Decision

So I have come to a decision about my short story. I am definitely going to continue it, but to do so I need you all to just pretend the last part doesn't happen. You know, the part where the dream comes true, kinda. Well that's the part you're going to ignore. The dream is where it ends, and if it would help for me to do so I am probably going to re-post it, edit it, and take off the part that we are going to get rid of for the story.

I hope you guys all read it, because I have a general idea of how it's going to be, and I think it'll be good.

Laughs of the Past

So, I was looking through all my old word documents today, and I found this old Science assignment I did in Mrs. Nelson's class last year. I thought it would be fun to remind the people who I did this with about it. So, if you want take the time to read it, but if not it's ok.

This is for Purple Cows and Marie Degarimore. Good times guys. Good times.

“Ok, now these islands here are the ‘I Know Islands’. Can anyone tell me what is so special about these islands?” Mrs. Jones asked pointing to a place on the map. In the classroom small kids ruffled around small desks, but not a single hand rose. “Come on, I know you all know this. How about you Jesse?” Mrs. Jones suggested after a minute. Smiling and pointing to one of the smallest girls in the class.

“Uhm…” the little girl started trying to think “Well, they’re islands somewhere in the ocean.” The entire class began to laugh at her.

“Now, class. We all know that it is wrong to laugh at someone when they don’t know an answer.” Mrs. Jones scolded, and the children all stopped laughing immediately. “Now Jesse, there is something else about these islands. They all have special houses on them. What kind of houses are these?” Now several hands rose, and Jesse didn’t even try to answer the question.

“Ok, how about you Lauren?” Mrs. Jones said pointing to the girl sitting in the front row of the class. Everyone knew Lauren was the smartest in the class, and probably the smartest in the entire fourth grade.

“Well the ‘I know Islands’ are a group of islands that each have large, active volcanoes on them. There’s Glucosia, Turtleania, Einsteinia, Beef Jerkia, and Candy Cania. The islands were founded by a group of five geologists. Sage Madsen, Heather Gurr, Mary Lauren Harris, Madison Randquist, and Jessica Correle” Lauren said. “Each of the volcanoes has a house on it. Volcano houses. They were one of the first people in the world to build these houses, and they were made rich for it, except they already were rich.”

“Good Lauren.” Mrs. Jones encouraged, “Today we are going to talk about one of those islands, and one of the founders, and their volcano house. The island of Beef Jerkia is one of the ‘I Know Islands’ and it was founded by Madison Randquist in 2017.”

“That’s a long time ago.” One of the boys in the class said.

“You’ll learn soon enough that fifty years is not that long.” Mrs. Jones said to the boy before continuing, “Madison Randquist wrote a book about her house, and her island. Today I am going to show you some pictures and read you a few passages from her book, and tomorrow we are going to have a quiz on it, so you better pay attention.”

Most of the class got out paper and a pencil to take notes, but one girl raised her hand. “Yes Jessica?”

“Do we need to take notes?” she questioned. Jessica asked questions about everything, but because of it she got a pretty good grade.

“Well you should decide that for yourself. If you think you can do good on the quiz tomorrow without notes, then don’t take notes, but if you think you’ll need to study tonight, then take notes.” Mrs. Jones smiled at Jessica.

Jessica got her notebook out and turned to her section for science while everyone else waited for Mrs. Jones to begin.

“Ok, let’s begin with her explanation of why she built the house. Ok?” Mrs. Jones asked.

Some people in the class nodded, including Heather who sat in the front row near Jessica and Lauren.

“Well, many people have asked me why I built a house on the side of a volcano, and many people have told me I’m crazy, and that I’m going to die in this house, but I don’t really believe I will. I’ve designed this house with the dangers in mind, and I hope that I can show the world just how safe a volcano house is.” Mrs. Jones began reading. “When I first began plans for my house someone told me I needed a name for it, and so I started searching for the perfect name…

Eventually I came up with ‘La Casa Vulano’, Italian for “the volcano house”. People asked me if the name was significant, and when I told them it wasn’t, that I had just used a translator to find a name that sounded right, most of them were disappointed. The name really had nothing to do with the project, except that it said what it was in a different language.

One of my friends told me they thought it represented that I wanted to learn new things. They said that by choosing a name in a language I didn’t speak I was saying that I was open to learning new things, and also that I accepted different cultures, and different ways of living. I don’t think it was that complicated. I just thought it sounded fun.

So that’s how my house got its name. La Casa Vulano took two years to design and another three to build. It was a good design, but it was a lot harder to build than necessary. I think that if I had spent more time planning the construction it might have worked better, but I didn’t. I’ve never been very organized.

I built La Casa Vulano because when my Uncle Mario (who I never actually met, and barely knew existed) died he let me more money than I could ever count, more specifically $50,000,000,000,000,000,000. The reason I had never met Uncle Mario was because he was CRAZY! Not just hear voices in your head crazy, but imagine purple flying cows in your bathtub crazy.

My uncle said that the only way for me to collect the money was for me to build a house that touched in some way, the side, and I’ll bet you won’t be able to guess… of and active volcano.

It surprised me to find out that a few of my friends also had recently deceased uncles, and so got together and went to buyanunchartedisland.com. We called them the I know Islands because when we were in Mrs. Nelson’s science class ten years before we had been really hyper one day. We all were trying to get Sage to stop saying I know. So when we all found out that we were supposed to build volcano houses we decided to build them together.

That’s how we founded the ‘I know Islands’.”

The class had mostly been paying good attention so far. They had all heard about the ‘I Know Islands’, La Casa Vulano, and the other volcano houses there, but they hadn’t ever heard about why they built the volcano houses. The story about the crazy uncles was almost to crazy for them to believe.

“That’s not true.” Catherine blurted out while taking notes “They didn’t have crazy uncles who gave them the money. They won it in the lottery. I researched it.” Catherine lied. She had not researched it, but she had heard it from someone that she believed. Catherine was a liar, but she was nice, and she was pretty smart. Though, there was no way she was smarter than Lauren.

“It’s true Catherine. Madison wrote it herself. Why would she lie?” Mrs. Jones asked looking at Catherine sincerely. She really wanted to know why Catherine thought that Madison had lied in her own book.

Catherine didn’t answer but instead let Mrs. Jones continue.

“Ok, now I’m going to show you a picture of the front of La Casa Vulano.” Mrs. Jones said closing the book and looking for the picture on her desk.

She pulled it out from a stack of papers and held it up. “This is La Casa Vulano from the main entrance.” She handed the picture to Lauren “I’m going to pass it around. Be careful, and don’t write on it.” She said looking mainly towards the boys in the class.

“Ok, now class I am going to read you a description of La Casa Vulano. This is not from her book, but from a book one of her friends wrote describing all of the houses.” Mrs. Jones picked up a new book and began to read. “La Casa Vulano is located on Beef Jerkia and encloses a large volcano known as Montagna Vulano, Italian for Mountain Volcano.” Mrs. Jones said. She picked up another picture off her desk and showed it to them. It was a map of the island.

