First Place
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I step through the doors of the University of Georgia Hugh Hodgson School of Music with a feeling of dread in my stomach. This is it. The GMTA, the Georgia Music Teachers’ Association State competition. After hours of hard practicing, extra lessons, and multiple difficult arguments with my mom, it all comes down to 8 minutes. “No!” I scream, red faced, at my mom. “No! You can’t make me practice if I don’t want to! I hate piano! I want to quit!” “You can’t quit now, Marisa. You’ve come so far! Practice for just 15 minutes more!" My mom tells, begs, yells at me over and over again. “I hate piano! I hate this stupid- this stupid- this- this- I hate all of it! There’s absolutely no point in playing the piano!” “There is, Marisa! You’re really talented in playing the piano. Believe it or not, you’ve improved since yesterday! Just try one more time!” She says to me once again, like every other time I practice the piano and decide I want to quit. And like always, I reply, “You’re just saying that because you’re my mom! You don’t mean a single word of it!” “I’m not, Marisa, and you know it! You’re good at playing the piano. Try again, please!” “No! I won’t! I can’t!” Just as she always does, Mommy storms off, shouting, “I will never make the mistake of helping you practice! It’s your choice if you don’t practice! It’s up to you!” I start crying, and think, why couldn’t this time be different? Why can’t I seem to practice without fighting with Mommy? I close the lid of the Baldwin piano and turn all of the lights off. I walk upstairs to my bathroom to shower, which always makes me calm down. As I pass my parent’s room, I can hear Mommy, as always, ranting to my dad about how difficult I am, and how she is sick of trying to get me to practice. She just doesn’t understand. I want to do well during the competition. I want to make my family proud of me. I really do, but when I actually sit down to practice the piano, the feeling of dread overcomes me, and I can’t make my fingers move. I don’t understand it. I want to practice, but I can’t. The very air of the Music Center is tense, while the sound of sonatas, waltzes, and concertos fills the otherwise hushed building. Numerous families sit in the waiting area with their children, while contestants and one of their family members walk them up the stairs to the third floor, where the auditions are held. I clutch Mommy’s hand as another wave of nerves wash over me. What if I mess up? What if all of the hours I’ve spent practicing aren’t enough? I walk past other pianists, all wearing their best, with similar expressions of nervousness on their faces. I walk, trembling slightly, to the check-in desk. “What grade are you in?” The lady officiating the sign-in desk asks me. She looks tired, having been sitting in the same chair at the same desk for the entire day. “Fifth,” I reply. “Name?” she asks. “Woo. Marisa Woo,” I say, glancing down at the roster and pointing out my name. “All right,” she says, taking my music and flipping through the pages. “It all seems to be in order. Would you like to warm up your fingers?” I nod, and she points me down the hallway. “You can use practice room number 3 until you perform,” she tells me. I walk down to the third room and sit at the piano. There are dampers covering the walls to muffle the sound of the music. I play a scale to warm up my fingers, and begin with the Sonate by Joseph Haydn, and go through the measures I have had trouble with before without making any mistakes. I feel confident, and run through both of my pieces. I practice the same measures I have always had memory issues with, and suddenly forget how to play them. I begin to panic, pounding the keys, trying desperately to remember the notes. I begin to cry. This is what I was so worried about- messing up right before my audition, and completely forgetting how to play. I had already had this experience last year. Why did it have to happen again? Tears fall from my eyes, splattering on the keyboard and staining my dress. I hated the feeling of helplessness, the feeling of failure. Mommy opens the music and frantically flips to the correct page, trying to keep me from panicking. She places the book on the ledge and says, “Here, use the music. It’s okay, Marisa. Take a deep breath. Just try again.” I take a deep, shuddering breath, and slowly pick up from where I messed up. I stumble a few times, but gradually remember how to play. I push the music away, and try from memory. I take another deep breath and play the whole song again. I walk into the Preparatory Music building, up to the fourth floor for my piano lesson. Dr. Lee is still in her studio with another of her students. I walk with my mom and sister to the sitting room, and wait, with a feeling of dread in my stomach. I have not practiced the section I have trouble with nearly enough times. I knew, yesterday, that I would regret not running over it ten times like she asked me to. I did not want to have to bear her disappointed look, the heavy sigh. The door to the waiting room creaks open, and Dr. Lee steps in. She smiles at me.