Carola
Sorry I'm in my car, I have a little sister, and she's crying. And I was like, all right, I'll take this to the car.
So yeah, Spring Break started, I was excited to go on trips and stuff. And then everything got canceled and I went into quarantine, like an actual quarantine, for almost two months at my dad's house. I probably went to the store like four times within those like two months. But usually, for band, we would have drum major classes for about a month. And we would have in-person drum major auditions after classes, but we had to figure out how to do all of that online. And we had our audition online this year, which was weird, obviously. For a drum major audition, usually a big component of it is how you audition in front of the whole band. For the audition, you usually do it in a gym full of students, where the entire marching band is in the gym watching you one-by-one. Yeah. But we didn't get to do that. Usually the drum major audition is in front of the whole band but this year, it wasn't, so it kind of took out a really big part of the drum major audition, that dynamic. Because a big part of it is seeing who cracks under pressure and who doesn't. So, it was definitely interesting to see how people kind of adapted to the new online audition with just the directors, rather than in front of like 300 people.
And then, on a more personal note, I guess, it was harder to keep friendships. Me and my best friend kind of stayed together, but I kind of lost a lot of contact with people just because we were all kind of in the same "we're tired of quarantine" boat. And then the drum majors were selected, and we were supposed to be getting ready for TCU drum major camp, which we didn't get to go to. But we did an online camp so we definitely still adapted to that where we could. We did an online camp for a week. And then we were supposed to start marching band camp, and that didn't happen. Our season is canceled, our marching show is canceled, and we haven't been having practices. We had a three day mini camp, which I was thankful for, but we're definitely missing a lot of the in-person bonding and stuff. For the sections and the section leaders, there's not a lot of personal connections there. And definitely with the online stuff, a lot of us have been forced to be more tech savvy, which I think is good. But I would say that's how my life has changed. Because right now, this portion of the year for me would be all band -- band, band, band -- but now it's like no band at all. So it's definitely weird to adapt my brain to not being stressed out about that.
I would say the hardest thing is definitely not being able to see all of my friends at once, obviously, because we can't all just hang out with a large group. I'm definitely more of a friend-oriented person rather than family. That sounds terrible, but it's true. Yeah, I get kind of sad when I don't see my friends on a daily basis, so I definitely had to get used to facetiming and doing more online things. But I'm more of an in-person kind of person -- I like face-to-face. I'm a really social person. I love talking to people and helping people, but when it's online it's not as intimate, I guess, and I love intimate moments like deep conversations, so not having those was hard to get used to. I’m slowly adapting.
The drum majors, when we hang out together, whether it be because we have to film a video for band or something, we do it with social distance. Most of my, like, friend hangout social distancing has been in the band hall. I really just hang out with my best friend.
So, we don't have a show this year [for band]. So at first, in the first half of this six month period we've been going through, people were told to practice their show music, but that got officially cancelled. So now it's more pep band music. The drum majors are still practicing conducting and things like that, but we do a lot of video chats as the leadership team for the band. We do a lot of facetiming and leadership meetings, just to talk about what's happening, what we're doing, what's our next plan, and fundraisers. Right now we're working on an inspirational video. Yeah, this one is featuring random people in band. Not exactly leaders, but just for anybody to share a fond memory they had in the band hall, on a trip, or from when they were part of our little mini camp.
And we're just gonna make one big video. We want to kind of boost the morale, because right now I can definitely say most organizations are kind of like, "we're not having a season, we're not doing this, we're not doing that" so right now, our number one priority -- since we don't exactly have music to learn (other than pep tunes and Seven Nation Army) -- our main focus is obviously keeping everyone healthy, but also keeping the morale up, keeping the band character up. Because I would definitely say band is like the heart of Trinity. Like the tuba requiem, the pep rallies would be nothing without it. We're definitely just trying to keep morale up. All the leaders were told to not be down about the season, but rather than focusing on the things we still get to do. So, morale right now is probably our number one thing.
To keep my own spirits high, I’ve found a lot of hobbies. Recently, I started going to the gym, just because quarantine let me eat a lot of food that I shouldn't have. Hot cheetos, fast food every day. So I think just changing my lifestyle, as far as health and nutrition, I started eating a lot better. I started going to the gym consistently. I've been going for about a month now. So, just distracting myself, I found, helped me kind of, distract myself from what's happening. It’s sad not being able to go to roller skating rinks and movies and stuff like that. I picked up painting, I love painting. I'm also working on band stuff of course, like videos and things to kind of boost morale. What else am I doing for myself? That's such a deep question. I'm like wow, what am I doing for me? I hang out with my best friend, me and her will just find random things to do. We'll go to the park. Basically our method right now is to keep the chaos up here [in our heads], to keep finding things to do so that we're not thinking about okay, we have to be stuck at home all day again. I guess just being in contact with friends through the phone, and working out, eating better, things like that have made my body feel better. And then in turn it helps my mind because I'm not just being negative about my season being canceled and stuff like that.
I love constantly doing something. Like, my dad lives in the country, and so I was quarantined out there for like a month and a half or something. And everyone's asked me, "Oh, do you like the country life?" and I was like, no, because I love city life. Like, HEB is like as country as I'll go. It's not even... it's a suburb, but like, I need chaos, I need 100 things on my to-do list. I need to constantly be finishing something I started or else I'll go insane. I'm keeping myself busy.
