The whole Wilson ordeal aside, I had my own struggles on the field. I was still having trouble holding up the baritone long enough to march basics, let alone play a show. By the time we finished a half-hour basics block, my back would be stiff and my arms would be shaking. I was also not quite able to play the entire show even when sitting in the band room. It was very discouraging. My friends Laura and Kei, who had also switched from woodwinds to brass that season, tried hard to encourage me and tell me I was doing a great job for having missed band camp and the week after that in the summer. But no matter what they said, I still felt like I wasn't contributing. And the problem was, I knew what I had to fix but didn't have time to fix it at home.

For a little while there weren't too many conflicts with Mr. Wilson. Night practices went fairly well. We were still learning new drill and closing holes in our formations, and it was generally very productive. In the beginning of September our instructors decided that in order to build up our endurance for the last 30 seconds of the show, we would run at the beginning of rehearsal. We had to run in step in a block formation, with Caitlyn running in front of us and tapping on the gock block. We began with doing just one lap each night, with the promise that that would increase throughout the season. For those of us who hated running, this was not such good news. But our instructors told us that it would ultimately help us, so no one complained.

We also began doing a chant at the end of every practice. Caitlyn and Ben had learned it at drum major camp and decided it would benefit our band. It went like this.

How are your heels? "Together!" Stomachs? "In!" Chest? "Out!" Shoulders? "Back!" Elbows? "Frozen!" Chins? "Up!" Eyes? "With pride!"

New problems continually arose, however. The next to surface among my group of super-devoted friends was the lack of seniority we now had in our band. My freshman year seniority had still existed and everyone was happy with it. Now the freshmen were treated equally, if not better than, the seniors. Sophomores were being made section leader over juniors and seniors who were just as qualified. This bothered a few people, but unfortunately not enough to make a difference. It was also irritating that some of the more irresponsible section leaders, mine for example, constantly showed up late to practice or didn't show up at all. This was not a quality of a good section leader, but Mr. Gunter was set in his ways and determined not to change things in the middle of the season.

Things just continued along until the second weekend in September, when we held our weekend band camp at Fort Ord, an old army base in Monterey (I wonder what our instructors were trying to imply when they planned to have it at an army base). We left on a Friday after school and got there in time for some sectionals before dinner. Our section leader, Matt, had a water polo tournament, so Laura took over until he arrived. After dinner we went out on the field and practiced until after 10. I personally was not energized, but apparently everyone else was, because when Mr. Wilson asked if we could do better, everyone else would yell, "Yes! Let's do it again!" By the time we were done my back was so sore that I had to lay down on the track while everyone else played a very random game that Caitlyn, Ben (our assistant drum major) and the section leaders had come up with. Around 11 we grabbed our stuff and hiked to the sports facility where we would be sleeping. The girls had the handball courts, so we designated one the quiet room and one the talking room. I tossed my stuff in a far corner of the quiet room and was asleep in minutes.

The next morning we started practice around 8:45. We first did some basics and then worked on the ballad a bit. At lunch we were given drill for the closer, so Laura and I wrote it all in our dot books so we'd be prepared. As it turns out, the instructors gave us a rather long break during rehearsal just for that purpose, so we got a little time to hang out and rest. The rest of the day was spent learning the drill. The low brass and the bass drums were far backfield in one set, and we were getting bored, so the Richard, tuba section leader and Tom, the 4th bass drum player, started messing around a little. And then there was Paul, who returned late from lunch break because he'd been playing soccer with some junior high girls. Gotta love Paul.

At dinner they opened up the pool for us, so we were able to go swimming for a while. That was nice because it was brutally hot. After dinner we worked on some of the bigger chunks of the show. The Monterey fog rolled in around 8:00, and it was fun to march the ballad in the fog because we had some backfield scatter sets that looked really cool. It reminded me of Star Wars. At the very end of practice we did one run of the show with the Doctor (the metronome) and one without. After the second run I was really excited. We had done a great job for our first ever full runthrough. Then after our instructors talked to us about the weekend, there was a reward for the team that won Friday night's game. They got to pie Mr. Gunter and Mr. Wilson. After much running around and general craziness, we loaded the buses and the trailer and went home.

Overall, despite the daytime heat, the nighttime fog, and constant green dust from the field that got all over everything, it was one awesome weekend. I was very interested to see if we could keep up the enthusiasm in our normal rehearsals. By the time we left, I was also feeling a lot better about the situation with Mr. Wilson. I felt like he really had a lot to do with our work ethic that weekend, and I liked what went on. I hoped that it could continue once we were back home. In general, I think that weekend was the turning point for me.