When you've done the best that you can do, then you have won.

      After waiting counting down the days since the last competition, I woke up excited to be going to the Clarinda Band Jamboree! I'd waited a long time! A whole year, in fact. Last year it was my favorite marching event of the season. Last year, however, we placed seventeenth out of twenty in street marching(just 1A). We didn't field march. As the band has improved amazingly since the last competition, I was stoked to see how we'd do and how I personally would do. After all, when you've done the best that you can do, then you have won. I did not win. The band won fourth place out of twenty-two. In field marching the band won second place in the 1A class. I did not win. I did not do the best that I was capable of in either competitions. Unlike others, I am not capable of blaming my faults on nerves. They did not exist. I wasn't nervous until I majorly screwed up. I am more disappointed about my field performance that I have been in a very long time. I always make tiny mistakes. "One step over and one step up! Half a step this way! Dress! Mark time! I have baggy pants? Let's mark knee high so that it is very slightly noticeable!" My thoughts are always focused on what is ahead and my music. I let it slip during the field competition and paid the consequences. I'm angry and disappointed in myself and I don't think that anyone else is able to understand why. To them it's just a couple of mistakes. To me however, those mistakes are the difference between winning and losing.