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Mansfield Lake Ridge High School's Eagle Media Website

Eagle Media

Mansfield Lake Ridge High School's Eagle Media Website

Eagle Media

Mansfield Lake Ridge High School's Eagle Media Website

Eagle Media

Staring in Horror at Skyward

Staring+in+Horror+at+Skyward

My name is Luisa Dalton, and my life, in almost every way, is that of a typical high school student: I’m a senior, stressing about my future, not understanding my calculus homework, complaining about waking up early, and I love petting my cute dog after a long day of school. However, my  “long day” is probably a little longer than most students that go to school here. I am a member of our marching band, meaning, I have rehearsal every day, except Wednesdays, until 6:15 and on Thursday’s until 6:45.

I have been to every football game. My Friday’s consist of crazy bus rides. Our most recent being a 6 hour ride to Oklahoma. I know what you’re thinking because I see the looks of sheer horror from my classmates when a band kid talks about their long, rigorous, schedules: how can anyone want to do that?! There is no better way to explain this than to experience it first hand. I am so in love with the feeling of dedicating yourself to an organization, or a group where you have created so many amazing memories and inside jokes. We work so hard, every single day. We march in the rain, in the summer, in the freezing cold, in tornado wind, all to put on our best show. There is no feeling like it, and while I understand the shocked expressions, I would never have survived high school without the relationships, experiences and life-lessons I’ve had because of band.

Our second football game got rained out. It was probably the weirdest football game I’ve ever been to in my four years here. There was thunder, lightning, hiding out in the tunnel to avoid electrocution by said lightning, moving back up into the stands, MORE lightning and then finally taking cover with 300-ish other people to avoid death by that last round of lightning. Not to say that it wasn’t a fun game, I loved just getting to talk to with the people around me, and just relax for the very long time until the game finally was considered too dangerous to continue. The same thing would happen at the next game, but instead, it got cancelled before any band or performer got there. I guess that’s just what happens when there are 5 hurricanes simultaneously happening in the gulf.

I have always been interested in the different ways that we all live our lives. After all, there are like 7 billion people on the Earth, and I have literally no idea how many of those 7 billion go to Lake Ridge. Maybe my version of a school day sheds some light on how someone other than yourself goes through the school day, and why band people just are the way we are. Hopefully, the little differences are interesting to someone other than myself, and more so than that, maybe those differences can inspire a new interest in someone before they graduate. After all, we’re only teenagers once, and we can’t spend all of our time staring in horror at our Skyward accounts.

Luisa Dalton plays flute for the Lake Ridge Band and hopes to attend the University of Texas at Austin where she plans to study business. She will be a special contributing writer throughout the school year.