I think online learning definitely makes real the quote, "every student is responsible for their own learning." They really tested students on the knowledge of that quote this year because obviously like... As far as the end of last year, it was so easy to just get super behind, copy everything the day before.
I personally liked it, because I could do things on my own schedule and I wasn't exactly needing to wake up at 8:30 to go to school. And I like learning by myself. Like, if you send me a PowerPoint or video, I'll look at it and learn and do my work, so I did like the self-teaching part of it, but at points you do just need a teacher there to answer a quick question. It was kind of... not annoying, but it was kind of a drag to have to email teachers or text them about such a minute thing. I missed the face to face question Q & A with the teachers, but I do love the self-paced work. And then, this year we obviously haven't started yet, but we're online for the first three weeks. And I think I'll enjoy it. We're on our laptops from 8:45 to 4:02, which is gonna be a lot. I generally liked the online format, but I know myself and know I do need more structure like this.
I need to be forced to wake up at 8:30. Like, I miss having a bedtime. I don't have that anymore. And I would definitely enjoy kind of having that forced structure on me again. I like waking up early. Going to school face to face definitely just makes me feel like I'm doing more with my life. I miss that aspect of it for sure. I missed the routine life of lunch at the same time every day going home at the same time every day I just, I definitely miss it.
I selected to go back after the three weeks online. I'm not exactly sure how that's gonna work. I think if we go back everyone has to wear a face mask and a face shield, which I'm totally fine with, but I know that's a big factor for a lot of people. I've talked to a lot of my friends who are like, “Ugh, face shield? No way, I'm saying home." which I think is dumb. But I will definitely be going back to school again. I need the structure.
… I think racism exists, like, literally everywhere. Especially at Trinity. Just as much as there are are a lot of non-white people at Trinity there's a lot of white people at Trinity. I don't think just having the right numbers for the most diverse high school in the nation makes us an exception at all, because I still hear a lot of racist things being said at Trinity. A lot of humor at Trinity is racism, it's like "dark humor." I don't think humor is being transphobic and homophobic and racist and sexist. I myself haven't experienced a lot of racist experiences, but I know for a fact other people have. There are hispanic girls at Trinity that you can hear across the school yelling the N word. Like, I don't know, it's not a personality trait to me. You don't get to say that word, it's off limits for us. Even being like in the LGBT+ community at Trinity, I've witnessed discrimination. Again, people take it as a light-hearted joke like, "Haha you're gay!" But it's not funny.
I'm friends with a lot of people at Trinity. I make it a point to know a lot of people, just because I appreciate knowing other people's opinions and points of views on different things. I appreciate knowing your side of the story, or why you have an opinion that's different than mine. Maybe I should be changing mine, or maybe you're about to inform me on something I didn't even think about. I definitely appreciate the amount of people I've like gotten close to that have enlightened me, like gay pride. I wanted to go to a gay pride parade this year, really badly. I really wanted to just, like, support.
These times we're going through are definitely eye opening for me, and it's revealing people's true characters, which I really appreciate. It's definitely setting straight the people I want in my life. So, yeah.
If there's a vaccine, I don't want it. In the future there will be a vaccine, and I personally don't think that a vaccine... Like, it has to go through years of testing to be safe. So I think a COVID vaccine could be kind of sketchy right now. For the rest of 2020 or maybe ‘21, I think it's a little sketchy. Like, I definitely wouldn't race to go get it. I would not. Like I'm vaccinated [for other diseases], but I'm kind of cautious about what I put in my body.
This I guess isn't really part of the theme here, but I'm really big into conspiracy theories. Where this vaccine, apparently... we're eventually going to get this ship inserted into our hand or our forehead or something. And like, all of our information, like social security and driver's license, everything, is going to be on this chip. And that is terrifying to me. It's actually really scary to think about, so with my conspiracy theory mind, to think about where the future's going is terrifying.
But for how I want the future to actually go… Obviously I want COVID to go away, ASAP. I think people need to stop making health a political view and just wear a mask. I need parents to stop yelling at workers at stores because they don't want to wear their mask. Yeah, we all want life to go back to normal. I want to be able to go to college as a freshman and experience all the normal college freshman stuff. I already don't have a senior marching season, which I worked really hard for and the whole band worked really hard for. This year was supposed to be a state year, and we were supposed to compete for finals at Area to go to State, and I was really thinking we were going to make finals this year, but now we don't get the opportunity. So I definitely hope the future looks better than what my senior year is looking to be like. I hope roller skating rinks open soon, I've been wanting to go to SkateTown for forever.
I don't mind wearing masks, I honestly think that stores should be open, but not schools. I don't think we should be going to school soon. I think the three weeks should be changed to the original six week plan, which would make us go back to school September 28. I think the second we go back to school, which is only in three weeks, that's going to be way too soon and there's going to be another spike in case numbers. I want to be able to see my friends again, but i think we should stay online for the near future.
The way the world is right now and the cancel culture and stuff like that… It's like something has to explode online before people really pay attention to it. And I don't think it should have to get to that level before we do something.
I hope that in the future people take each other's opinions more respectfully. But in my eyes, opinion... like, you can't have a different opinion than me as far as Black lives. Like, if your opinion is that you don't think Black lives are equal to white ones, you know, it's not just “Oh we have different opinions,” it's like, you're wrong. When it comes to sexism and racism and discrimination against anyone, that's not an opinion, it's about being human.
Quotes edited for clarity.
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