A backwards glance.

Every time I got a new journal I felt I had to explain myself, as if the reader would be dealing with a total stranger.  Here is a high school recollection of when I started middle school.
July 9, 2000
"I used to be the second smartest [in elementary school].  I used to have this competition in my head with a girl named Shawndra.  The fourth grade teachers loved her.  I hated her.  She may have been a better reader than I, but I had the best penmanship.
In 6th grade, back in my dork days, I was the "weirdest" girl.  I had a plastic backpack, big glasses and parted my hair on the side.  The tranformation from a private Christain school to public school was hard.  I couldn't belive the way people talked, everyone dressed so differently (I always wore this white cotton shirt with airbrushed fish wearing sun glasses, it was my favorite, I wore it every week.  My parents bought it for me on their honeymoon to Panama City Beach and I was so proud of that shirt).  I couldn't believe my eyes the first time I saw a boy and a girl kissing. In the hallway!  At school!  Around that time I learned what a 'hoe' was and I thought those girls, those 'kissing' girls surely were 'hoes'."

 

Here's just a little glimpse at the transformation from 6th grade (left), when I had one friend, to 7th grade (right), when I became "cool".