Mrs. Jones put the map down and continued reading “The house is shaped like a triangle and goes all the way around the volcano. There are towers at each corner, and each one has a dome on top that is in overlapping sections…

Miss Randquist was heard saying once that this was one of her safety precautions. She said that she has a team of volcanologists living with her that help her determine when the volcano will erupt, and when there is an alert they domes will flatten out into a shield. These domes are made out of a bendable form of concrete that Madison created called Incurvo Silicas.

This concrete can stand outstanding heat, and can be bent into a different shape. Some people have said that this would be unreliable because it would bend while it was supposed to be shielding the house, but it isn’t. Once it is bent into the desired position it stays that way.

The three long hallways that connect these towers unhinge at the center and then slide into each of the towers so that they are shielded during an eruption.

Just in case the shields fail there is a button in the volcanologists’ quarters that makes the shield drop half of the overlapping sections and create propellers to lift the three sections of the house into the sky and to the nearest open runway.
The house has eight levels above ground, a basement, and the containment level that is used if all else fails. Each level contains twelve rooms, except for the containment level which has an extra room for food storage. Total (excluding the containment level) there are eighty-five rooms in the house. There are fifty five bedrooms, ten public bathrooms, seven kitchens, and twenty-four other rooms.

The basement level is for the volcanologists. The ground level is for the maids and chefs, the second floor is for Madison, the third through the seventh floors are rented out vacationers and such, and the eighth floor is for visiting friends and family.

The containment floor was designed just in case her other escape plan fails. The containment floor has ten bedrooms, three bathrooms, one recreation room, and one kitchen. It is so far underground that the heat from the volcano can be felt, if you were outside of the room.

The walls of the room are made out of palmarius-estus, which means outstanding heat in Latin. Palmarius-estus is a material that is like a metal, except its melting point is so high no one has ever discovered it.

To get into the room you have to put on a protective suit that will deflect most of the heat so that it isn’t hot enough to burn you. The door to the floor is always left open unless they have to use the room, because once you close the door it is sealed by the heat.

The way this works is that once they are inside the room there is a button next to the door that closes the door and releases a substance called superseal that sticks better than any other substance when heated to extreme temperatures.

Once in the room they sit there for a few days until they are sure it’s safe to leave. Then they call someone on one of the other islands to come down to the room and press the release button on the outside of the door.

So La Casa Vulano is a pretty safe house considering it’s that close to a volcano, don’t you think?” Mrs. Jones asked her class shutting the book and holding it in her right hand.

“I know!” Jesse exclaimed making Jessica, Lauren, Heather, and Catherine laugh. The rest of the class looked at them strangely; they couldn’t see what was so funny.

Mrs. Jones laughed at the five girls. “Ok, we’re going to talk about one more part of La Casa Vulano before we move onto math. I sent Madison a letter when I was first learning about her volcano house, and I asked her how she designed it. I’m going to read you what she wrote back to me, and then we’ll move on. Ok?”

The class nodded, and Heather, Jesse, Jessica, Lauren, and Catherine sat forward in their seats. They had really gotten into this.

“Dear Amy,” Mrs. Jones began, and some of the class laughed. “What, are teachers not aloud to have first names?” she asked her class and then continued “I have thought about how to answer this letter for a couple days now…

I must tell you I did not design La Casa Vulano by myself; in fact, I had so many people help me. I can’t hardly call it mine, other than that I own it. Other people have asked me this question before, and I must say I never really cared about the answer. “Oh, it took time, and a lot of hard thinking.” I used to say, but now I think I will answer like this:

“La Casa Vulano was not in the least my design. I had help from geologists, volcanologists, one of my eighth grade science teachers. (Mrs. Nelson, she’s the best teacher I ever had.), my friends, and many others.

We came up with the materials we were going to use by testing them in extreme temperatures. Most of the house is built of plain concrete, the only things that aren’t are the containment level, and the shields.

From the bottom of each of the towers there is a thick palmarius-estus pole that goes four miles under ground to make sure that lahars don’t cause the house to slide away from the volcano, and during construction we went over the walls so many times to make sure that there was no way the lava would get in and ruin everything inside the house.

So we spent two years designing it to avoid almost every possible disaster. Then we spent three years making sure there were no faults in our design. The problem with taking so long to build it was that every time there was an eruption we had to fix everything that got messed up during the process of the eruption.

I’ve lived through plenty of eruptions in this house, and I hope to live through many more in my lifetime.”

I hope this answered you question Amy. I know it definitely got me thinking. I’m glad to know that some people are interested in how we made La Casa Vulano instead of just why we made it.

Thanks,

Madison Randquist

So there you go. That is how they designed La Casa Vulano.” Mrs. Jones said right as the recess bell rang. “Ok, go to recess.” She laughed as her class all began to get out of their seats and head for the door, “But as soon as you get back it’s time for that math test!” she called after them hearing several of them moan at the thought of a test.

Idea

Ok, so I have so many ideas for stories lately that it isn't even funny, and the problem with this is that I don't have any time to write my stories. So I was just wondering if anyone would possibly want to write collaboratively with me. Kind of like how The Pigman is. We'd each have one main character and the chapters could switch off between the characters....

Just an idea. But if you're at all interested leave me a comment ok? Then we can start brainstorming and what not.

THANKS!

Continue?

Did anyone take the time to read my short story? If you haven't could you please? Pretty please with a cherry on top? Because I'm thinking I want to write more about Griffin, the main character, and I want some advice about how I should do that.
So if you have the time and the patience PLEASE read the post titled Try to Remember. I really want to know what everyone thinks about it, and I hope that I can get some input about a new story involving Griffin, Andy, and possibly Griffin's little sister. I don't know what it would be about though, or even what genre, so after you read it please post a comment either here or on the other post about what you think I should do to continue.


Thanks!

Poems

The Whisper of the Wind

The whisper of the wind,

Telling me a secret.

A secret too dark,

Too lonely for you.

The whisper of the wind,

Grabs my attention.

Tells me a secret,

That no one else can hear.

The whisper of the wind,

My only protection.

Tells me a secret,

A secret all my own.

The whisper of the wind,

Tells me a secret.

A secret I hold dear,

Fore I am all alone.

I Sit Here Crying

Watching closely,

From the outside.

So much to do,

So much to hide.

To think that I,

Was one of them.

To think that I,

Could hurt my friends.

Don’t want to hurt.

Don’t want to hide.

Don’t want to look

Down from the sky.

So all alone,

I sit here watching.

I sit here hiding.

I sit here crying.

Drenched in Sorrow

I feel it as it runs down my face.

I hear it as it falls to the ground.

I see it as I hold my hands to my face.

I realize after it’s too late,

This was not the right answer,

This should not have been my fate.

These are a bunch of my poems from when I was in Creative writing last year as well. I didn't turn any of these in, but I love these ones more than the ones I did turn in. So tell me what you think ok?

Try To Remember

“Don’t tell me you’re not afraid Griffin.” Andy said “Please don’t tell me you’re not afraid!”

