Marching Band: Why it's not a PE class.

Our members of the school board just can't seem to make up their minds about whether marching band is physically exerting enough or qualifies for a PE class. Anyone who has been in a marching band worth being in, including me, will tell you that it contains many characteristics that can rival PE classes easily. But our obstacles are the paperwork and procedure and whether kids who enroll in it sweat enough through healthy aerobic exercises, whatever they think "aerobic" means.

Every PE teacher simply must be certified in the instructing of PE classes. If they're not certified, then there's no way anyone would learn or do anything concerning healthy exercises, etc. which would OBVIOUSLY be taught in a certified PE class. Mr. Citrus, the local Marching Band director, is not certified so he obviously cannot instruct his students on how to develop proper and disciplined marching technique, which in fact does take immeasurable practice and muscle, BUT he is not certified so that doesn't count. Examples of exercises that don't exist/ count are things such as holding an instrument up to your mouth while you glide along the ground with all possible smoothness for hours on end through blazing sun or pouring rain and frequent sprinting back to the previous set of formation. I can say, from experience, that the soreness I've had in my shoulders and arms could easily knock the socks off anyone in a "REAL" PE class who does average training in a day of weight lifting or maybe rock climbing. But, since Mr. Citrus is not certified, then this of course does not count. Not only are we playing instruments standing up forever, but we're also marching which takes up much of the oxygen which we eventually breath every so often. There's the anaerobic and aerobic exercises in one endless round of taking orders, and not allowing ourselves to break down no matter how hard they work us. This is why Marching Band is one of the closest classes to that of a militaristic class through it's discipline and perfect exactness that is expected, yet it doesn't get PE credit. But this, once again, is evident because Coach Citrus is not actually a coach, and we don't call him that, because he's not certified.

So clearly the school board has made the right decision in rejecting PE credit for those in Marching Band. The iron we pump are only instruments, the miles we endure is only marching, and the discipline is not whether we only look as though we're being active, like in the average mandatory PE class, but the thought of how many push-ups we should reward ourselves with because we landed 2 inches off our mark in the formation, because Señor Citrus is not certified.

Brief Analyzation of the Documentary on Flight 93

Today my family recorded and watched a program called something like The Flight that Fought Back. It made me recollect the feelings I had on 9/11 four years ago today. I began to think of the techniques used to film and produce this program as well as the motives of the terrorists. It was a documentary film that showed the families' reactions and what they had to say of those who were on flight 93, the flight who fought back.
At the beginning of the footage that was on stage, that looked like the interior of an airplane, the shots were calm, leveled, and clear. It had remained in this way till the terrorists decided it was the time to turn back and head towards our nations capital city, when they took control of the plane and cockpit. This was when they began to shake the camera and violently tilt it as well as distorting colors. This technique would help the audience feel the anxiety, terror and chaos that was believed to be present on the airplane in fluctuating levels till the airplane was crashed. When they displayed pictures of the victims of the terrorists they would mask all four edges of the picture with a thick margin of black, generally showing more than one picture at a time. I beleive this was done to bring a focus on the facial features of each person, further personalizing the feelings of despair that those affected may have felt.
I try to think of the reasons why such horrible things happen in this world. I never manage to arrive at a different conclusion than greed, which is prominent in every heart that blindly seeks to do such acts of evil. Why did these men desire to kill so many people? I think the answer is simply found in what they believed in. Thinking that they would be rewarded to give their lives to destroying people in a country that they may have thought evil or wrong. Such acts aren't plausibly accompanied by thoughts of mercy or anything other than the clouded dark way that they shut themselves into.
In conclusion to my thoughts, the messages from the methods of filming the documentary reached for, and more or less achieved, instilling the confusing feelings that such victims may experience into it's viewers. The message I observed from the terrorist's motives and actions spoke of ultimate selfishness and narrowmindedness, that, for me to be truly happy, I must avoid to any degree at all costs.