“Hi Marisa! Hi Alyssa! How are you today?” I give her a small smile, and quietly reply “Good. How are you?” “Good, good, good! Marisa, would you like to go first today?” I nod, and stand up, the black music bag slung across my shoulder. She tells me to run through my pieces, from beginning to end. I place my hands on the keyboard and play. I begin to stumble, over and over again, mistake after mistake. I begin to cry, but not just because I cannot play the music, but because Dr. Lee seems so disappointed in me. I hate that she is so upset, and I am frustrated with myself that I cannot just play the music, and make her proud. Dr. Lee is such an incredible person, and she has made such an impact on me, I cannot even begin to put it into words. She has helped me through the struggle of learning difficult pieces, and she always knows how to help me. She always sacrifices her time to help her students. Even when she is sick, or after she comes back from a long trip to perform, she takes time that she should spend relaxing to help prepare us for our competitions. When my name is called, I step nervously into the judge’s studio and hand the judge my music. She is sitting at her table with a mug of coffee. She gives me an encouraging smile, and I hesitantly return a small smile. “Would you like to try out the piano?” she asks me. “Yes, please,” I say. I play a scale, and look to the judge, waiting for her to nod, letting me know I can begin. I begin with my Sonata by Haydn, and make subtle mistakes throughout the piece. I finish, and tell myself to calm down. My performance of the Sonata cannot affect my waltz. I must keep going. I take a deep breath, and count in my head. 1, 2, 3, 1, 2, 3. I begin. My waltz is not much better than my sonata, and I feel deflated. As I leave the University of Georgia Hugh Hodgson School of Music, though I feel upset that I did not perform the pieces as well as I had hoped, I learned many valuable lessons along my journey to State. While my mother I fought and argued constantly, we grew closer because I saw my mother as more than just a person who cares for me and is always cheerful. Instead, I saw her frustrations, her tears, and her perseverance. I felt a closer relationship to my teacher, and respected her more than I once did; I did not dread piano lessons as I did before. The struggle to State had changed me; I overcame the difficulty of practicing the piano, and working hard to achieve the seemingly impossible goal of advancing to the State auditions. The journey to State humbled me and helped me become the pianist I am today. |
Second Place
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The wind whistled through the canyons, snapping my hair back as I tried to wrestle it into a ponytail. My wings flared behind me, trying to help me regain a sense of balance so I didn’t go tumbling off the side of the canyon. And yes, I did say wings. Bird-like in structure, (that is, they were black-feathered and three-jointed) but to a much larger scale, and they were as much a part of me as my arms or head. Although my body was otherwise occupied, my mind was racing through my pre-flight checklist, trying to make sure I didn’t forget something I would later regret. My friends, all like me, (that is, also winged and not just, like, professional skydivers or something) were already throwing themselves off the ledge, having tucked their own canes under their arms like they were ski poles. Speaking of which… canes? Check. There’s some disadvantages to having wings, too, as the group of us quickly found out. All of our legs were extremely long and lightweight, at the expense of being almost ridiculously weak. It was a side effect, of sorts, of the whole wings-thing, so that this way they weren’t as much giant meat anchors trying to fly as much as they were much smaller weights. Because of this, though, we couldn’t move fluidly or easily without walkers. Seeing how difficult a big, bulky walker would be to fly with, though, we sacrificed absolute speed for two boy scout-style walking sticks each, both extremely lightweight and able to collapse if needed. It wasn’t perfect by any stretch, but it worked. “Hey, Osprey, you coming, or what?” My friends – four in total, excluding me – were gaining height as quickly as possible, trying to ride out the desert thermals to stay close enough to me as they waited. Their shadows were almost humorously bird-like, with the tails of sorts attached to their legs. Tail…. The tails definitely gave us the most trouble trying to figure out. After several horrific attempts to fly tail-less, we knew we had to make them somehow. After several hours and much arguing, the five of us finally settled on a design – a triangle on each foot stretching from ankle to knee, just about a foot wide. From the back of the knee to the ankle was another triangle, only this one was about six inches wide, that we used to help stabilize everything. We were still trying to figure out how to hook our legs together so we wouldn’t have to work as hard, but it was, as was most things we were doing these days, a work in progress. We found that, although the tails helped quite a lot, they didn’t work as well as a bird’s would, due to the lack of feathers. Plucking them, of course, isn’t exactly good for our wings, and it hurt, anyways. Check. Finally managing to wrangle my hair back, I pulled my glasses down over my eyes. They encased my eyes, keeping them free of dirt as well as stopping them from becoming windblown. No comment on whether or not they, ah, legally came into my possession. “You’ve got wings, not a turtle shell! C’mon, Osprey! I want to be able to make it to the waterfall by dark, and it’s not exactly helping that you’re wasting the last of the daylight.” I glanced over to the sun – it was indeed starting to set. The desert was already being lit up various shades of red, orange, pink, and yellow. No matter how many times I watched the sun set, I would never get sick of the show. But Max’s right. It’s not a safe idea to try and land by the waterfall in the dark. Glasses. Check. We didn’t have a third eyelid, like most birds, to keep dust and bugs and such out of our eyes. Instead, we procured ski goggles, of sorts, to do the job for us. Unluckily, though, there’s nothing to stop gnats or flies from flying into your mouth or up