This diary entry is a prime example of middle school drama. Something as simple as cafeteria seating arrangements could end friendships. Well, temporarily at least. Even though I said Jaime was taking Lianna's place as best friend, in reality, Lianna and I are still friends today and my friendship with Jaime fell out in high school. So now, Lianna and I have been best friends for 22 years... almost three times the *long* 8 year friendship I mentioned at the time in the entry. Wow that makes me feel old. But I also feel so lucky to still have best friends that I've had since elementary school. We went through all the drama together and our friendships are so much stronger for it!
Not sure how I jumped to the conclusion that people didn't like me because I had a boyfriend. Well, I guess I do kind of remember what that felt like. I felt kind of isolated because I had less in common with my friends. It was like, when I didn't have a boyfriend, I felt like I was the only one in the school without a boyfriend... and then once I got a boyfriend, I realized that actually, none of my friends had boyfriends. Which meant, no one to talk to about boyfriend stuff... and if anyone were to actually bring it up, they'd be annoying and all "ooooh how's your BOYFRIEND??? hehehehe" about it.
Of course that electronic dictionary that Richard used for romantic purposes is the same one that got me the infamous Saturday detention.
--- “2-26-97. Hi Diary, It’s 7:03am. I have to leave soon. Personally I don’t like sitting with Kara, Jessie, Mike, etc. at lunch. Because they’re creeps. Mom wants me to sit with Christina & them. Tell you the rest when I get home. Gotta go. Sorry! -Sabi I’m back. Okay. Lianna started sitting with them about every other day a week ago. Monday, they had enough room at their table so me, Jaime, & Lianna could all sit there. Tuesday (Lianna’s day to sit with us) she sat with them. She said, ‘Ya, maybe you guys (me & Jaime) can sit with us tomorrow.’ First of all, when did she become one of ‘them’? Second of all, why is she so conceited? Geez, I hope she doesn’t read this! If she is reading this, then Lianna, I’m sorry for saying all this mean stuff but it’s the way I feel. Sorry! I think that is really rude of her. I mean, being my BEST friend for 8 years & then just dropping me like a hot potato. I want to be good friends with Christina, Meghan, Kristin, Leah, Michelle, Diana, & Amy but I don’t think they like me. Maybe it’s because I have a boyfriend. Well, hello? Having a boyfriend isn’t going to change my personality! Geez! I feel like it’s Lianna’s fault for ignoring me so suddenly & being so rude. But then I also think that they’re in the wrong. They’re stealing my friend, my BEST friend. Well, to bad, see if I care! From now on, I declare, Jaime is my BEST friend. Go ahead Lianna, leave me with the creeps. Don’t care about me. All she cares about is herself. SHE IS SO CONCEITED! O-kay. Today in Language Arts, Mrs. Decker has this electronic dictionary thing. Well, you can make it say stuff. Anyhow, Richard was using it. He said, “listen to this” and put the speaker part up to my ear. He made it say, ‘I love you!’ How sweet! Awhh! I read 2 notes that he put in my file server. They say like I LOVE YOU all over them. I think he’s getting annoying again. I almost want to dump him! I want to be a free woman! HELP! -Krista”
Here's the story of how Richard became my second boyfriend... I was such a hypocrite. I was worried that my boyfriend was only going out with me because he was desperate. And yet, in previous diary entries, I said multiple times about multiple boys, "I guess I'll go out with him if he wants to go out with me." I was pretty much the queen of desperate even though there's no way I would have admitted it at the time. Actually, I probably didn't believe that I was desperate since I did have some standards-- there was a good 10-15% of boys at the school who I wouldn't date.
