Sometimes it's not meant to be by Jennifer

Sometimes it's not meant to be by Jennifer - February 2017 Scholarship Essay

Jennifer Gutierrez

We all are constantly failing. It’s a part of life, not our favorite part, but a part nonetheless. There have been many times in my life when I’ve wished for things to have gone differently. I’ve wished for the outcome to have been better than it was. Just last year I had officer tryouts for the drill team. My mom wanted this for me more than anything. It was a dream I’d had for a while. I wanted to be able to be a great leader for the team and make the next year a great one. When I didn’t get an officer position I was disappointed because I had failed.

I’ve been on drill team for three consecutive years. I hadn’t really started dancing till the year before my first drill team tryout. I was inexperienced and scared of what lied ahead of me but I was excited to begin the journey. When I made it on my first team I was excited to improve and become better. I knew that there would always be room for improvement and I was excited to learn all that I could learn. I had never danced before in my life so I didn’t expect everything to come so easily to me I knew that a lot of hard work would need to be put in. On my first year on drill team I learned so much about perseverance. It was a trait that was required in everyone in order to accomplish our goals. Throughout that year on drill team I admired our officers. They were fierce leaders and were always pushing us to be better. They were compassionate and understanding, yet they were hardworking and commanding when they needed to be.

My next year on drill team I decided to take as a learning year. I continued to improve myself and push myself to constantly strive to be better. I was teaching myself to never settle for good enough and to be a leader within the team. If I wanted to be as officer I needed to know how to be a good leader and not just one who wanted it for the title. As officer try outs for the next year approached I began to feel nervous and scared. I worked hard on my solo and my group dance. It was a difficult process but one I was willing to take. I worked hard with my small solo group, we found common times to meet up and practice the dance. It was difficult to choreograph and and teach and clean the dance in the little time we had. I had many bumps in the road with people quitting or not showing up to practices. First i had to reform my solo so that it could become a group dance. I had to take it step by step to incorporate contagions and parts to make it look more visual. I also had to make a binder filled with original ideas of what we could do for the spring show. I had to come up with a theme for the whole show and smaller themes for each dance. I had to choose outfits for each dance and choose the songs that would go with them. I had to make sure it was something that had not been done yet in planoettes history.

When the day of tryouts finally arrived I prepared myself for a day that could change my life. I ran over my solo various times and went over the choreography that was our tryout dance. I went in did my solo the best i could with all the nerves I had. Then came time to do officer strut and the tryout dance. I had some faults in my dances but I did the best with what I could. I remember being worried that I wouldn’t stand out in a group with some very talented girls but I believed that I could make myself be seen by being the best performer I could be. I smiled big and performed big so that I could show them my personality. After our dances we had interviews. I was nervous for these interviews because I didn’t have very much experience with interviews. I was nervous to maybe think to long on a question or maybe answer it in a way that might make me seem as though I had bad intentions just because I might not know how to phrase something or choose my words correctly. Once tryouts were over and I learned that I hadn’t made officer I was upset. It took some time but I learned that sometimes things happen for a reason and it may not be easy but it’s always best in the end.
I learned to accept that in the end I wasn’t the best choice to lead the team and that’s ok. I can still be a leader within the team. I learned that this saying is hard to understand but it relates to life often. I’ve taken this into my life and have helped it guide my life. Not always what you want is what’s best. Your choices affect everyone and having been a leader on the team would’ve meant just that. I’ve been a leader within the team and i’ve tried to set the example of what a good senior should be within the team.