So for my English class, we have to right a paper about social change kind of based on the book of Generation Me but it doesn’t have to be something from the book.
One of the options that we have is of following: You can focus on how our society is/has been changing in regard to a particular aspect of life or social institution. How do these changes impact our lifestyles, values, culture? What caused these changes?
My family. . .where to start?
The only family that I know and grew up with are all on my dads side. We all get along super well. Even the family that is on my Aunty’s side. They’re all family to me.
We usually get together over holidays like Christmas and Easter and some other little holidays and graduations. We used to get together on the Forth of July but that stopped a while ago and that is something I miss doing. The most recent time we got together was Easter and that was quite something.
My dad, Boo and Heater
When ever we get together, we usually have a big, wonderful meal that my Aunt LaRay makes. One of our good friends, JoJo, brings her really good homemade salsa (amazing stuff). Before we start eating, we usually talk about random things that have been going on. Then we all start eating and though insults at other people as well as trying to get folks to sit at the “cool table.” (That was either Heather’s or Boo’s idea to call the table I was sitting at the cool table.) You can always hear the most weirdest conversations during the time we all spend together. Like how my cousin LaChelle is going to pierce her armpit (she really isn’t. . .at least i hope note) and how six bucks, a tampon and a thank you note is a good payment for a sweatshirt that hasn’t been used by my cousin Maite.
Now to follow are some pictures from the last couple of times we got together.
If you guys want to see more pictures of my family, just go to this link (I don’t have a problem of adding any of you guys from class to my Facebook friends): My Family Album
I was asking on my Facebook some questions about family traditions. Here’s one of the questions that I asked and the responses I got from asking that question.
Question: What does it take to pass down a family tradition?
Answers:
Chelsea T.: “Family and the tradition. ^_^ Someone has to start one and someone has to keep it going.”
Lauren C.: “An emotional connection to the tradition. A family tradition can be a good thing but in order to perpetuate it there needs to be a personal attachment to it.”
What I can suggest for you guys to do is to through some sort of family get together at someones house. It could be yours or a relatives, just a place that everyone can agree on. Next step. Bring food. Plenty of it so everyone can have some. Nothing better that brings people together is food, especially family. And my last step is to have fun, laugh and grow in your family.
Nothing better is getting closer to your family and the traditions that you guys get out of it.
For my fourth project, I interviewed someone I’m close with. His name is Joseph. He moved here from Tiwan twice. Once when he was three. The second time was when he was thirteen.
He can’t really remember his perspective of the US sense when he first came here, he was three. So his first memories that he has was with his parents in Irvine where his dad was getting his P.h.D.
The two pictures that I choose for this project is Loretta Lux’s image “The Drummer” and Anthony Goicolea image “Parochial.” I choose “The Drummer” because it has a musical aspect to it and I like musical aspects to my photographs. I choose “Parochial” because it kind of has a whimsical look to it with all of the young kids paste in it.
The findings that I got for “The Drummer” concluded as the following. On Luxs’ website, the photography appears in the “Works iv” and she had copyrighted it in 2004. She was quoted saying “I use children as a metaphor for a lost paradise.” Her pictures can take up to three months to create. She started the series in 1999 but she didn’t show it till she felt like she was ready to show the series.
The findings that I got for “Parochial” by Anthony Goicolea is of the following. He presented it in 2000. It is a 48×68 color photograph (ed. of six). He is a Cuban-American artist. His early photography focused on self portraiture. “Parochial” is apart of a series of elaborately staged tableau settings.
So this is my final image that I put together that mimics Anthony Goicolea’s “Parochial.” It kind of turned into a Daniel and Fred show instead of a whole band thing. What I wanted to do originally was paste different members into an empty band room but I had more photos of Daniel and Fred then the rest of the band. So I just decided to do a Daniel and Fred thing.
This photograph is my interpretation of Loretta Lux’s “The Drummer.” I feel like it gets the creep factor that “The Drummer” has with all of the shadows in my photograph.