I was so sad that I wouldn't see Richard until Monday, but get this, we lived in the same neighborhood. His house was only about a half mile away from mine. Although, in my former self's defense, no one wants to walk half a mile in Erie during December when there's guaranteed to be at least a foot of snow on the ground! --- “12-14-96. Dear Yraid, Here’s how it all happened- I told Jaime that she could ask him if he’d go out with me if she wanted to. So she did on the bus & he said ‘probably’. Then Doug asked him on the bus & he said ‘yes’. Doug told Jaime & Meghan & they called me to tell me when they got home from school. At first I didn’t believe them, but then I was convinced! I was so happy. Then when I went over to Jaime’s around 5:30 I called him. All we did is say hi & then complete silence. So I said that I had to go & we hung up. I got so depressed because he didn’t talk to me. Then from where Jaime & I were babysitting Jaime called Richard. She told him how I thought he didn’t like me. Jaime said that he said that he does like me & he’s sorry, he just didn’t know what to say. So then I was kinda happy. But then I started to think that maybe he’s just desperate & he’d go out with anyone. Then I was sad. My life is so confused right now. Maybe he’s just phone shy. I hope he likes me. I’m not calling him again unless he tells me to. I hope Monday will be good. Too bad I can’t see him till then. But think, at least I’m over Craig. I heart RICHARD! -Krista”
Aw, Craig seemed so sweet giving me a Hershey's *kiss* charm. But then the truth had to come out... he didn't even know why he was going out with me. Oh crap. That's not a good sign. Nooooo this first love was supposed to last foreverrrrrrrrrrrr! Or at least longer than Jessica's record with Craig of two weeks! --- “11-13-96 Dear Yraid, Today Craig found a Hersey Kiss chain on the floor (you know, for a necklace). It was broken, there was no loop to put a chain through. Craig gave it to me. Later in Science, he said, “Too bad that charm is broken. If it wasn’t, you could wear it as a necklace.” Whoa! Cool, he really wanted me to wear it. When I got home from school, I wanted to look at the charm but it wasn’t in my pocket! I LOST IT! AHHH! -Krista P.S. Meghan said she said to Craig, “I don’t see how Krista can go out with you.” Meghan told me he said, “A lot of people ask me how I can go out with her and I don’t really have an answer for that question either!” Is Meghan lying? She wouldn’t lie. Does Craig truly like me or is he just playing games? God help me my life is so confused!”
Okay, so I promised I’d tell the dramatic (and really embarrassing) story of my Saturday detention.
Here we go!
In 7th grade English class, the teacher had one of those fancy electronic dictionary things where you could type in a word and it'd show the definition. As an added bonus, it would even say the word out loud so that you could hear the pronunciation-- which, in it’s stupid robotic voice, was probably only correct like 80% of the time.
Anyhow, one day, I was using the electronic dictionary and Mrs. Decker left the room. Not long after she left, I found a function on the dictionary that could pronounce whole sentences-- any string of words you typed in. And what does (almost) any 13-year-old do when given this power? Right. She starts typing inappropriate words and phrases.
So I was having the dictionary say things and kids from the class started gathering around me to hear. People were cracking up and I felt like the funniest comedian on Earth. I don’t remember the majority of what I typed… but one phrase sticks in my mind to this day because of how ridiculous it was. Sometime in elementary school, I learned the phrase "you suck" and then later in middle school, I found out that the phrase had some sort of sexual connotation, but I wasn't sure what. I typed into the dictionary “Maria sucks”… and then took it one step further and finished the sentence obscenely as “Maria sucks Pat.” Totally inappropriate. But I barely knew what I was saying at the time. Regardless, it got quite a reaction from my classmates when I hit *play*. I thought I was the shit.
I continued my talking-dictionary stand-up routine until all of a sudden, Mrs. Decker came back in the classroom. She saw all the students standing around my desk and knew something was up. She snatched the device from me, took it to the front of the room, and hit the button which played the last thing previously typed.
As Mrs. Decker held the dictionary in her hands… it said in it‘s dumb electronic voice…
She walked me down to the principal’s office so fast I could barely process what was happening. Once we got there, the principal phoned my mom immediately (oh crap times 5 billion) and called some of the other students from our English class down to her office to hear their side of the story because I think at this point I was still denying it.
