Eagling and Extras

Last weekend, I carried out my long-overdue eagle project.  Yes, I am a boy scout.  Somewhat redeemed by the fact that I actually intend to become an eagle scout.  The demographics of the scouting activity in America follows a sort of trough of normalcy.  Everybody does Cub Scouts, so that's when it's at its peak level of "normal."  Then, all the "cool" kids quit and in the middle school days boy scouts ends up being a gathering of sort of odd, socially inept youths.  I was one of them.  But then once you get into the older days of boyhood some of the kids attain the rank of eagle, and these are usually the best people you can know.  Because the whole "Eagle" thing basically says that you are of a certain caliber in life.  That's why everybody who gets it is so proud of it, and why everybody shows respect for them.  That's my justification for that.  Plus the high adventures are really fun.  One of the best times of my  life was spent at Philmont Scout Ranch in Cimmaron, New Mexico.

Anyway, yeah, last weekend I did my project, which was removing garlic mustard from Bishop's Bog Preserve in my city.  I had lots of trouble getting it approved for no comprehensible reason.  The people in charge of my approval were obsessed with details - the only truly valid point they made was regarding how I would feed my volunteers. So basically, I just rambled more about everything (less concisely) and they agreed that it was much better.  I'm over it.

So the last possible date that I could conceivably do the project was the Saturday, May 8th.  It was about 45 degrees, wet, windy, and frigid.  I was so afraid that people wouldn't show up, even though I invited about 90 people.  Luckily I managed to acquire 20, even though I never had more than 15 at any given point in the day.  We also didn't remove as much (in terms of acreage) as I had initially envisioned, but that's because it takes so long to remove the plant - it grows in huge, dense swaths in the woods.  However, I'm not complaining about it, because we filled 88 gigantic bags full of weeds by the end of the day.  This is a lot.  I'm very thankful for everyone who helped me achieve my goal.  Now I just have to write up my project, get a few recommendation letters, get a bunch of approval signatures, and finally acquire two extra merit badges before I can meet a Review Board and hopefully join the coveted rank of Eagle. (For the record, merit badges are the bane of my existence and also the reason why a lot of kids quit Boy Scouts.  They are the biggest waste of time and effort imaginable.  So don't judge me by them.)

In unrelated news, this week also marked my final experience in my school's band and in Legends Indoor Ensemble.  (I still will call it "Legends Brass and Percussion Ensemble" though, because renaming something "Indoor" is one of the things I will never agree with.  Winter Legends?  Maybe.  There are winter drumlines.  But there aren't any "indoor drumlines")  Each year the seniors inherit a letter of the alphabet and dress up according to a theme that begins with that letter.  In 2007, the theme was Z for "zombies".  In 2008, the theme was A for "AARP" and everybody dressed as old people.  It was quite clever.  In 2009, the theme was B for "bums".  This year we had the letter C, and we decided to use a "circus" theme.  Turns out it was a fantastic theme.  I wore a Tyvec suit built for a person who is 7 feet tall (XXXXL, I shit you not), a big elastic belt, a far-too-small blue ski helmet with a red star on it, and a superheroesque black cape with a larger red star on it.  I was the human cannonball.  It was awesome.  Some other costumes included three clowns, a strong man, a few magicians, fortune tellers, a ringleader, a lion tamer, a creepy balloon-animal-guy, a bearded lady, and a mime.  There are more, I know it, but I can't remember them right now.  Anyway, I played timpani for one piece called "Instinctive Travels" by Michael Markowski.  It was okay.  The stage we played on wasn't our own, so it sounded odd and I screwed up a little bit as a result.  After that, Legends played.  It wasn't a great performance, percussion-wise.  Whatever.  I was sort of expecting that.  It was a pretty mediocre concert.  Oh well.

The next day we had our band banquet.  The seniors were supposed to do a rainbow with their shirt colors.  I was supposed to be yellow.  There isn't a fucking yellow shirt on this god damned Earth.  So instead, I wore the tackiest shirt possible. (Nevermind the fact that I look like I'm about 11 years old)

Anyway, yeah, I managed to make the rainbow really awkward and broken.  But I wore this one for the sole sake of being able to ACCOMMODATE ALL THE COLORS BECAUSE I'M SPECIAL.

I was recognized for three things that night, two of which I was expecting.

1. Being a senior (expected)
2. Being in a leadership position (expected)
3. Being an "outstanding senior musician" (what?)

Usually they give that last award to the same people each year, which does not include me in my class.  So I guess I feel special.  Our director explained that it was because he liked that I was one of the only people to stick with the band program even with KAMSC conflicts (which are many, considering that band and KAMSC occur at the same time), which he wrote into a recommendation letter I had asked him to send at one point.  It was a touching moment.

Overall, it was a decent week.  I'm happy to be blogging again, however uninteresting the content/reflection is.  I spent most of April and the early portion of this month pretty damn depressed (for reasons that aren't worth sharing until they're completely in the past) and it's good to know be able to find a place to semi-address it in a way that isn't a complete emotional exhibition.