“But Andy, what is there to be afraid of? I don’t understand why you keep telling me I should be afraid.” Griffin said calmly.

Andy and Griffin were sitting next to each other on a log that sat on the dirt road that both of their houses rested on. The road was wet and muddy from the recent rainfall, and both Andy and Griffin were soaked, their shoes as brown as the road beneath them.

Griffin and Andy were both twelve years old. Three years previously Andy had moved into the house across from Griffin’s which was in fact the only other house on Chcerryblossom Lane.

Andy hadn’t been like any of the other kids at school. She was a weirdo, a freak, and no one wanted to be associated with a girl like her.

That first day was horrible for Andy, but when she saw Griffin walking home from the bus stop with his little sister, she bounded toward them with hopes of making a new friend. Griffin and Andy had been completely and totally inseparable ever since.

Next year they would be in middle school, but Andy was moving again. They would be separated for the first time in three years, and they would probably never see each other again. That was why Andy wanted Griffin to be afraid because Andy herself was afraid, afraid of going to a new school where no one knew her and almost everyone was older than her.

She was afraid of something else though; Griffin could see on her face that there was some other cause of her fright, some other reason she was so afraid to leave Taylorsville, Oregon, and go back to Miami, California where she had lived until she was nine years old. Griffin was Andy’s best friend out of the few friends she had, and obviously there was something big that she had never told him.

Andy had told Griffin that when she was back in California and settled in she would write to him, and Griffin was sure she would. Their last goodbye would not be the day this summer when Andy got in her car with her mom and left their house on Cherryblossom Lane for the last time. Andy would come to visit him in the summer, and Griffin would go to California each winter. They would be friends forever. Then eventually Andy would tell Griffin her only secret. Wouldn’t she?

“Hello, Griffin?!? Are you even listening to me?” Andy asked frustrated, “You weren’t, were you?” she paused as if too say more, but then burst out laughing at Griffin’s reaction. His face was contorted with what she interpreted as embarrassment. Andy wondered what could possibly be on his mind that was of such importance that he would ignore her. It had to be pretty important, because it was easy to see that usually whenever Andy said anything it was the most important things said to him during the day.

“Sorry,” Griffin looked at Andy “what were you saying?” He asked smiling weakly.

“Forget it.” Andy said smiling back at her friend. After a moments silence Andy stood up and pointed at the car coming down the lane. “There’s my mom.” She said. “I better go get started on my homework. Meet me back out here at sundown ok?” Andy asked walking backwards towards her house so she could see as well as hear his response.

“Alright,” Griffin said, “see you later.” He stood and watched as Andy turned around and walked across her front yard and went into her house. Griffin sighed. He was beginning to realize that everyday he was coming closer to losing the best and only friend he ever had. “But you’re not really losing her.” A voice in his head kept saying. “You’re not losing her, because you two love each other more than anything in the world, you will always be together, and certainly the simple act of her moving to California can’t change that!”

“But can it?” Griffin said to himself. He was sure it could, but then he was sure it couldn’t. One minute he was very optimistic about their future together as friends, and the next he was sure that when Andy moved he would never talk to her again. That would be the end. He wondered if Andy thought about this as much as he did. Surely she didn’t. Andy had much more important things to worry about. She wasn’t just going to be at a new school without him, she was moving to a new home in a new state where who knows what could happen too her.

“No wonder she’s afraid.” Griffin whispered to himself. He stood there for a few moments longer, he had no clue as exactly how much time passed, but when he came back to his senses he realized that he was wet, and not like he had been before. Before he had been soaked, but it was almost a dry soaked; now he was dripping wet again, and he realized that the rain had started again.

He knew he must look stupid, just standing there in the rain staring at Andy’s front door. Griffin looked around quickly, stupidly, to see if anyone had seen him. “Who is around that could’ve seen you?” The voice in his head asked, “No one, except for Andy and her mother, and soon they won’t even be here. You will be able to look stupid and no one will care. No one will tell you if you look stupid or not. There will be no way for you to correct it. . . . .”

“Just stop it!” Griffin screamed to the sky “Leave me alone. Stop confusing me!” He fell to his knees, scraping them against the dirt road. “Let me think…. Please…. Just let me think.” Now he knew he looked stupid, he felt stupid. Why was this such a big deal? Why was he finding that he couldn’t stand to think about it anymore? Why did he keep telling himself that it was going to be ok, but that it wasn’t going to be ok?

“Why am I so confused?” Griffin asked himself. He stood there for a moment, as if waiting for an answer, and then turned towards his house and ran inside.

When he got inside he ran up to his room and sat at his desk trying to do his math homework, but he wasn’t really trying, he was sitting there his hands over his face, elbows resting on his desk, just thinking. Thinking about Andy, thinking about California, thinking about Madison County Middle School; in truth he didn’t know what he was thinking about, but he knew it was important. He knew that if he really knew what he was thinking, it might just help him sort this whole thing out.

He didn’t know how long he sat like that, but he knew it had to have been over an hour because he was pulled out of his thoughts by his mother coming into the room and asking him why he had been ignoring her calls for him to come down to dinner. “Sorry mom.” He had replied “I’ve just been thinking.”

His mother had looked at him knowingly and left the room saying that he needed to wash up and come down to eat really quickly if he wanted to be able to go play with Andy tonight.

He ran down the stairs as fast as he could after washing his hands in the bathroom, and sat down at the table across from his sister, Amy, who was already half- way done eating. “Hey Ames, did you take care of that bully how I told you?” he asked. Griffin was very protective of his little sister, and he didn’t stand for anyone being mean to her.

“Yeah, and I gots in lots of trouble because you didn’t tell me hitting her was bad.” Amy said with her mouth full of spaghetti. “Mommy said that hitting is bad, and I should’ve just told the principal about the mean girl.”

“Yeah but Amy, that’s just what she wanted you to do. Now she knows you mean business and if she tries to mess with you again she will pay.” Griffin lowered his voice when he heard his mother in the kitchen.

“But Griffin,” Amy said softly.

“Yeah Ames?” Griffin replied.

“Why are we whispering?”

“Because mommy wouldn’t want you to hurt someone. She doesn’t understand that it’s self defense.” Griffin said even more quietly.

“Ok Griffin, but if we get in trouble….”

“We won’t get in trouble.” He said eating the last of his spaghetti.

“Wow!! How did you eat all that food without me even noticing?” Amy asked looking at her brother in awe.

“Magic.” Griffin said simply, no longer whispering. He grinned at Amy, brought his plate to the sink, asked his mother if he could go play.

“Sure Grif, but don’t be out too late, you still have homework to do.” His mother said while washing the counter.

Griffin ran across his yard to the log in the middle of the street. Andy was sitting there looking at some sort of book in her lap. As he got closer, he realized it was her notebook. A little blue hard covered notebook that was held shut, when not in use, by a black piece of ribbon glued to the inside of the back cover and wrapped around a quarter sized black button on the front.

Griffin had never paid much attention to this note book, besides the fact that Andy always had it with her. He didn’t think it was her diary because Andy would let their teacher read it during recesses sometimes, and Griffin had seen her diary. Andy had let him read a page out of it once.

