My ultimate goal in life has always been to be successful - to be happy with the career I choose, and to be able to make a living off of it. I 've always know, at least halfway, that I would have to work very hard to accomplish that goal, that promising futures are most often built off of how you conduct yourself in school. However, it 's really difficult to see how your future will pan out when you 're a high school freshman with no idea what you want to do, and despite your every effort, can 't seem to make yourself finish the simplist of homework assignments.
Up until the ninth grade, I was able to get by on procrastination. The middle school I went to really wanted the students to believe we were being prepared for high school. But we …show more content…
I was diagnosed with Asperger 's Syndrome, an autism spectrum disorder. The pieces began to fall into place. I have memories of before my family moved to Texas, when my parents would take me to spend time with a woman who watched me play with toys and gave me snacks I wasn 't normally allowed to have. Turns out, I was being evaluated for a learning disability - I had exhibited some red flags in my preschool, but I ultimately passed the evaluation. My problems weren 't of the learning variety, but of the social. I 've always had trouble making friends. When put into new situations, even good ones, my stomach clenches and I start to feel sick. When someone tries to be sarcastic with me, it 's always been a 50/50 toss up whether or not I would pick up on it. I don 't always understand facial expressions. And when I can 't make myself do things I know I need to do, it 's not because I 'm lazy, but because people with autism often experience something called executive dysfunction, whose definition is exactly what I had described to the therapist in my sophomore …show more content…
In band, you have to do a lot before you recieve any kind of gain from the program. You pay a lot for an instrument and all the supplies before the sixth grade. If you 're like me, and already knew how to read music before joining band, you have to sit around for a long time while your classmates learn. After that, it 's a long time spent learning how to play single notes on your instrument, and even longer before you get to play an actual song. By the time you reach high school, you 're giving so much that you don 't, often times, have a lot left to give to much else. Marching band is mandatory, so you have to stay after school, come before school, and practice your music on your own time. At some point or another, most students get new instruments that are more suited to players with advanced abilities. I got a new flute right before ninth grade. It was almost 3000 dollars, and my parents still had to pay band fees. However, you start to gain a lot. Being in high school marching band is like making a hundred or more close friends all at once. Music is an outlet for lots of kids, and it 's also really good for your brain. When you peform a sheet of music, you use the majority of your brain all at the same time. Band programs start to offer master classes, and ways for students to network and meet teachers from schools they might go to in the future. You start to gain so much, and by the time you graduate from high school, you 've learned a
Up until the ninth grade, I was able to get by on procrastination. The middle school I went to really wanted the students to believe we were being prepared for high school. But we …show more content…
I was diagnosed with Asperger 's Syndrome, an autism spectrum disorder. The pieces began to fall into place. I have memories of before my family moved to Texas, when my parents would take me to spend time with a woman who watched me play with toys and gave me snacks I wasn 't normally allowed to have. Turns out, I was being evaluated for a learning disability - I had exhibited some red flags in my preschool, but I ultimately passed the evaluation. My problems weren 't of the learning variety, but of the social. I 've always had trouble making friends. When put into new situations, even good ones, my stomach clenches and I start to feel sick. When someone tries to be sarcastic with me, it 's always been a 50/50 toss up whether or not I would pick up on it. I don 't always understand facial expressions. And when I can 't make myself do things I know I need to do, it 's not because I 'm lazy, but because people with autism often experience something called executive dysfunction, whose definition is exactly what I had described to the therapist in my sophomore …show more content…
In band, you have to do a lot before you recieve any kind of gain from the program. You pay a lot for an instrument and all the supplies before the sixth grade. If you 're like me, and already knew how to read music before joining band, you have to sit around for a long time while your classmates learn. After that, it 's a long time spent learning how to play single notes on your instrument, and even longer before you get to play an actual song. By the time you reach high school, you 're giving so much that you don 't, often times, have a lot left to give to much else. Marching band is mandatory, so you have to stay after school, come before school, and practice your music on your own time. At some point or another, most students get new instruments that are more suited to players with advanced abilities. I got a new flute right before ninth grade. It was almost 3000 dollars, and my parents still had to pay band fees. However, you start to gain a lot. Being in high school marching band is like making a hundred or more close friends all at once. Music is an outlet for lots of kids, and it 's also really good for your brain. When you peform a sheet of music, you use the majority of your brain all at the same time. Band programs start to offer master classes, and ways for students to network and meet teachers from schools they might go to in the future. You start to gain so much, and by the time you graduate from high school, you 've learned a