your nose at high velocities while flying. Bag. I looked down to the drawstring backpack hanging off my front, which was filled with assorted dehydrated meals and protein bars, as well as my jacket. If we were going to make camp in front of the waterfall for the night, just for variety’s sake, I really didn’t want to sleep on the bare ground. Check. Finally, I moved my pole/canes into each hand, stretched out my wings, and, with as much force as my weak legs could muster, dove off the edge of the canyon in a flurry of assorted limbs that was somewhere in between a flop and a some kind of Tarzan-y move. Someone – probably Max – cheered that I was finally moving. And then I was moving my wings in a kind of scooping motion, and I found myself going more up and out than down. Always a good thing. But flying – that was another thing I would never really get used to. Everything about it was surreal. I mean, I could hold myself up with nothing but a few pounds of bones and feathers. Finding a long thermal, I coasted up to where my friends were waiting, riding it like an elevator until it deposited me at the top. Cassie hit me with one of her poles. “Seriously, Os, I don’t want to accidentally land in the water or in a bush or something. Care to be a bit faster next time?” I laughed. “I’ll do my best, sorry.” “Then let’s go!” Turning quickly, the five of us spread out over the horizon in a rough line, our backs to the sunset. I could see the reflection of the sun off Cassie’s feathers, the pale gold of her wings mixing beautifully with the colors of the sky. I watched my friends pull ahead of me slightly, awed by our power. For all their trouble on the ground, they were completely at ease and graceful in the sky. For some reason, a tear came to my eye. We landed just as the sun dipped below the canyons. The dull roar of the waterfall several hundred feet below us brought back so many memories – nights of fires and s’mores and stories both of home and ones so ridiculously fake you wanted to either cry or whack the storyteller, days of flying, free, with no one to tell us where to be or what to do, and memories of laying beneath the stars, wings spread beneath us. Despite everything, here we were, existing, completely at home in the middle of a freaking desert. And the night progressed like any of the others we had had by the waterfall before, but completely different at the same time. We tried to mix several different types of rehydrated food, laughing as we forced each other to try whatever horrific combination we had come up with, finally giving up when someone got the idea of adding fake egg stuff to the pudding mix. As it got later, we all got weirder, coming up with songs about the most random things and hand gestures to go with them, until, finally, everyone started to fall asleep. Soon, it was just me, laying beneath the stars, and I couldn’t have asked for anything more. |
Third Place
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*Flashback*
"Did you see her teeth? " One girl asked the other. "Yeah, they were sorta yellow and extremely crooked, " The girl replied, giggling. The girl who had spoken first giggled, too. At the time, I felt bad for the girl they had been gossiping about, not realizing that girl was me. I didn 't say anything to them about how talking about people was rude, I just went on to class. In class, I was talking with a friend, but then realized her eyes were not looking into mine as I spoke, but on my teeth. That's when I started feeling insecure about my teeth. Before, I had never realized how people payed so much attention to my weird teeth instead of my entire face. I went on the rest of the day with my mouth shut and if I did talk to someone I would try to find a way to cover my mouth. If I smiled at someone, my lips were tightly sealed together. It made me feel so horrible about myself even though it was just my teeth. I felt like when I opened my mouth, people automatically would stare at my teeth. One of the most uncomfortable things I've ever had to endure. *Fast forward to about a month later* "Your teeth make you look like you were in a car accident, " A red headed boy by the name of Carson admitted with a shrug and I will admit that the words stung. It was probably one of the most rude things ever directed at me. My best friend, Kaeley, quickly stood up for me since I was too shy and nice to do so. "Really, Carson? You know how Ansleigh feels about her teeth and you just had to go and say that! " Kaeley snapped at him. The boy shrugged once more and I could feel tears welling up in my eyes. I got up from where I was sitting and walked away. I could hear Kaeley calling my name as I sped up my pace. I found a corner of the playground where no one else was. I sighed in contentment, I just wanted to be left alone for a while. Of course though, my wish was not granted. A girl named Hannah had settled herself next to me. "Hi, Ansleigh! " Hannah gushed, smiling ear to ear. It was obvious that she was happy about something. "Hello, Hannah. You seem happy, did something happen? " I murmured. Hannah grinned and responded in a voice filled with happiness that I envied. "Well, in fact, something did happen! My crush asked me out, " I nodded and attempted to smile but it probably looked more like grimace. "Oh my god! Excuse my rudeness, you obviously aren 't happy. What happened? " Hannah asked, concern was evident in her voice. "Nothing... "Ansleigh, c 'mon, I won 't laugh or make fun of you. "Carson said my teeth made me look like I was in a car accident, " I admitted, burying my face in my arms. "Oh. I felt my face get red. Hannah probably thought the same, considering the fact that all she said was 'oh '. I heard movement beside me and looked