The Girl with a Teacher's Heart

Chapter 4: Scholarship Maniac

August, 2019

After a few days of nonstop thinking about our competition scores, my orchestra director brought us the news that we have been waiting for. As she opened the envelope, our hearts were pounding like a drum. Our hands were sweating like it had been soaked in water for several minutes. 

"I have received our final scores for assessment and I first wanted to say how proud I am of all of you. You all know by now that assessment can be painstaking, however, you all worked hard as a ensemble. Now for the scores." Mrs. Hughes said.

This was it. Our scores were about to be told, and I was praying we would get a superior rating.

"Ladies and gentlemen, we received a...." Mrs. Hughes hesitated when she saw the score. 

"Well?" A violist asked.  

"We received an excellent rating." Mrs. Hughes finally finished her sentence.

The whole class went complete silent and had a somber look on their faces. 

An excellent? That can't be right. We worked so hard for these three pieces. I thought. 

In performing arts, an excellent meant we did not get the highest rating which was, superior. Our school was high competitive because we were known for performing arts and the culinary program. Our school was also one of the only one that played the top level of music was, Grade 6. 

I raised my hand to ask our director about sight reading. 

"What score did we get in that category?" I asked.

Just to clarify, performing arts competitions are likely to contain two categories: main performance and sight reading. Sight reading generally has one judge and the selection of music is a grade level or two lower than what is played out on stage.

"We got a superior rating, however, the main assessment we received came out to an excellent." Mrs. Hughes replied back quietly.

Despite receiving a score of excellent, we still worked out best and a lot of factors had played into the result we received. For one, our selection of music was quite challenging. Not all grade levels of music are easy, but in the important thing is that I had fun with those that were passionate about music like I was if not more. 

A few weeks later

After competition and receiving our scores, I still had business to take care of before graduating from high school. By the end of March, I had already applied for six scholarships. Call me crazy, but I wanted some money to save up before going to college. I had missed the deadlines for two of my scholarships and only went to one of the meetings for my first scholarship I had applied for. Why did I apply for so many in the first place? Basically, I want to become a teacher. Teaching has been on my mind for as long as I could remember. Growing up, I struggled a lot due to my disability and was trying to catch up to my classmates. Think of it as a race. Although I was further behind than everyone, I still managed to hit the finish line and become the person I am today. After I applied for my last scholarship, I had to wait a few days before the results came out, and boy did that change my life for the greater good.