One of the classmates interrogated was my best friend Meghan. She stood against the wall in the office, scared shitless, as the principal grilled her. Meghan, bless her heart, didn’t want to incriminate me and tried to dodge the questions, but I could tell she felt so conflicted… she didn‘t want to get me in trouble, but she didn’t want to lie. She thought I would get mad at her for telling the truth. Meghan started tearing up. How could I see my best friend struggle like that? I let her off the hook and said, “Meghan, you can tell the truth.” She said, “Krista did it” and started crying. I’m not even sure I was crying. Poor Meghan.
And that was how I got a Saturday detention. And was required to write apology letters to everyone I offended.
I don’t remember how long my mom grounded me for but she definitely did not let me off easy. Instead of letting me do homework or crossword puzzles or read a book in Saturday detention, she made me memorize maps of Europe and Asia. Maybe even South America and Africa… I forget.
I typically wasn’t a bully or a bad kid… so I really felt like a failure for screwing up so royally and disappointing my family, teachers, and friends.
In detention, I took a break from memorizing maps and wrote this poem “to” my mom…
--- I’m not, I can’t
I’m not everything you wish I was I’m not the perfect person You might think memorizing is what it takes But I have learned my lesson
I can’t do everything you wish I could, I get up just again to fall You really do have faith in me But I’m not smart at all
I can’t be who you wish I was, I’m really sorry, don’t you see? I wish I was who you want But you are stuck with me
I apologize for not posting in almost a week... but this summer is crazy. Especially with work. I've been working ten and eleven hour days recently... yikes. But I'm not here for sympathy. I'm here to share with you this drama-filled gem:
(ha... funny the diary entry also starts with an apology for not writing often...)
I can't imagine a more legitimate reason to hate your life other than having a little sister tease you and not give you mints. That is, unless she's also sitting in the highly-desired front seat of the car when she does it. In that case, you might as well wish death upon yourself and apologize for your birth.
Seriously?
There are children in this world with no sisters, no mothers, no cars, and worst of all- no breath mints... and yet I was the one with such a sucky life? I'm embarrassed now by the drama I caused. Sure my sister played instigator... but why was my gut reaction physical violence rather than calmly saying, "Mom, Kasey won't give me the mints" and waiting for Mom to make her hand them over? Sure it'd be kinda whiney, but it definitely would have solved the issue better and faster. Oh the joys of sibling rivalry.
So quick comments about my seventh grade teachers. It's interesting looking back and comparing my first impressions to my last (and current) impressions. In backwards order...
Mr. Jones: First impression = "weird". I'd say that's somewhat accurate. I mean, he wasn't that weird... but he did grunt a lot and had a crooked finger or something. But other than that, I think he was a decent guy.
Mrs. Chandler: First impression = "really nice". I honestly can't even picture what this woman looked like. All I remember is learning about variables. I thought algebra was awesome. Yay math!
Mr. Lohse: First impression = "okay". He flirted with my mom big time when she came to take-your-parent-to-school-day or whatever it was called. He even wrote "Say hi to your mom for me!" in my yearbook at the end of the year. Awkward. He ended up being my favorite teacher that year. He was always super nice to me... probably because he had the hots for my mom.
Mrs. Decker: First impression = "okay". Ohhh Mrs. Decker. She was really supportive of my creative writing (she even read some of my stories out loud to the class) and was really nice to me... until I f-ed up royally. Unfortunately, I don't have enough time right now to discuss the details of the traumatic events I caused in her classroom... but hopefully we'll come back to that soon. Definitely before my 7th grade diary entries are over! Don't you worry!
Dude. Trust me. I didn't like Doug. Really. I just pulled out my pink and yellow markers for fun and coincidentally happened to have colored over his name and only his name. I was probably going to color everyone else's names too but I forgot, or got busy, or got called down for dinner or something. But yeah, it's not what it looks like. It doesn't mean anything that Doug's name is highlighted and- wait a sec- it also looks like I may have changed to black ink for his name... and it looks bold... but trust me, it's not like I was tracing his name over and over again in cursive while daydreaming about our future wedding or what we'd name our children or anything. Haha... we were just friends. I didn't like Doug like that.