I always love the feeling that I get when I perform at a symphonic band concert or even way back in the day when I marched at Westmont High School. All of the clapping and cheering that the audience gives is such a good feeling (even if it is a not so good concert, which I’ve been through in the Fall 2011 semester). I even go back during marching season at Westmont and help out with them doing something called Pit Crew. Pit Crew is a group of parents, siblings and other folks that help with the pit instruments get on and off the field in a set amount of time. Watching the big bands that have 100+ members is really fun to watch because you can really feel the energy that they are putting into their performance (not to say that us smaller bands have the energy; numbers are just numbers in the end). I am really into the performing arts, music in particular, because it gives the younger students something they can keep doing for years and the other people that you meet doing symphonic, jazz and specially marching band is like being in a huge family. I’m really passionate in keeping music in schools because it’s something that young kids can use as an outlet. I see marching band as a sport because it’s something that you work really hard in and it’s always a good way to get exercise.
My Top Reasons Why Marching Band Should Be A Sport
My Top Reason Why Music Is Important
This video here, Why Music Matters by Jack Stamp, backs up with my reasons why music is so important and shows even more reasons on its toughness.
Here’s a definition of sport that I found on dictionary.com: an athletic activity requiring skill or physical prowess and often of a competitive nature.
Here’s something that’s like a comic that I came across one day that I think helps with the definition of sport.
Marching Band is a Sport. It's a proven fact.
I watched this video several years ago and I remembered it not that long ago when I was thinking of what kinds of videos I should add to this post. What I remembered about it is that it shows the heart rate of one of the batteries, (which is an other term for drumline), quad players for The Cavilers while he is rehearsing at practice.
It is always a good idea to keep hydrated during every marching band practice or else you’ll faint. Locking your knees also can take part in fainting as well. I remember I helped out during band camp at Westmont one year and my one of my friends sisters, Carolyn, had fainted from not drinking enough water and she most likely had her knees locked but I’m not too sure on that.
Doing band is great, specially marching band. Doing marching band in high school, you pretty much become a family. It’s like that because we spend so much time around each other, it’s hard not to be close to each other and those friendships mean a lot. I’m still friends with the people that I’ve met my freshman year in high school and that have been almost ten years sense then.
Here are some examples of how I mean that doing marching band is like family.
Some of the girls being silly.
After dinner play time? They were trying to get MacKay's shoe off and apperently he's light enough to be lifted with the chair.
Westmont had a really good 2011 marching season. Getting eight trophies for five competitions is pretty good. They got three trophies at their first two competitions, Feste Del Mar and the Cupertino Tournament of Bands (TOB) and one at the following two competitions, the Foothill Band Review and Independence. They didn’t place in the top three at their last competition because it’s a really tough competition but they still came a really far away from their first competition to Logan.
All of the throphies that they got.
And now following is a few pictures from each competition that they had this last season starting with Del Mar and ending with Logan. I’m going to say which competition the pictures are from. They’re going to be a mix from pictures that I personally took and from their own website.
From Feste Del Mar:
From the Cupertino TOB:
From Foothill:
From Independence:
At the beggining and end (and inbetween soemtimes), the Drum Majors have to salute to the judges.
At Independence, it was raining so they had to wear panchos.
And last but not lease, Logan:
The color guard needed to get their shoes and their tennis balls on their flags re-sprayed gold so they would look nice and who else would spray them but Manny, their instructor.
The judges at the Logan competition are allowed to walk on the field. That's why it's so tough.
I just can’t end my blog post here without showing some of the group photos from Logan. Doing group photos is something that Westmont has been doing sense before I went there. It starts off with a group photo of everyone, serious and funny picture, then senior pictures. The boosters started doing something in the last two-three years where they take group pictures of each class.
This is the whole band together.
I think this is spose to be a serious group picture. I had to stand on the pit trailer to get everyone in it.
This is the 2012 Senior Class.
Only one girl in this senior class so she got a bigger coursage thingy.
These are the fabulous pit crew people that I got to work this season. Without us, it would be really hard for the pit to bring all of their instruments onto the field and back, especially with the bigger bands. (The bigger bands have a lot more equipment to drag and push around.)