Her diary was not as important to her as this note book. “What are you writing Andy?”

“A story.” Andy said looking up from her lap “What took you so long?” she closed the little note book and set it on the log with her pen.

“My mom took a long time to make dinner.” Griffin lied “and Amy was telling me about her class play that is on Friday night. (This wasn’t a total lie. Amy had mentioned it the previous night at dinner.) She said she wanted you to come.” He finished saying, totally forgetting about the note book.

“Oh. I’d love to come!” Andy said grinning. Amy was the sweetest little girl she had ever known, always asking Andy to play with her and such.

“She’ll be thrilled when I tell her.” Griffin said still standing in front of the log. “Now come on, last one to the tree house is a rotten egg!” he challenged, but he waited for Andy to stand up, which he realized was a bad idea when she sped past him towards the end of the lane and into the meadow that was what they considered to be their back yard.

By the time Griffin made it up into the tree house, Andy was already sitting in one of the overly stuffed bean bag chairs, reading a magazine as if she had been sitting there for hours.

Andy and Griffin played in the tree house for hours that night. They wouldn’t have left if Andy’s mother hadn’t come and found them telling them that they needed to go home and go to bed. They did, after all, have school the next day and if they fell asleep in class it would mean trouble worse than any other.

“Ok, bye Grif, I’ll see you tomorrow!” Andy called as she walked back to her house with her mom. Griffin stared at her retreating form wondering how things were going to be without her. He stalked back to his house thinking about waking up every day without being able to walk to the bus stop talking to Andy, and just enjoying her presence.

When he got inside his mother told him to go to bed. So he showered and got in his pajamas and got into bed after making sure his alarm clock was set. It crossed his mind for less than a second that his father wasn’t home yet. His father was usually home before dinner. After all, being a police man in this area was very boring work. There were never any crimes seeing as the town was mostly old people in a very poor situation.

Suddenly Griffin didn’t know where he was. It seemed that he was overlooking a very large city intersection. As he watched he wondered where this was, and yet he seemed to know that he was in New York City, and he seemed to know that it wasn’t the year 2007, but instead the year 2027, and he was thirty two years old, not twelve. He studied the intersection wondering why he was here, why he seemed to be hovering a mile above as if he had wings, instead of standing on the sidewalk with everyone else.

The intersection was full of the usual New York City hustle and bustle, and how Griffin knew what this was like he wasn’t sure. He couldn’t read the street signs, and he couldn’t see the signs on the businesses nearby, so all he knew was that the road heading east and west had a red light, and the north and south bound light was green.

He could hear the car horns honking, and he could smell the gasoline, and he could see the cars, but he could hardly say he felt their presence, not until he heard that single blaring horn that seemed to be louder than all the others as it turned the corner at the red light almost hitting several cars.

Griffin saw a woman crossing the street, and he could tell that this was significant. He knew this woman. The dirty blonde hair, and slate grey eyes were so familiar, but he couldn’t remember this woman’s name. He knew it, but he didn’t.

The woman was wearing a short denim skirt, and a green tank top covered with a short denim shrug. She was carrying a white handbag with sequins all over it. He knew that this was not how the woman had been when he was twelve, but he couldn’t remember how she had been when he was twelve.

She moved quickly as the crossing sign counted down the seconds she had left before the light turned green, and as she was about to step onto the sidewalk, the bus whose horn he heard blaring a minute ago slammed into her. The glass on the windshield cracked, and she was flung about a yard away from the bus. Her face was on the asphalt, so there was no telling the damage, and suddenly Griffin was on the ground running toward the woman who lay sprawled and twisted on the ground.

He noticed that he was taller, what had to be over six feet, and he was wearing a long tan jacket that covered a white dress shirt. The jeans he wore were obviously new, and his shoes old. As he ran with agility he had not had as a child he got out his cell phone from an inside jacket pocket and dialed a number he didn’t recognize…..

After a few rings someone answered.

“Hello, N Y U hospital, can I help you?” the receptionist asked. He knew that voice too, he realized. He loved that voice, and he had no clue why. He knew her name though, it was Sarah. Sarah DeLoision an ex-girlfriend of his that still felt very strongly for him and tried to get him to notice her.

“Hello?” Sarah asked again, “Can I help you?” Griffin had reached the woman and was the first one there. He had been standing a few yards away from the crosswalk on the side of the road she had been trying to get too. He panted as he tried to catch his breath.

“Sarah? It’s me, Griffin. We’ve had a major accident here on…….” He said a street name, he knew he did, but he didn’t hear it. “A girl has been hit by a bus. It looks really bad, I think she’s going to die, but I need an ambulance right now. I also need a surgical room for her to be ready when we arrive at the hospital, can you handle that?” Griffin was amazed at his voice. So much deeper than it had been when he was twelve years old.

“Griffin, oh my god!!!” Sarah said “Are you ok, did you get hurt?” she sounded panicked, but for all the wrong reasons. She worried about him, when this poor woman was lying on the sidewalk dying as he spoke.

“Godammit Sarah! I’m fine, but there is a woman lying next to me on the ground dying. Get me a damn ambulance already!” he screamed into the phone and hung up. “Come on, come on. Hang in there.” He was saying to the woman “We’ve got an ambulance coming to get you. Hold on. Don’t let go, don’t give up. Please don’t give up.”

This was why Griffin made such a great doctor, (he had just known he was a doctor), he cared about every single patient that ever came into his office, no matter what the problem; he tried to make it better.

A crowd was beginning to gather around the girl and him. He tried to get people to back off, but it was no use. Eventually a young man, probably about twenty one, started threatening people to stay back, and Griffin was fine with that, as long as this woman had room to breathe so she wouldn’t die faster.

“Someone call the police!” People were screaming all around him. The honking had seemed to stop, and no cars were moving, everyone was trying to see if this woman was ok. The scene touched him; he had never witnessed such a sight of human kindness. So many people gathered around to make sure one person is ok. He knew that wasn’t the only thing though. Some of these people were gathered to see how bad it was because they were the kind of people who thrived on other people’s pain.

“Come on Sarah, don’t disappoint me.” He whispered to himself, “Get that ambulance here my girl. Come on Sarah. Come on….” He stopped because he heard the wail of ambulance sirens as they tried to reach the accident. Somehow it managed to get past all the parked cars and to the bit of empty street where the bus had tried to get past. Before that moment Griffin hadn’t noticed that the bus driver was standing right behind him watching to see if the girl he had hit was ok.

Suddenly the paramedics were there. Griffin explained the injuries he had noticed in medical speak and helped the two men get the woman onto the ambulance. He boarded the ambulance himself and tried to get all the bleeding to stop as they rode on towards the hospital. It wasn’t working. Her head was bleeding horribly, and nothing he tried would stop it. When they arrived at the hospital Sarah was standing at the doors waiting for him. He walked right past her as he rushed this very important woman into the hospital.

