By Allison Owen I finally saw "Rent" this weekend. Almost everyone I know had already seen it and said such great things about it, but I hadn't had the time to go see it until this weekend. I highly recommend it to any music lover, especially if you enjoy the musical itself.

Allison Owen
The opening credits of the movie are set to one of its better-known songs, "Seasons of Love." This was significant for me because in 2004 we had a warmup dance to this particular song. We would do that dance sometimes as many as four or five times a day to the original Broadway soundtrack. When we didn't have the music itself -- for example, during show warmup -- one of our techs, Christy, would sing the song instead. As I sat in the theater and listened to the song again -- for one of the first times since the summer of 2004 -- I was overwhelmed by a variety of emotions. This just proved to me how one simple thing has the ability stir up all sorts of feelings and memories from a season of drum corps. Besides the fact that some of the songs had personal significance to me, the main tagline to this movie is "No day but today." This line comes from one of the songs in the musical/movie: There is no future; there is no past
I live this moment as my last
There's only us. There's only this
Forget regret, or life is yours to miss
No other road, no other way
No day but today. This seems to be quite popular among many drum corps people I know as an inspirational statement. Just as I said last week, no one knows what life may hold, so we must make the most out of what we have been given. I've spoken to several different corps people who use this as their own personal credo. We must live our lives as if today is all we have left. I think this is a pretty profound statement that I just might have to adopt as my own since it applies so well to what I've been thinking about recently.

This week I'm preparing for my second Carolina Crown camp. I'm going to begin to apply this "No day but today" philosophy and get ready every single day as if it's the last chance I have. It certainly isn't going to be easy, but whoever said it was going to be easy? I don't know what the future holds, but I'm going to do my best to make it worthwhile.

I'm really excited about the banquet and camp this weekend. I can't wait. I met some really amazing people last month and I can't wait to meet some more. I also learned some awesome things, so I'm looking forward to learning some more as well. Good luck to everyone who has finals or auditions this coming week, just try to enjoy each day and live it as if it's all you've got! Allison Owen, 17, is a senior at Sullivan Central High School in Blountville, Tenn. She was assistant conductor at Southwind, and she enjoys dancing, performing, color guard, writing, English, and having fun. She plans on attending Western Carolina University next fall...