
At my Highschool, we had to do this "thing" called a Senior Project. This was a YEAR long project, in which students had to choose a major topic, and study it for one semester, write a 20 page hard-core paper, and then spend the second semester with a mentor, and complete a large-scale project and presentation of what you have learned. For example, someone might choose "repainting a car", and then they study it, write a paper, find a mentor, and complete a car-painting project. People learned Yoga, Photography, and even how to build a deer-blind! Seems gay, because it is, but it was serious business at Lubbock Cooper! If you didn't pass the Senior Project, you weren't graduating. No bullshit! I saw it happen the year before us, which is why I picked something really special that I thought I could learn easily:
I chose to learn how to play the FIDDLE! Yes, the F'ing fiddle! What was I thinking? The truth is, I was thinking of starting a band of some sorts. My best friend was going to choose "playing the banjo", and we were searching for a singer, and a Harmonica player. Though it came as no surprise, I ended up being the only one who went through with the plan, and I was fine with it. As long as it was weird and nobody else was doing it, I was in! My grandmother had an OLD fiddle that she gave me, and I quickly began dreaming of how far Fiddle Playing could take me in life. I could play for the Dixie Chix, or maybe even THE BOSS!!! Did you know that he LOVES Gingers? Check this out! Anyways, I signed up, and as my mission statement for the year I put, "To play 'The Devil Went Down to Georgia' at my final presentation". Wow! That'a a huge Mission statement, but I didn't care!
So, the first half of the project came along, and I began researching Western Swing music. This is what I wrote my research paper about, so boring, and lame, barf! Anyways, I kicked ass at the paper, duh! I was ready to start fiddlin'! I got a reputable mentor that my Mom found, who knew Lubbock had a famous Fiddler? We met right off the bat, and it went pretty well. He told me that my fiddle was as old as crap, and that it needed some serious repairs. Just great, 3 less weeks of Fiddling! How am I ever gonna get my name out there now? My first real lesson went fantastically! I learned how to hold it, and what the notes were, kindof! I felt so cool!
I have never had any sort of musical capabilities... EVER! I broke my plastic flute in the 5th grade because I wanted to smash it rather than learn to play some gay flute. I NEVER chose band over art in Jr. High, and I damn sure didn't join that shit in highschool. No Thankyou! I cannot sing, or play anything, and I don't know what a tune or a melody is even about. I only know those vocab words from American Idol anyways! So learning an instrument at the age of 17 quickly began to seem like quite the challenge. I soon lost hope, and realized that fiddling was pretty hard. I quit going to meet with my mentor, and I never practiced because my whole family was tired of hearing me suck.
It finally came down to it. D Day. Presentation time. You better believe that my actual "presentation" (as in my poster board and pictures) was the bomb.com! I worked the poster board. There was kids bringing in deer blinds, and shitty posters everywhere. I began to get nervous. I pull out my fiddle and prepare what I am going to play for my panel of 4 teachers and one civilian. "The Devil Went Down to Georgia"??? NO! I was playing this thing, I think it's called a scale. It's about 10 notes, and they go from bottom to top, i think. Nah Nah Nah Nah Nah.... Nah Nah Nah Nah Nah. Yep! That's what I learned! All of the sudden, I bust a freaking string! You have got to be kidding me. Just before I start to cry and freak out, I realize that this could be a good thing. Surely you cant play any bad-ass fiddle songs without your G-string, right? Awesome!
I make my way into the evaluation room, and I immediately feel better. I got one football coach, one Ag teacher, one teacher that taught on the Mayflower, and an easily-charmed civilian man! This is gonna be okay! I let them know about the tragic loss of my string just before I entered the room, and I get immediate compassion! This is great, because I was nervous about how they would react to the next part of my presentation: the Video. We had to take a video/scrapbook documenting the semester and "learning" with our mentor. This was hard since I had only met with my mentor a few times, despite the fact that my "learning log" had about 60 documented hours of "learning"! In a last minute scramble to create my video, my mom got out the camera and a stack of T-shirts from my room. She told me to start out being really crappy, and work my way up to being better (pretty freaking hard to do when you can only make 10 noises, noises that sound like a dying cat). As we kept changing my shirt and hair-do, I tried my hardest to make the video seem as though it documented a few months of "learning".
My mom and I worked hard to make sure my video was legit , or at least appeared to be legit. So you can imagine my astonishment when I realized just how UN-legit the video was, right alongside my evaulation group. There was no date on the video, and I looked completely different from fake-day to fake-day..... BUT!!! The same EXACT episode of Seinfeld was on in the background the ENTIRE time. Though my mom moved me around the game room, we neglected to change the channel, or even just turn the stupid thing off! OMG!
I freaked out for about a day, but was happy to find out that I received a 98 on my Senior Project! Yes people, a 98! This was soley because of my swagger, and the fact that my evaluation team was awesome! I had a friend who recorded an entire CD of his own songs, and barely passed! That's because he got the psycho-spanish-teacher and the student-sexing-coach who was scared to do any wrong. Gotta love the Senior Project, my sister is doing it right now, but she is doing a great job! She has chosen weight-loss, and is currently sitting about 25 pounds lighter than she was before X-mas! Congrats Sissy!