Oh Waldameer. Good ol' Waldameer. For those of you who don't know, Waldameer is an amusement park in Erie, PA. I use the term "amusement park" loosely because Waldameer consists mostly of what most people would consider permanent fair rides. Think of all the shitty rides you see at any county fair... just built slightly sturdier and cemented into the ground. And at Waldameer, you don't have to worry about the rides being disassembled and taken away at the end of the weekend... you can count on them always being there. When I was growing up, the best rides at Waldameer were the Scrambler, Tilt-A-Whirl, Paratrooper, Sea Dragon, and Whacky Shack. The sole roller coaster was older than my parents... so I think you can imagine how thrilling that was.
Even though my description of the park sounds disappointing, I used to love going to Waldameer. I'm pretty sure it's a huge part of every young Erieite's childhood. Every school held a picnic at Waldameer at the beginning of summer. People had birthday parties and family reunions at the park. I'd say in an average summer, I'd go to Waldameer at least twice a month. And although I think most of the rides are lame now, I couldn't get enough of them back then.
There have been a lot of changes to the park since I was a kid and Thunder River, I think, was the first big step in the right direction. Waldameer had always built a new ride every year, but they were usually just new fair-type rides. Borrring. But Thunder River was a big jump. It was by far the biggest and most modern ride in the park. It replaced the previous 1920s-built log flume whose highlight was a pathetic four foot drop... which actually was slightly exciting because by the time you got to it, you had been floating along for what seemed like 30 minutes travelling at a slower pace than the average walking speed of someone who was also born in the 1920s.
So now you understand my EXTREME excitement over the addition of Thunder River.
Since Thunder River, Waldameer has continued to add more exciting rides which I'm always surprised to see in the "lame" park I grew up with... including three new roller coasters (one which is legitimately kickass).
I could go on and on with memories of Waldameer (throwing up after riding the Paratrooper in 5th grade; my best friend Meghan, fully aware of my motion sickness, leaning all her weight into the side of our Tilt-A-Whirl car while innocently claiming she had no idea why we were spinning so fast; winning a stuffed animal lion from a midway game and naming it after Rider Strong; my sister getting kicked out of the park for spitting from the Sky Ride; frantically running around the carousel to claim the awesomest "horse" which was actually a dragon; the delicious french fries from the Potato Patch)... but I think this entry is long enough!
P.S. "I LIKE Pauly Shore!" Hahaha. Where the hell did that come from? I was probably watching too much Encino Man again...
The entry when Rachel accused me of not taking things seriously is here. So stupid.
I don't understand the crush on Joe. I was 12 years old, Joe lived in Wisconsin and we didn't have email, or Facebook, or cell phones (did you notice Doug wrote to Joe? That was snail mail folks). Joe was pretty much lost and gone forever. My crush on him was about as realistic as my crush on Rider Strong.
At least I wasn't the only one who naively liked Joe. I'm surprised Meghan and I didn't get in a fight over who had the bigger crush on a guy neither of us would ever see again.
So... five days earlier I *LOVED* Joe... and now it's back to Doug. Dammit. I wonder if Rachel hadn't broken up with him if I would have started liking him again anyhow. Probably.
By the way, how awesome were relationships in 6th grade? In one day, Rachel decided she liked Justin/Fergie and quickly proceeded to ask him out while she was still dating Doug. And once she secured her chances with Justin, then she broke up with Doug.
I also like how I got my relationship advice from a teen magazine. I guess at that age, a magazine was as good of a source as any... but I remember swearing by those articles and quizzes ("Are You a Flirt?" "Does He Like You?" "Is He Your Type?"). Here's a thought- if you need a quiz to determine if he's "the one", he's probably not.