Doing band for me at West Valley is really fun. I get to meet really fun and interesting people each semester. Like last semester for instance, my friend Bianca and I got to know each other more. By the end of the semester, I ended up with the nickname from her “Freak Face Creeper Dude Thingy.” She hasn’t called me that once this semester, thankfully.
At each of concerts, we’re always talking and doing the oddest stuff. At our second semester last semester, two people ended up writing all of the chalk board in the room that we were in at San Jose State. Unfortunately, I didn’t get a picture. (I don’t think I had my camera on me.)
Like I said before, we get onto topics of the weirdest stuff. For one example, at our first concert last semester, a group of my friends started talking about ties.
While others hide out in one of the practice rooms, probably talking smack (this only happened once, as far as I know).
Band class on the other hand, is pretty much really bizarre. Depending on what day, our director goes off on a million different tangents that makes either sense or no sense what so ever. On those same days that Gus goes off on tangents, we usually only focus on anywhere from one song to about three songs. Other days, we just go through all of the music that we are going to do for whatever concert and just clean the music either really fast if he wants to get stuff done or slow if there is not concert around. This video shows one of those days that Gus, our director, is going on one of his teaching-hardly any sleep days. It also helps to go back to the video for reference.
I really love doing band and music because it challenges me to be a better musician and I get really wonderful friendships as well as some good work ethnics for getting to concerts and in high school to practices and competitions on time.
Websites to check out
Works Citied
“One time, at band camp. . .” We all know these famous words from the movie American Pie. It might get annoying to us who do marching band each fall but we still do it. Marching Band is quite hard but it does get easier as time goes on. Only because you have to memorize all the music, drill, commands, and exercises that comes with joining. Marching Band is no laughing matter.
So, this one time, really, at band camp, we met one of our new staff members. His name was Eric. We were told to go out to the practice field but we didn’t really know why. When we got there, we were drink water and saying stuff like, “What are we doing?” and “Are we doing team building?” After a couple of minutes of waiting, Eric yelled out cheerfully, “Go set up a block! Woo!” We were just standing there, confused and wondering if he really meant it. Then he said that he actually did mean it and to go form a block.
West Nile Virus-My team for team building stuff we did my senior year. I can't remember why we decided to call ourselves West Nile Virus.
Shortly after that, one of our other staff members, Julianna, and one of our band members, Daniel, showed up from coming back from tour with the Santa Clara Vanguard Cadets. The buses that they were on can make some good time since the day before, they were somewhere in Utah or Idaho.
We were all in awe the first time we got to use the new field. It was the second Saturday practice that we had and the gates were locked and we had to squeeze through the gates and over the fence to get to the field. After we did our first set of “eights and eights” (eights ands eights is were we either do mark time for eight or halt for eight and marching either forward of backwards for eight counts), Eric started rolling over the field like a monkey. We were standing there, in our block, either laughing or thinking he was on drugs. But we got serious again and learned the rest of the drill (what consists of the marching part of the show), for the opener which is the song that the band opens up with.
As the season goes, we have many ups and downs. Days were we are not focus on what we’re doing and the staff had to tell us to “check in and focus” on what we are doing. Practices are always different. Two of our Wednesday practices, rained on us. And we still stayed down on the field to practice. Yes, it’s not good for the woodwind instruments but it’s still fun to march in the rain. . .if you’re used to it, that is.
Competitions are always fun. At the Independence competition on October 21, 2006, I somehow managed to trip over the pit trailer and got a really nasty lump on my left shin with a small circle cut. One of the band parents gave me a frozen water bottle to help with the swelling. My right shin on the other hand, had a big nasty cut in a bent line and it had a nasty bruise around it. It took a couple of months for to heal.
You know when we work really hard to learn and memorize music, flag work and drill and manage to get four second places at three out of four competitions. For all of the hard work we do, marching band is no laughing matter. And it starts with this one time, at band camp.
Yay! So this is my first post! My goals and interest for the class is just to grow in my abilities in my photography and help with getting more media based skills. Personally, I’m more into nature because it is simply amazing just to be out there as well as taking pictures of my friends or helping them out with making special cards for the holidays or whatever they might need them for.
Pirate No Beard For Social Change 