In a blur of motion and chaos he found himself in a room that smelt of metal and antiseptics. He suddenly started calling to his nurses to get him tools and chemicals that he knew, but he didn’t. This was the most important thing he would ever do, he was sure of it, and as he did things that were surely supposed to help this girl that was definitely not older than himself, he thought of how tragic it would be if she died because Sarah was being an idiot worrying about him.

“Come on, come on, come on!!!!” Griffin screamed as the girl got closer and closer to flat lining.

“Don’t die baby, don’t die. You are needed on this earth. Everyone is needed, but you are definitely a special one.” Griffin’s favorite (he could just feel that she was his favorite) nurse was saying as she stood by the young woman’s head checking to make sure she was still breathing.

They had to have been working on keeping this very special girl alive for over three hours. All of them (three nurses and himself) were sweating and Griffin’s hands were shaking like crazy. He didn’t know what he could do anymore.

There was a sudden commotion and Griffin swore he had gone deaf, he would’ve believed it if he couldn’t hear that very distinct, high pitched, monotone screeching that to him was the very definition of death.

“Oh god. I’m sorry.” Griffin whispered as he stood over the operating table and looked at the girl’s face, feeling that he had had a connection to this girl. He knew he could’ve done more. He could’ve saved her life, but he didn’t. Sarah had called for the ambulance too late, and he had been too slow. “Story of your life.” The voice said.

A while later Griffin sat in his office at the hospital going over paperwork for the woman he had killed today. He believed he had killed her, he could’ve done more, but he didn’t. He could’ve saved her, but he hadn’t.

The woman was thirty two, someone had found a drivers license and had given him that information, and they had given him her name too.

Andromeda Lynne Peters

He knew that name. Oh how he knew that name! But yet… He didn’t. That name came from a different lifetime. A lifetime when little Amy, his little Ames loved to go to dance and would do anything to be around her big brother, instead of being the Amy who was druggie with several kids, all in foster homes. A lifetime before his mother had gone insane and was sent to Portland, Oregon’s best hospital where she still lived. A lifetime before his father had disappeared…

A lifetime before Andromeda Peters had been killed.

In that lifetime his best friend was Andy, but what was her last name? He couldn’t remember. He hadn’t thought of Andy in years. Andy who had moved to California and never spoken to him again. This couldn’t be her though. He told himself long ago, when he was just thirteen, that he would never see Andy again. Let alone kill her.

And yet he knew that there was a connection between his Andy, and Andromeda.

He just didn’t know what that connection was.

Griffin woke up with tears streaming down his face, mingling with the sweat coming off his brow. He killed Andy. In his dream he had killed Andy, and he didn’t even remember her! How could that happen? How could he kill Andy? And better yet how could he become a doctor, or a surgeon or whatever it was he had been? He didn’t know how that could happen. There was no way that could really happen.

There was also no way Amy would become a druggie, and there was no way his mother was going to go insane, and his father was almost certainly sitting in bed with his mother right now explaining to her why he had came home so late.

The next morning Griffin went downstairs to breakfast. His father still wasn’t home, and no one had heard from him since he went for his lunch break the previous day. “It’s ok mom. We don’t need him anyway. It’ll be ok.” He couldn’t hide the worried expression on his face as he thought of his mom sitting in a straight jacket in a hospital near Portland, Oregon.

Amy didn’t eat breakfast for the next week, and she refused to go to her class play. Their father wasn’t coming back, and they all knew it. Their mother very slowly went insane and was put into the hospital when Griffin turned eighteen. Amy dropped out of high school, and became exactly what was described in his dream, by the time she turned seventeen, Griffin went to school and became a doctor.

And that summer, Andy moved to California and Griffin received on letter from her, and never saw her again. Except for one day in New York City, but she wasn’t hit by a bus. Andy was working in a bakery that she owned somewhere in New York. She didn’t recognize him, and he didn’t tell her that he knew her because he didn’t want her to know his story. He didn’t want her to have to deal with what happened to the people he thought she had loved. He couldn’t deal with having to pick up his sister from jail and having to pay for his mother’s medical bill, and he didn’t want anyone feeling sorry for him because his father had disappeared when he was twelve years old.

Because of his dream Griffin did remember Andy, but he didn’t remember the dream. He wrote Andy a letter in response to the one he had received from her, but he believed that she never opened it because she would’ve responded to what he had to say.

Or would she?

Twenty years later, Griffin sat in his office in the N Y U hospital and thought of that letter. “Andy, I know we won’t be friends forever. I’ve faced the facts. But I do think I will remember you. You want to know why Andy? Because I love you. You are the only friend that will ever mean this much to me. Please, Andy, just promise to try to remember.” He whispered. How he wished she had read that letter because she might just have kept it, and she might just have remembered him, like he had remembered her.

Hey guys. That was a short story I wrote when I was in Creative Writing last year. I loved writing it, and Griffin is my favorite character ever. Tell me what you think about it ok?

The Pigman

***IF YOU HAVE NOT YET FINISHED READING THE PIGMAN, OR YOU ARE NOT IN MR. T'S CLASS DO NOT READ ANY FURTHER!!!!!***

(That is if you care enough about not spoiling the book when you actually do read it.)

The Pigman was an awesome book. I knew from the first few pages (you know, when John writes on the desk?), that I was going to like this book. I didn't think that I was going to like John very much though, and I thought that Lorraine was actually kind of annoying. I didn't think that I would actually like the book much because I liked the characters, but I thought that I would like the book because of the way it was written, or maybe I'd just like it because of the plotline. I wasn't sure, but I knew that it was going to be a good book, and as soon as Mr. Pignati was introduced I was sure that I would like him as a character.

One of the main reasons I liked this book so much was because of all of the motifs. The pigs, the baboons, smiling faces, every little thing that you wouldn't normally pay attention too was put in the book for a reason. The best part of the book, or so I thought, was when Mr. Pignati goes to the Zoo with them for the last time, and he dies after he finds that Bobo's cage is empty. It shows that there was a symbolic bond between Bobo and Mr. Pignati, and it helps show one of the greater themes to the story. We are all like baboons. "They build their own cages."

I swear, that book was so amazing. I loved it. John was definitely my favorite character mostly because he was such a well developed character it was like he was a real person, but a lot of his personality didn't really show until the last chapter of the book. The part of his personality that he kept hidden, the part that he didn't use. I love how deep he gets in the last chapter. All the things that didn't seem to matter through out the book were put to light, and you see a different part of John that no one had seen before.

I love this book, and if you read this journal without reading the book, even though I warned you, I strongly recommend that you read The Pigman, because it is an amazing book.

***AND***

If anyone happens to have a copy of the sequel to The Pigman, I think it's the Pigman's Legacy? If anyone would please lend me a copy I would love you forever!!!!!!!

I was right to be afraid.

All week I have been terrified about coming to my dad's house this weekend. All four one reason. It had been over eight weeks since I'd seen my step mom, and because of past experiences I have been wondering what could possibly go wrong now. I wonder now if me thinking about that could have in any way cause what happened tonight?

Probably not, but who knows.

