Our instructors have always told us that "the way you rehearse is the way you perform." So that week we attempted to set a good tone by our rehearsal technique. We started our Tuesday night practice by running a mile and doing some basics. Then we spent the rest of the night running large chunks. At the end of rehearsal we did two runs, and the fun part was that the second was more energized than the first. That was probably due in part to Mr. Wilson yelling right before we began our second run, "Valley Christian, you may take the field...take the field...TAKE IT!...in competition!"

That Thursday was an extremely long day. I spent a lot of the morning at the Fairmont Hotel downtown with ensemble, singing at a prayer breakfast. By the time I got to school, I was exhausted. But of course it was a band night. The rehearsal didn't go quite as well as any of us had hoped. Our instructors yelled a lot, and at the very end of rehearsal, our star mallet player, Mike, suddenly got very sick. It was pretty scary. So Laura and I helped bring pit equipment down, which was an experience.

The next day Laura went home with me because we were playing for a football game that night. Somehow we got onto the subject of band, and I happened to mention that I was ready for the season to be over. Of course, being the obsessive band member that she is, Laura jumped on that. "Don't say that," she said. "If you enjoy it, you won't wish for it to be over. Think of all the seniors," she added. "It's their last year. You should support them and enjoy it for them."

Just a few hours later, we were back at City College for the game. It was a Bellarmine home game, so all the Bellarmine fans were frontfield and none of us knew which way to face. The fact that there were only college hashes wasn't so exciting either. Neither was the fact that it had just been raining. But we went on anyway. As we marched onto the field, the Bellarmine pep band was up in the stands playing. All band people know that that's generally a really rude thing to do, so we were all getting pretty ticked. Now with some bands, getting mad makes them mess up. But not our band. When we get mad, we get adrenaline and we do great. So as soon as we turned backfield to our fans and played our first note of the show, everyone sitting frontfield shut right up. And it turned out to be one of our best shows. Ladies and gentlemen, don't mess with the band.

As Laura and I left that night, I thought about what we'd talked about. After our halftime performance, I think I'd proved to myself that I was into this.

Our show at Logan was the next day. We rehearsed in the morning as usual, then loaded buses and trailer and headed to Union City. Our show was pretty good technically, but not very exciting emotionally. We ended up getting 1st place with a score of 89.23. The school we lost to was Hart, a band from southern California. They swept all the captions with a score of 90.25. We watched their show from backfield, and I thought they deserved to win. We did beat Live Oak by about a point and a half, which was good. It put us in a good position, because we learned that we were not invincible, yet we didn't get creamed. But we all knew our instructors were going to go absolutely insane on us the next week in preparation for championships the next weekend.

Laura and I also managed to get Matt very mad at us. During our double file back to the trailer after performing, we went to a different pistol position for our own convenience. Laura had apparently asked Matt about it before and he said it was fine, but then he decided it wasn't fine and was angry.

On Monday in band class we didn't play. We spent a lot of time talking about our show, and then Mr. Gunter said, "I want to do something right now. We're going to listen to the original recording of the Gloria, and I just want you to listen. Listen for technical stuff, but also listen to the emotion of the song." With that he turned off the lights and turned on the CD, and I closed my eyes and sat back. For the next 18 or so minutes I was entranced in the music. I'd heard it so many times before, but this time it was like I was hearing it for the first time ever. I heard so many things I'd never heard before, and the very message of it touched my heart.

Tuesday we had night rehearsal. It was just draining. Between school and band Caitlyn came up to Laura and me. "We had a section leader meeting today," she said, "and Matt said something about you guys and a different pistol position...?"

Laura groaned and I said, "Yes, that's true, but we worked it out with him last week, so we thought it was okay."

Caitlyn nodded. "You might want to talk to him, just to be sure," she said.

At dinner we discussed it and decided we didn't like the fact the Matt had brought up the problem in the section leader meeting before talking to us. So before practice we went up to Mr. Gunter to talk to him about it. Why we didn't just talk to Matt, I don't know, but that's what happened. We told him what was going on, and he got this look on his face that said, "Why is this a big deal?" But he responded patiently. "Have you talked to Matt about it yet?"

"We were going to at the end of practice," I said, since Laura looked close to tears.

Mr. Gunter blinked. "It's something between you and your section leader," he said. "There's nothing I can do about it. It's true that he should have talked to you first, but it's between you three. And I really don't want to have a problem before champs, so please, I beg you, work it out."

After this not-so-encouraging talk, we headed up to the field in time for running. Hooray. I don't remember what we did that night at practice, but afterward Matt called both of us over. He told us his side, and I tried to be respectful while discussing it with him. I explained to him the necessity of this different position, and he shrugged. "I just don't think it looks very clean," he said. "And since you're in the trombone section, I'm gonna want you to do the trombone pistol position."

I agreed to that and left rehearsal calmly. I didn't see the need for making a huge deal out of it. Laura, however, was really angry. When I talked to her online later that night, she was all for going and talking to Gunter about it as soon as championships were over. I warned her not to make it a bigger deal than it already was. I also didn't want to get involved in such a trivial debate. Mr. Gunter had been right: we had bigger things to worry about this week.

Thursday night was our Parents' Night performance. Every year, the last rehearsal before champs is always reserved for a special performance for family and friends. We began the night with rehearsal, and after about an hour we got into uniform as our family and friends trickled into the stadium. At the beginning Mr. Gunter got on the mic and did a little presentation of the seniors and had them all go give their parents flowers... a Parents' Night tradition. It was weird to think that next year, that would be me.

Finally we began our run. I had been tired up until we marched onto the field double file, and then I suddenly got a burst of energy. Knowing I would need it, I managed to bottle it up for our runthrough. It was a good thing I did, because it was a great run. I was just running out of that energy until, between the ballad and the closer, I spotted Dave, a friend who had graduated the year before, climbing the stadium stairs. I grinned to myself, and that gave me enough adrenaline to get through the closer well.

As soon as we hit our last set, horn manual, note, and cutoff, Caitlyn saluted to the cheering parents and Mr. Gunter called, "Parade rest!" We went to parade rest, and our fans continued to scream. "Another one! Another one!" they shouted. Mr. Gunter came on the mic. "Band, get set for another run!"

We ran back to the end zone. Actually, I skipped back. I had an even bigger burst of energy than for the last run, and the second was even more solid than the first. Afterward we loaded the trailer and headed home.

We were scheduled to leave for Fresno the next evening. Judging from our performances that night, we were ready. Judging from the rest of our season, we were definitely ready. It was almost too good to be true. But now we had one show left, hopefully two (prelims and finals). Would we pull through? All 80 of us could only hope and pray that all our hard work would pay off on Saturday.