This prompt pretty much encapsulates my entire high school career because I always was an outsider in regards to most of the other teenagers I knew; I had been in honors classes with the same group of kids since third grade, the same people who bullied me relentlessly when I was younger simply because I listened to classical music, wrote poetry and because I had the gall to be friends with kids they deemed unworthy of friendship. I learned early on to have a spine and not let others define who I am as a person, so by the time I reached high school, I really didn’t give a rat’s ass about what others thought of me. At a time when everything hinges on popularity, reputation and the number of friends you have, I refused to have friends by being mean to others so my “road less travelled” was my quest to find my own tribe. Fortunately, I did so by being in the concert and marching bands. My friends were all younger than me and mostly male, but they “got” me and accepted me, warts and all. I’ve always been grateful for the gift of music because it helped me become my own person and I’m not sure I’d have found the strength to choose my own path without it.