up. Hannah was walking away from me and towards a boy with a rather large smile on his face. "A boy will never look at me like that as long as my teeth are like this, " I thought to myself tears threatening to escape again. *End of Flashback* I was insecure about my teeth after that horrid experience. Well, up until I got my braces. I thought that after I got braces boys would start to like me and the bullying would stop but it didn't. The teasing turned from being about how crooked my teeth were to being called 'metal mouth' and 'brace face'. I then came to the conclusion that once I got my braces off, boys would then like me and the bullying would stop. Well, I was still wrong about one of the two. After I got my braces off, boys did start to acknowledge that I was a girl and not some odd looking creature with wires and brackets in it's mouth. Shocker, right? Well, it got annoying when I constantly heard, "Guess who likes you now?" So yes, boys did know who I was now but the bullies were relentless. A girl named Maria claimed that I looked like a man without my braces. I could easily ignore that since it wasn't that bad of an insult. Then, a girl named Litzy admitted that I looked like Donald Trump and a hippo had a baby and that baby was me. I didn't even know if that comment had anything to do with my teeth but it still hurt. Especially since I thought that once I got my braces off, all the insults would stop. Knowing that my parents paid around $4,000 just so I can still get bullied makes me terribly irritated, but I have learned from my experience with bullies. I have learned that changing yourself doesn't guarantee that the people you're trying to change for will like you and treat you how you wish to be treated. Although I do understand that getting braces was essential since my teeth could end up causing more problems as an adult, I wish I wouldn't of cared what people thought of me and my teeth. I do think that my self-confidence has definitely improved since the bullying happened but I don't think it will ever be where it should be. I also wish that I would've spoken up for myself instead of other people doing it for me. I do hope that anybody who is experiencing bullying or has experienced bullying has realized that they do not in any way need to change themselves, the bully is the one who needs to change. |
Honorable Mention
Shay Porter "The Tryant" |
Someone once said, “My definition of maturity could be considered most people's definition of insanity: the ability to view a situation from multiple perspectives within one mind.” For me, this statement is a perpetual reality. According to my birth certificate, records, and social security, my name is Julia Shay Porter; however, this is not the reality that I face every day. Heather is my most valued companion and my most despised enemy. Heather is the 33-year-old woman trapped in my 13-year-old body. “Mother, why am I not potty trained yet?” So at mere 18 months, Heather self-potty trained. Heather has governed my life for as long as I can remember. I don’t want to be the uptight control freak that I am, but then again I am not, Heather is. Because of Heather, at a young age I was already cleaning my brother’s rooms, advising my father on the finances, and showing my mother the proper way to operate the computer. Everyone else could see my abnormality growing, but nobody knew what it would become. During elementary school, Heather must have had a part time job controlling someone else’s livelihood because she wasn’t as prevalent in my life. However, when middle school rolled around, Heather’s influence kicked in—drill sergeant style. My own personality was diminished by the relentless hold that Heather had on my disposition. I turned on my friends, pushed away my family, and hid my character behind the shadows of my insecurities. Julia Shay Porter was no longer an independent, carefree young girl but rather a glimmer in the eye of an intractable tyrant. To others, Heather may be a symbol of my maturity; to me, she just turns my passions into something that I have to conquer. Because of her internal longing for perfection, I lost my passion for school, sports, and writing. I knew that I must address the problem of Heather, but destroying her seemed to be an impossible feat. Little did I know, I did not need to destroy Heather. I needed to learn to control her. One faithful day, my friend Isabella invited me to the lake. We rushed down to the lake and clambered up the endless staircase that led to the top of Isabella’s dock. She walked to the edge of the dock, turned her head, flashed me a toothy smile and dove off into the deep water below. Now was the time! I had to take control of Heather, and I was ready to do battle. I strode to the end of the dock and peered down at the harsh unforgiving waters. Don’t do it! That’s a child’s game! You could break your neck, Heather whispered in the back of my mind. Heather took control, and I was paralyzed with fear. Isabella called to me, “Come on Shay!” “SHAY! MY NAME IS JULIA SHAY PORTER!” I yelled as I leaped over the barrier that kept me from my curiosity and thirst for exploration. It was the first time in my life that I had ever felt free. Not because I jumped off the dock, or because I plunged into the icy waters that symbolized my greatest fears, but because I had defied my intractable tyrant. I was no longer a slave to my “maturity,” but the master of it. Heather was not demolished, nor will she ever be, but now I am a soul set free from Heather’s relentless grasp. Heather continues to live her life through me, but only when I allow her to. She remains my most valued companion and my most despised enemy, but she is no longer the captor of my unimpeded soul. |