Rachel wrote her note on a typewriter I used to keep in my bedroom for writing stories or letters to my friends. That reminds me that sometime around this age, my friend Meghan and I were garage sale hopping in my neighborhood when Meghan fell in love with the most beautiful baby blue typewriter. She even haggled the price down from $5.00 to $2.00. But when we went to carry it back to my house, we quickly realized that damn thing had to have been made of pure lead. We traded turns lugging it and by the time we made it the two blocks back to my house, our arms were burning. When Meghan's mom picked her up later that day, she was not too excited about Meghan's purchase. The beautiful typewriter that Meghan was originally so proud of sat unused in her closet for 3 years before it got thrown away when her family moved to South Carolina.
Haha... I was so computer-illiterate that I couldn't even load a floppy disk! In my defense though, Windows 3.1 wasn't terribly user-friendly. But the humor in this is that I grew up to be a computer programmer/analyst.
Okay, one last thing before I go. Did you notice the Ren & Stimpy reference on the orange pocket? That show was so annoying. I refuse to embed the Happy Happy Joy Joy video on this page because I can't stand it, but if you want to watch it, by all means... Happy Happy Joy Joy on YouTube
It's no surprise that I named a fish after Rider Strong. And Christina Ricci was my favorite actress at the time (because of Casper and Now and Then). I used to be fascinated with Ancient Egypt, so that explains the fish King Tut. I'm guessing Charlie is from Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, but I'm not sure. However, I have no idea why I had a fish named Pillsbury Doughboy.
At first, I was completely puzzled by the fish named "Mockolate" too. But after some googling, I found it's from an episode of Friends that first aired on November 16, 1995 (the day before I named the fish!). On the show, Monica had to create recipes with a disgusting synthetic chocolate substitute called "Mockolate". I only vaguely remember the episode now but I must have thought it was hysterical at the time.
Middle school was a big jump from elementary school for me (and for most kids, I'm sure). At first, one of the most interesting things to me was finally getting to ride a school bus. My family lived close enough to the elementary school that I had always walked to school before.
The way I saw it, kids who rode the bus were in some kind of secret society. They got picked up at the end of their street and chauffeured to school (instead of walking half a mile in the lake-effect snow). They would always tell stories about the crazy thing so-and-so did on the bus that morning. And if they were really lucky, they would get to miss homeroom because their bus was late. To me, a school bus was less along the lines of public transportation and more along the lines of a prom night limo.
It didn't take me very long to realize I hadn't been missing out on much. I had Caroline, the bus driver from hell. She would only play the country music station and would frequently pull the bus over to yell at us for being too loud or switching seats... basically for just being kids. My friend Mike would record her rants on his Talkboy and we would devise grand schemes to get her fired. But it never happened. After my experience with Caroline, bus riding lost its glamour for good.
Oh I should also explain that at my middle school, each grade was divided into two "companies" each with their own teachers. So that's what I mean when I say that someone is in the "other company".
Finally, I can't leave without commenting on the fact that I was distraught over liking an actual guy that I knew over a celebrity. I couldn't possibly like someone I interacted with on a daily basis more than a TV sitcom actor, could I?! Gosh, diary, what WAS wrong with me?
Rock collection, silk shirt, NES game, Mariah Carey and Janet Jackson cassette tapes, Love's Baby Soft perfume... what more could someone want for their birthday in 1993?!
This diary entry is a prime example of middle school drama. Something as simple as cafeteria seating arrangements could end friendships. Well, temporarily at least. Even though I said Jaime was taking Lianna's place as best friend, in reality, Lianna and I are still friends today and my friendship with Jaime fell out in high school. So now, Lianna and I have been best friends for 22 years... almost three times the *long* 8 year friendship I mentioned at the time in the entry. Wow that makes me feel old. But I also feel so lucky to still have best friends that I've had since elementary school. We went through all the drama together and our friendships are so much stronger for it!
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