My Story: Senior Year

My exhaustive schedule was finally getting to me during senior year. There were days I would wake up dizzy, and wouldn't tell anyone. Thankfully those days I didn't have flag rehearsal!

Between flags, orchestra, the city-wide orchestra I was in, church, seminary (church classes every morning at 5:30), violin lessons, and homework, I was literally never home. This certainly helped senior year fly by.

After working like crazy, I was given the second violin concerto part, but apparently wasn't good enough, because my orchestra teacher took it away and gave it to my friend. I cried for the rest of the school day (humiliating enough!). Weeks before our orchestra was supposed to go to California for competition, our concert major got in trouble and was no longer allowed to perform in anything extracurricular. Suddenly, I was concert master, and had the first violin concerto part. Thankfully I had learned both.

The night before we left, I started getting sick. I was bus captain and couldn't talk louder than a squeaky whisper. Everyone on the bus got a kick out of that, including my teacher who did quite the squeaky me impressions. By the time we were in California, rehearsing hours before our performance, I was having coughing fits and could not play through them. I'll never forget my teacher's face each time I stopped to cough.

Miraculously I was able to play through the performance without coughing and we won out of all the orchestras there. We spent the rest of our trip at Disneyland, Six Flags, the beach and Hollywood.

Though when my part was taken away from me, I was humiliated and hurt, it ended up being a blessing because I was able to transition to the first violin part. My friend, who was given my part, was so upset that she went home and told her father. The next day she showed up at school with a letter from him for me. He wrote of his shock and disapproval of my teacher's decision having heard me play at another concert, and wrote words of encouragement and sympathy. Of greatest note was the sentence expressing his firm belief that I was a princess and loved daughter of God. To receive that letter almost made the whole ordeal bearable because I knew that someone else felt I had worth.

This is the second to last week of Mommy's Piggy Tales where we have recorded our youth each week. If you wish to participate in the next session, please visit Mommy's Piggy Tales and contact Janna!