Summer's Essay

Yo!

So, my take-over-the-blog plan failed...

it wasn't even epic.

Also!

I am much too exhausted, busy, and just plain overwhelmed right now to post anything creative.

Therefore, you're getting the first three paragraphs of my AP Language Arts essay.

Yes, there are more paragraphs, sadly enough.

However, as it's mostly boring stuff that I've posted about already, I won't post the whole thing.

I guess I figured I would see if I could get any feedback from Reg or Sayuri, as they've taken the class before.

Thanks, girls!

Prompt: Tell us about a personal quality, talent, accomplishment, contribution or experience that is important to you. What about this quality or accomplishment makes you proud and how does it relate to the person you are?

Since before I can remember, I’ve been drawn to it. My parents tell me the connection was almost magnetic. I’ll never know why, but for some reason it’s a part of me. At just four years old, I would walk over to the beat up, un-tuned piano hidden in the hall. Without any encouragement, I would diligently attempt to pick out tunes on an instrument I knew nothing about. It didn’t matter. It seems that no matter the circumstances, music was meant to be a fixed part of my life. I was determined to make music in any way possible without knowing why. This is passion in its purest form.

Growing up, I was involved in a myriad of activities. Eager to learn anything and everything, I took a variety of classes ranging from ballet to sign language. Flitting from one activity to another, I was perfectly happy to learn just a smidgen of something so that I could move on to the next. The only thing I didn’t fly away from was piano. No matter what play or soccer team I was involved in at the time, I always went to my piano lessons each week. It never seemed to be in question; my parents would ask me if I wanted to continue swim or Spanish lessons, but never piano. It was almost assumed that I would continue music. Why not? With every lesson, I came home with a greater understanding of music. I began to not only master the basics of piano, but of music in general. As soon as I learned the names of each note, I began to recognize music in everything. The microwave’s beep tone was “B”. Hitting a pen’s cap against the counter created a “C”. The more I noticed music, the more I noticed that I no longer needed the help of piano keys to create music. Music was no longer transferred from my brain to my fingers; it began to travel throughout my entire being before reaching my fingers. Before long, I was completely consumed by it.

Looking back on those first years of music, I’m amazed at how much true power music has. I’ve grown up from a kid whose attention span allowed no more than a year of any one activity to a kid whose entire life revolves around music. My activities outside of school consist of the local youth symphony, personal violin lessons, and any paid music jobs I have time to take. In the summer, I go to music camp. In my free time, I compose my own pieces. When I’m sitting quietly in class, my fingers are practicing that particularly difficult run in my most recent violin piece. For as long as I can remember, there’s never been a time when I haven’t had a song stuck in my head. I have no idea what true silence sounds like, and I’m not interested in learning. I want nothing more than to live a life full of music in every form possible.

I'll be shocked if you actually read that entire thing.

Less than three,

~ Summer