I always get the same question: "Why are you in marching band?" I get stumped and I ask myself the same question. Why do you go through grueling, sweaty, hot practices with a metal stick that hits you in the head and covers your legs in bruises? All while listening to your band director tell you to do it one more time (sorry Erb), but is it really one more time? So why?

One day at Kennywood it hit me why I do this. To quote Lady Gaga: "I live for the applause."

Our parade song for the 2016 season is "Shut Up and Dance" by Walk The Moon. It's a fun, upbeat song that most people know. So when we had to perform in the parade at Kennywood a lot of people were singing it and cheering us on and clapping like crazy. That is when I realized that I do all of this for moments like that. Moments where all eyes are on the marching band and you're smiling ear to ear, tossing your baton like a professional with the confidence of Demi Lovato. I also get moments like this when all of the majorettes catch a group exchange, or a challenging trick because everybody in the audience goes wild. They may not even know how simple the trick was, but they're still in aw of how amazing it looks. Or when a song starts with a slow tempo and then speeds up and it's just so amazing. And when the whole band is jazzed because they know that that was one of the best performances we've ever had in a parade.

I've had moments like this since I started twirling, but it never really hit me until I was marching with the Thiel Tomcat Marching Pride in the Fall Fantasy parade in Kennywood and everybody was dancing and singing and having a blast.

And the captain, Dana, said that a little girl called us princesses. I mean, who doesn't want to be a princess?