Ochester

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I was surprisingly nervous about going to Orchestra practice for the first time. I found it intimidating because no matter how many people I asked I couldn't find anyone else who was also in it. Today I found out why...there are only nine members, including myself. I absolutely loved it though. I had to sight read which is something I'm not particularly good at. This made my first pratice with a small group mildly humiliating. Added to that is the fact that I was the only flute. There was one other wind instrument, a clarinet, played by a guy in the 13th grade called Mathias. With the exception of he and I the entire group was stringed instruments. I spoke with a girl who plays cello and discovered that she spent her 11th year in America for foreign exchange. My director is quite nice however I think he was a bit put out by my lack of skills in signt reading. I was able to keep up farily well with conversation, though, which means that my german is coming along. Slowly, yes, but its's still coming. I'm happy to be playing flute again. Since nearly the third grade I've been in band and I never actually noticed how much I loved it until now. There are so few talents that I possess which have been worked on for that long of an amount of time. So, I really need to stick with things like this . It's also nice just to have something to commit myself to. I already have dance and my language camp, but adding choir and orchestra has given me a feeling of having so much more ambition. I have a chance to speak with new people from my school, whom all seem to be very kind, and I'm continueing my education in the area of music when every other subject save German has been pushed from my mind.

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