Date for Entry: (Monday 19th January, 2015)
Actual Date of Online Entry: (Wednesday 23rd June, 2021)
Dear Diary,
Today was the Anniversary of Hillview College. All the students had to wear our formal clothing in the white shirt and tie with our school pants. However, all of us in the Steel Ensemble had to wear long-sleeve shirts. While I was in the Auditorium, I helped them place chairs out and Uncle Ralph from Church met me and I shook his hands.
Finally, the processional took place. There were people from Radio 91.1 and the Government Ministers: Kevin Ramnarine, Rudy Indarsingh and Dr. Tim Goopesingh. During the service, the Steel Ensemble had to play Happy Birthday on the Pan but then the boys were who supposed to play were late and the four students who were there to learn the song in practice got nervous and didn’t want to play. This meant that I had to go and play all by myself.
While playing, Ms. Ramdeen had to sing along. I thought it was going to be fun to play while she was singing. But I was dead wrong. The woman messed it up and I couldn't believe what she did. This is one I will regret forever. I thought all the time when she was moving like if she could actually sing she just did that to me. I felt like one big fool up there behind the pan on the stage. Although it is something the ensemble members and myself unbelievably had to get accustomed to not being thanked for the services we provided.
While the function went onwards, she had to sing in a group with three students and the nice lady who was the president of the PTA. It was not really a choir but something that they probably tried.
At the end of the function, the Education Minister and the Principle was in an activity called “Turning of the Sod” to give us permission to construct a new building. I was hoping that there would finally be space for a Music Room. Even Miss Saunders said the same thing when some of the pan members were in a workshop with a Hillview Old Boy named Mr. Patrick Mcnielle, who started the pan Ensemble in his days at school. He taught us some basic secrets he discovered on the pan about scales and arpeggios.
From this lesson on the Tenor Pan, he taught us one of the secrets in playing the major scale, which was that the first three notes of the scale would be on one side, while the other four pitches surrounding them and you go home to the tonic note in the higher register.
The whole school had left to go on a marching activity to Aramalaya and I decided to stay back. I stayed in the Hall and Watch the Flags of the different Houses and also cleaned up the table on the stage. It was there that I got a copy of the Programme not in the white photocopied paper, but the pretty coloured brown paper and I took another one in the cardboard to the side. I didn’t bother to ask for them because I knew that it was going to be thrown away or get thrown into a cupboard and get forgotten about.
All-day long I felt proud to be a student of the school and there was the voice in my mind that told me how important education is. I would have to work very hard to "climb the hill" in order and conquer success. Seeing that education was the purpose of the school while sitting in the remainder of today’s function, showed me that I too have the power to succeed in my examinations at CXC if I put in that extra bit of work to get a good grade.
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