2003 was a great year. Not as great as 2004, or 2005, or 2006, or 2007, or 2008, or the start of 2009, or 2001, 2002, 1999, 1998, 1997, 1996, 1995, 1994, 1993, 1992, 1991, 1990, 1989, 1988, 1987, 1986, 1985, 1984, or around 44 BC, but an excellent year nonetheless.
The second year at UH was markedly different from the first. Where the first year I hardly went to class and had long bouts of insomnia, the second had a lot of the same but I recall eating more pecan pie.
The second year at UH was also my first year in the marching band. All told, this was my third year of marching band counting high school. The level of marching was on par to what I was used to. We even had a band director that reminded me of my first director.
Between dancers, color guard, and all of the band itself, we fielded about 300 people.
The first week was an awing week, as the sheer grandeur of college marching was quite the sight to behold. It was also, of course, grueling. In high school we learned to march a show to perfection in a few months. Now, we had two weeks per show, or less. I believe we had 30-40 causalities within the first hour.
Two things struck me on that first day. The first was that there were no bad marchers. By my senior year of high school I wasn't the best, but I was extremely able. At UH, I could easily have been on the bottom tier of marchers, particularly that first week since my freshman year could easily be summed up as an excess of inactivity. But I never gave up. And neither did anyone else. The second thing was that at the end of practice, we all came together around the director and we sang the alma mater. My high school didn't practice a similar tradition so to hear such vigorous (and perhaps angelic? I'm not sure, I was in beaucoup amounts of agony) singing after such hard work.
It was inspiring. Or brainwashing. I'm still not sure.
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"I think, maybe... its both" (Forrest Gump)
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