Now, as stubborn as I was, I also did not want to do this since I thought composition was a waste of time. However I spent hours on my assignment, losing myself to the process of just placing notes down and hearing what they sounded like when I played them back. I even remember neglecting to eat dinner because I didn't want to stop. During class, I remember trying to play what I wrote and realising that I wrote somethin literally impossible for any violinist to play, let alone an 8th grader who's just been playing for less than a year. But for some reason, my teacher, Mrs. Taketa, called me back after class to tell me that I should invest time into composition. I had no idea what I was doing when I wrote my piece, but there was something she saw in the pile of jumbled notes that had convinced her. When she told me this, I was set on my path.
Coming back to San Diego for high school, I continued to give more of my life to music. I kept composing, eventually writing two pieces for my high school orchestra. I joined marching band, concert band, jazz band, choir band, and became president of the string orchestra. I got a part time job teaching kids how to play the violin as well. People would often ask me why I was burdening myself with all of these programs, and since I didn't exactly understand it yet, I couldn't tell them. I just knew it was what I wanted to do more than anything in the world. After the final concert of high school, where my first piece for symphonic orchestra 'A Cave Story' was performed, I was off to college in Pennsylvania. I chose this far away college because of my crush on classical music. Only a crush would make someone do something like that!