My step mom is not a good person. She's bipolar, and yet she refuses to take medication. She's an alcoholic and even though my dad told her if she was ever drunk in front of one of us he'd leave her she was drunk in front of my older half sister this summer, and he left her for about a week before he went back.

I think I know why he did that now.

My mom told me fairly recently that my dad didn't have any money because he put it all in an account with Smelli's (my step mom) name on it when he was trying to hide his money from the government when he went to court to try to get rid of the alamony he was paying my mom about a year ago or so.

Smelli refuses to give the money back, and so my dad is having financial problems right now because he is having a hard time getting some programming done for a company he is working for, and they won't pay him until it's completely done and running. So the only way my dad has money is if he either borrows it from his parents, or stays with Smelli.

This is all just what I think is going on, but I've been analyzing the things my mom and dad have told me along with their actions since I was about five or six years old.

Izzi and I, mostly Izzi, but I could've figured it out too if I heard as much as she did, figured out my parents were getting divorced when we were about eight. It was a long time before they found out we knew.

This brings me to an interesting thought. Have you ever noticed that older children get the most responsiblility of all the children in a family? They are trusted with knowing things that they can't yet handle, and by the time their parents figure this out it's already too late for them.

I remember one fourth of July my mom was upset about something. We were at home and my step dad was doing fireworks with my three younger sisters in our front yard. I think my mom was upset because of something my dad did. I can't remember what it was now, because that is not even close to the most important thing that happened to me that night. A lot of things happened that night, but the things my mom told me that she thought I was finally old enough to know are the things I remember more than anything else.

I don't know if Izzi even remembers that night, but I know I could never forget it. I found out some incredibly terrible things, and I don't know if I could handle them even now if I were to hear them for the first time. There's just some things a girl should never learn about her father.

If you're wondering what these things are... Too bad. There is no way I am posting them on the internet.

Back to what happened though.

This weekend it was just me and my two littlest sister (identical twins), Bird and Bear. I was so afraid that something was going to happen that I was crying when I left my house. My mom told me there was nothing to worry about, and so I didn't worry. I didn't worry at all.

That's something I did wrong. I knew there was reason to worry. Reason to be cautious, and yet I threw all that out of the window because I knew that mom was always right. My mama bear. I just wish I could have one of her hugs right now.

My dad took my sisters and I up to my grandmas to see if we could put up a tent as practice for when we're going to Lake Powell in a couple of weeks. That was fun. I spent the entire time taking pictures trying out new angles and working with the camera I borrowed from Mrs. Barney for the weekend. It was awesome, and as we drove home (to my dad's) I was sure the rest of the evening would be just as great. We were going to watch a movie and eat ice cream and hang out. It was going to be "just like the good old days".

Then we got home.

As usual dinner was on the table, and Smellie was sitting in her chair in the living room watching tv, her evil cat sitting on her lap. We all washed our hands and went in to sit at the table to eat our spaghetti. Smelli didn't eat with us. She never does.

We talked while we ate. We looked through movies trying to decide which one to watch. After we were all done eating me and my sisters went into the kitchen (which barely fits three people), and we put all our dishes where they needed to go. We stayed in the kitchen as we began to hear Smelli and my dad fighting. This wasn't unusual to us. It's a constant. They always fight, and that's why I was scared to go.

When they started yelling I told the girls to come upstairs with me so we could get out of the room. We went upstairs and were trying to get settled. We sat on "my bed" which is really the guest bed, and were about to turn on the tv.

"Girls, get your stuff. We're going back to Grandma's." my dad yelled at us, and we only payed attention to the yelling because we heard him say girls.

We were used to this rutine. We all quickly grabbed our bags and hurried down to the car. We got in, and my dad went back towards the house to get something. This was normal too. He almost always remembered something else he needed right before we left. But this time was different. When he got to the door it was locked. "Nice." he yelled at her, and I could tell she was on the other side of the door. Something slammed against the glass, and I winced.

"GET OUT OF MY SPACE!!! GET OUT OF MY SPACE!!!" She screamed at him as we all sat in the car. He shook his head angrily and went to open the garage door to get inside. It was locked too.

Then we left.

The car we had to take was broken. The old minivan always overheats, and I was sure we weren't going to make it there. We were ok though. We made it here, and I called my mom, and I cried as I talked to her.

I really wish my Mama Bear could hug me right now. I know that sounds stupid, but you don't understand how hard this is on me. I hate when this happens.

My mom promised me it won't ever happen again.

But I'm still scared.

I've learned now never to stop being cautious. At least when it comes to situations like this. My little sisters don't seem to have any problems with what is going on. It hurts me to think that they must be as hurt as I am. They are just as good as I am at hiding my feelings about these kind of things.

I've got to make it look like this isn't as bad as it is. I can't believe they have to deal with this stuff. It's sad. They're only ten. They don't deserve this.

Well I've got to go make sure my little Bird, and my baby Bear are alright. I guess I'll just have to live with it for now.

She won't ruin my life.

I won't let that happen.

I can't.

Things, or rather thing, that makes me want to scream.

I hate it, coming home and you're in a perfectly good mood, and then all of the sudden someone in your family says something, and you say something back, and then maybe you do something that you weren't aware you were doing, and then all of the sudden they're mad at you. It's freakin' retarded, and I have to tell you right now that it happens to me all the time.

This makes me wonder, is it normal? Do all kids have this happen? Or am I so horribly different from everyone in my family that one little thing I say sets them off? I don't know. It makes me angry just thinking about it. What is it about me that makes my family turn on me so easily? Really. I'd just love to understand. But I don't, and I don't think I ever will.

The only thing that seems to makes sense when it come to my relationship with my family is that they all fight with me. It's seems to be the only reason they keep me around. So they can blame things on me, take their anger out on me, and accuse me of saying/doing things I never said/did. What is it about me that makes it so easy for them to do this?

Then I think about each of them individually and I wonder why I fight with them specifically. With my twin it's easy to figure out. When we were little we just spent way to much time together, and when she didn't want to spend time with me anymore I was hurt, and I guess that even though I was sick of the way she treated me I never forgot how it felt to be her best friend. But with ER it's a little bit harder to figure out. I don't know why we get on each others nerves like we do. I guess it's because we both have habits that have been really hard to get rid of, and we don't really know how to stop doing them. Then there's baby bear. I know why I fight with her. I fight with her because she is just like my twin. She uses everything I say against me, and even when she's the one who should be getting in trouble she twists it so I do. Last of my biological sisters is the J Bird. She is the most like me. Same temper, same humor, same interests. I guess that's why we don't get along.

Then there's my parents. I don't get along with my mom because of things she and I have said to each other that we just can't let go of. Things that I don't know if I ever will let go of. Plus there's the fact that she doesn't seem to trust me. She would trust all the others before she trusts me, and that hurts me more than anything in the world. It's been a lot worse lately, and I guess that's why I am glad school has started again, because I don't have to be at home so much anymore.

