I made it!

Well, its been a long five months, but I made it!  I am officially a military musician now.  I graduated from the armed forces music school on Friday and reported to my band in Norfolk.  I'm so excited to get started with my new career!

Some of the highlights from the last couple months include a master class with the President's Own Marine Band in which I got to play:

I also won student of the month at the school for September.  

That was pretty cool because I wasn't expecting anything like that.  The way it works is that you get nominated and then you have to go do a "board", where you sit down with senior enlisted (in this case the Command Master Chief and the senior enlisted leader of the Marine detachment) and they evaluate your military bearing and ask you questions about yourself.  I couldn't believe that I had gotten it out of everyone! I guess I'm not so bad at this military thing!

So Friday was the graduation, it felt weird!  I had been to several graduations before to play at and to attend, it felt weird that it was finally my turn.  Here's some pictures from the ceremony:

I also ended up scoring high enough on my final audition that I became instructor qualified!  I had to go through a "staff appraisal" in which I had to teach a mini lesson so that my teaching ability could be evaluated.  Thankfully, I passed!  So I am officially qualified to teach at the school.  We'll see if I ever end up back there.  I also scored high enough on everything to achieve early advancement, which means I don't have to take the exam to become an E-4, it will just automatically happen in 4-10 months.  Awesome!  It also means that I will be eligible to take the E-5 exam six months earlier!  

I'll try to be better about posting updates...I was just so busy at the school!  Now things should calm down a bit.  Hopefully :)