over this past summer I also participated in Marching Band (Drumline which required about 40 hours of practice every week) and I am in the Wind Ensemble at my school. Because of my continued practicing on the mallets since freshman year, I am now the best mallet player in the school and I can play some things even college members cannot. Alas, I am captain of the robotics team, and leading is a very hard thing to do on Jefferson's Robotics Team, especially since we only have 3 members coming back from last year, not including myself. I have a team of 17 newbies that have no idea what they are doing, but it is my job to inspire and create things in their mind that I hope will inspire them to become like me and lead the robotics team one day. This year we re-named our Robotics Club to Robotics Team. All of this was possible because I planned out the entire season as best as possible before the season started. That officially meant that we were a varsity sport at our school. Marching Band is also a Varsity Sport at our school, which posed quite a large problem. I ended up losing about 2 solos in the drumline because I kept getting too sick from trying to bobble Robotics, Drumline/Marching Band, and homework all into one. I had to make a decision between Robotics and band, and of course I chose band because, well I don't know why I chose it but I did. Now that The robotics season is here I have had to almost quit band, that means the only time I am in band all day is during my last period. I don't have time to practice anything even after school. Now overall I would have to say that my best experience in high school is not one thing, but two. The friends I made in Band, and the accomplishment I felt after going to my first FIRST Robotics Competition Regional. Band helped me get through the rough times, and Robotics inspired me to become a better person, and to try to help people become better people themselves. As a career choice I think I am going to go with Engineering, why? Because I can engineer and still play the mallets, but I can play mallets and engineer. Music has helped me through my life more then I can explain with mere words, but I can always still have music with engineering.

Yeah, this is kind of all my thoughts poured into one run-on paragraph. I've never been good a essays sorry! D: I hope it is at least understandable/readable!