BJ, my step dad is surprisingly the one I get along with the best of all the people living at my house. I didn't really like him at first, but after a while we got to know each other better, and now I don't know. Maybe I don't get along with him the best, but lately I've been getting along with him better than my mom.

My dad lives in Salt Lake. He's the one I call when one of my sisters, my mom, or BJ make me feel sad, or angry, and this is one of the reasons my mom and I don't get along. My mom thinks that my dad shouldn't have anything to do with what goes on around here, and that I shouldn't tell him when I'm not getting along with her, but the thing is that I always feel better after talking to him. Even though a lot of the time I know what he's saying isn't true. Because when I talk to him I think of how he used to be. How he used to hang out with us every weekend, and he'd give us "princess kisses" before bed. Talking to my dad when I'm upset makes me remember how he was before he got remarried. At least the things that I liked about him from back then, and it makes me realize that my dad isn't completely lost. Not yet anyway. There's still part of him there that can make me as happy as that little girl he'd tuck into bed at night.

I think my mom doesn't like me thinking of my dad this way. I think that it's because she knows he was never really like this. But even though he wasn't like that he made it seem like he was. He'd always be like that around me, and even though I know some of the horrible things he did I don't want to see it. I can't think about him that way. It just hurts way too much, but I think my mom wants me to see the truth so that during those moments when I'm not hiding in my false memories, and I can actually remember how my dad was like, has always been like, it won't hurt as much.

Or I could be reading into it too deep and she just doesn't want me talking to him and listening to what he is wrongly saying to me when I'm upset. I bet that's it. My mom doesn't think like I do, and so I seriously doubt it was my first idea.

Sigh.

How did this blog get to be on the topic of my dad? I hate thinking about these things.

I guess Izzi is right. I really do blog too much.

Rah Rah Recruit! Hugs from Fairfield!!!! :P

One word can describe the Rah Rah Recruit. Indescribable. That's all I can tell you really. A whole day with nothing but playing my viola and hanging with some of my closest, and some of my newest, friends. How much better can one day get?

It didn't start all that amazingly though. It actually started slowly, dully, and I had a headache before reading was even over. This would be because there was a fire drill during first period. It was kind of fun though, because I have my AL period first, and we were right there next to my little sister's first period.

Then it was time for the Rah Rah! I am so sad that this is my last one. It's tragic really. I'm going to miss playing The Pink Panther and Rosin Eating Zombies From Outer Space.

But you know what? Playing wasn't even close to the best part of the day. It was the times in between schools. When we were on the bus. Panduck, DF, Panda, Slaughter and I had a blast talking about the most random things. I don't even remember half of it, but it was all freakin' amazing.

Then there was Yearbook. It was pretty fun today, but I can't wait until we're done with training and we actually get our jobs and our pages and get to work. It'll be awesome. I'm just hoping I'm not on Layout. I suck at Layout.....

Anyway, I've officially lost my train of thought.

Off to read the tons of books I need to get finished by the end of term! Wahoo!!!

P.S. Testing starts tomorrow. What a bore.

Tutoring, Words, and Rah Rah!

Wow. I don't even really need to have five hundred words up until this weekend, and I already have at least twice that amount. Ha. I win. Except Izzi already has at least that much too. So maybe we tie. Or I could count and see which one of us has more words. Then I could decide if I win or not. But I'm amazing, and so I win by default. Haha. I'm awesome. Today was painful. My neck was sore almost all day because of what happened yesterday, and those stupid school desks made my back hurt more than it already did, and it didn't help that the excedrin I took before school wore off before lunch. It was not fun, but I managed to distract myself for a big part of the day. My friends, excluding a certain boy who laughs at me whenever I'm hurt or whenever I do something stupid, were all very sympathetic and helped me tease my little sister a little.

After school I stayed with my favorite science teacher who I am ALing for and helped to tutor the ittle bitty eighth graders who needed help with a worksheet they were doing in class today. It was fun mostly because no one showed up besides the other ALs so all we did was correct papers and talk and goof off like we usually do. It was pretty cool. ML, Grr, and I were racing around the classroom on our spinny chairs. We looked very immature, and all I could think about was how I thought of L and B when I first met them in seventh grade. They were definitely weird, but now I'm realizing that I'm just as weird as they were.

RAH RAH RECRUIT is TOMORROW!!!!!!!!!! Yes! I love the Rah Rah Recruit. It's when the orchestra goes around to the elementary schools Mrs. T teaches at and we play some really fun songs to get the sixth graders introduced to the orchestra. This year we're going to my little sisters' elementary school. They're only fifth graders though, and so they won't get to see me play, but if we're loud enough they might get to hear, and that's pretty cool, but what I'm most excited about is that next year when they decide what they want to play in the orchestra they are going to have Mrs. T instead of the weird old guy I had in sixth grade.

Well I guess that's it for now.....

This blog is turning into more of a journal than I thought it would......

Oh well.

Invigorating..... Terrifying.... Thrilling.... Painful.....

All these words describe my day today. My family and I went to the Little Sahara desert yesterday and camped overnight. We found this one area with a really steep dune while me and my little, insanely un-frightened sister were on one of our four wheelers today. She and I decided we should try going up it because we had managed to the day before. We thought we'd be able to get going fast enough, and so we decided to go for it. We got almost to the top and then we realized we weren't going to be going any further up, and so we didn the only thing we could. We started rolling backwards, but my little sister, who was driving, got frightened for the first time since she first got on a four wheeler, and she put her foot down on the back brake. So now the back wheels were locked and the front wheels were trying to keep rolling down the dune.

I don't even remember much of what happened next. Suddenly I was on the sand and my little sister went over my head. I knew the four wheeler was going to roll on top of me, but I didn't really understand how freakin' frightening that should have been. Before I knew it the four wheeler had hit me, and then before I could realize what I was doing I had pushed the four wheeler off of me with strength I didn't know I had. Then I just lay there. I didn't notice the pain, I couldn't quite hear my littlest sister and my mom screaming, and I didn't quite know where I was. It's scary now that I think about it.

What pulled me out of the crazy haze I was in was when I felt myself being spun. My step dad had grabbed my ankle and had spun me so my head was up instead of down the dune. I don't think any of my family knew at the point whether I was conscious or not. I was now aware that my mom had jumped off her four wheeler and was running the distance toward me. Apparently my sister had managed to get up on her own and was perfectly fine. She was sobbing of course, mostly because she was afraid she had hurt me, and that our parents were disappointed in her. I managed to sit up and saw my mom by me. She was furiously asking me if I was ok, and I believe she yelled at my sister for trying to get us up the dune. I told her, and everyone else, that I was just fine. I didn't feel any pain.

The next thing I knew I was back on the four wheeler behind my sister and we were headed back to camp. The flag on our four wheeler had busted and my step dad had to fix it before we could do anymore riding. I realized as we rode back to camp that the side of my leg was bruised. It hurt every time I bumped it.

We went the rest of the day without much of an incident. My leg hurts, my back hurts, my wrist hurts, my neck hurts, and I know it's just going to be so much worse tomorrow, but I think I'll be ok.

Everyone be aware though, I'm going to be in an awfully grumpy mood tomorrow.

Depressing Thoughtfulness

Ok, so I know I already have enough words, and that I don't need to have another blog post for this week, let alone another one today, but I just went with my mom to pick up my 9 year old cousin because she's going camping with us this weekend, and on our way there we were talking. It gave me a lot to think about.

My cousin is only 9, and yet she has had to deal with more in her life than I might ever have to. When she was three years old she had some kind of brain tumor. I don't remember a whole lot about it, but I do remember that it hurt our entire family to see that precious little girl we all loved so much in so much pain. She survived it though, and for that alone she is my hero, but there are so many reasons why I look up to my adorable cousin. Her little sister is only three now herself, and we found out a little over six months ago that she has Lukemia. Since we found out about the cancer my 9 year old cousin, the Koala Bear as I call her, has been so neglected, and it makes me so sad. She puts up with so much, and yet she doesn't get enough love for all that she deals with. My mom and my sisters would let her live with us in a second, but her little sister needs her, and my Koala Bear needs her little sister as much as I need mine if not more.

It hurts me to hear what happens to her. The things she puts up with, and then to see her smiling face and hear her giggling as she comes to the door when we came to get her tonight... It makes me want to cry. I know I wouldn't be able to handle everything she does. That little girl is so amazing.

We were in the car tonight, the windows rolled down, our hair going all over the place, and then my mom told us to turn on our song. "This One's For the Girls" by Martina McBride. Oh my gosh, I think my heart broke when I heard her trying to sing that song. It was the first time she had ever heard it, and by the end of the song she said she remembered all of the words. My cousin Ella.

My hero.

God, I love that little girl.

Jr. High-----

Wow. I didn't think it would be this hard to think of something to say in my first blog post, but I am finding it very difficult to find a topic that I can write about for a little while.

So I guess I'll write about what I think about 9th grade so far. Just because I have nothing else to write about, and I'm sure that topic will keep me going for a little while, if not for a really long time.....

This year isn't what I thought it would be, so far. I thought that it would feel like both seventh and eighth grade, but instead I'm finding that it's completely different. Every time I see one of my friends that were in seventh grade last year I want to call them "sevies" like I did all of last year. It's also weird that I don't get to see last years ninth graders around the school anymore. I mean, sure I dealt with that same thing last year when suddenly the ninth graders I had looked up to as a "sevie" were in high school. I couldn't talk to them between classes anymore, and I practically never saw them, but that seemed different somehow. I guess it would have to be because I got to know last year's ninth graders really well over the past two years and I became friends with a few of them. It's just so weird to know that there aren't any kids that are a year or more older than me at the school now.

Then there are my friends. I've suddenly stopped hanging around the friends I thought were my closest friends in the world, and instead I'm hanging out with my friends that were, I don't really know how to word this.... I guess you could say they were just my background friends. The friends I had for different reasons. They were the friends that had more of the same interests as me, but I thought that I didn't get along with them as well as my other friends. Now it's like everything has switched around. The friends I thought were my best friends in the world are now the ones that I hardly ever talk to, and I find myself spending all of my time with those friends that I didn't think I got along with very well, and I'm actually noticing that I get along with those friends better than I've ever gotten along with anyone.

Its all so weird to me. The other day I was looking through some old pictures for a yearbook assignment and I found myself thinking about how different things were say five or so years ago. I didn't have any friends back then, and I didn't even do very well in school (other than the EOL's). I was learning what I needed to learn, and I had people I would talk to and play with, but I just simply didn't care.

So I got to wondering why I've began to care so much about how I do in school, and whether or not I have any good friends, and I can honestly say that I have no idea. It was just that suddenly I did. I wanted to be able to go to things on weekends like my sisters did, and I wanted to do even better than all of them in school (That didn't happen. My little sister who is in the fifth grade has always gotten better grades than I did when I was her age.). So I started paying more attention in class, I read more, and I was just a bit more friendly towards people. By the end of seventh grade I had tons of friends, and the JV Science Olympiad team I was on had gotten fourth place at state. That was the most amazing thing that had ever happened to me at the time, but things just kept getting better.

For the first time ever I had things to do during the summer. I went to my best friends house every other day at least, and I couldn't wait for eighth grade to start. Sometime during that summer I changed, matured if you will. I found that my best friend wasn't has funny as I had thought she was. She was still awesome, but I guess I just became a little bit less of a dork than I had been. I found that she got on my nerves more than she had in the past, but I held strong to our friendship, because it was the best I had ever had, and I was scared to lose even a bit of that.

Summer came and went and I found that I was in some of the same classes with my friends, but I had some without any of them, and now I realize that was such a good thing for me. It forced me to get to know new people just like I had been forced to get new friends when I started Jr. High the year before. I found myself with even more friends than I could remember sometimes, and that made me the happiest I had been in a long time.

I wasn't focusing in school as much as I had in seventh grade because I had so many people to talk to during class. I found it hard to resist talking to people during school when that was the only real time I had to do so. I still did better than a majority of the kids in my classes, and I was really happy (Especially when I made it onto the Varsity Science Olympiad team.).

Then we went to state for Science Olympiad, and I realized that I hadn't been paying very much attention at practices. I had been sliding through practices letting my partners do a lot of the work (Of course I did a lot myself, but I didn't even understand a lot of what was going on.), and so when it came to State competition I was surprised to find that I knew what to do, and that I did amazingly well. I got three medals, a gold, a silver, and a bronze. I was so surprised that the weeks coming before we went to nationals went by in a blur. Suddenly I was in Kansas with my friends and we were ready to compete again.

The days during Nationals went by so much quicker than the days before, and I found that it was over before I knew it. The glory of getting a medal at a national competition had not yet worn off, but it was almost depressing to think that it was over, and that I might not even get a chance to be on the team again. Then summer came. I had a party for my Science Olympiad friends (these would be the background friends I mentioned earlier) because we had done pretty well at Nationals, and I found that I had a much better time hanging out with them than I had ever had with my closer friends.

I didn't do over the summer. Unlike the year before I didn't have a parent who could give me rides whenever I needed them. My mom had gone back to work, and I found that I just didn't want to hang out with my friends. I didn't know why, but I spent a lot of my summer alone. I guess I just needed to think about things. I did do a lot of thinking over the summer, and I realized... well I realized a lot of things. One was that I've always underestimated my intelligence. The other was that I needed to rethink who I was hanging out with, and I did.

That brings us pretty much up to the present. I have started hanging out with my "Science Olympiad friends" more, and I've (so far) been staying really organized with school. Sure I did really well in the past, but now I want to be excellent. After all, one of the first things you're told about ninth grade is that this is when it starts to count. So I really need to do my best from now on.

That is why I'm trying to get honors in Science, Math, and English. I'm also hoping to get a 4.0, but I'm not so sure about that as of now.

Wow. This really ended up being way longer than I thought it would be..... It's not even very interesting. Oh well....

Anyway.... This is the end of my first official blog post....


Really, the end now.

Blog Post #1

Hello world!