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05/04/99:
I wish I could be a writer. I just can't get anything to go over 7 pages, though. I am practicing, though. I'm thinking of doing little character profile things or short stories on my friends or something. Already have an idea for what I could write for Hannah and Martine. In fact, I'm working on Hannah's now. She goes on a shooting rampage in the school at lunchtime, on chickenburger day.

05/05/99:
Feliz el cinco de mayo! Guess what was for lunch today? Chickenburgers.

05/07/99:
Last night I typed up a 1/2 page extra credit thing for Spanish. Forgot it at home. In science we made some crap, I think he called it "Ooblak" or something. It's that stuff you make with cornstarch and water. And Cassie's pissed at me for "being myself." I told her I wasn't about to quit. And Lindsey got kinda mad, too when I asked her for some answers on the English test then pointed out which ones were wrong. I think I got a little annoying. When someone copies your stuff and then tells you you're wrong...

05/27/99:
It's the first day of summer vacation. I feel I should be doing something memorable, something profound. Instead I'm sitting here, already bored out of my mind, with this vague sense of needing to do something and not knowing what it is. Come on, world, inspire me! If this is going to set the tone for summer I'm not going to be having much fun. I am still amazed at the speed with which this school year went by. It feels like it should only be March at the latest. When I was little time seemed to go by so slowly, but now it feels like it speeds up with each passing minute. Now an entire year flies by in the time a week used to when I was little. Although now it seems like all of my life has always been moving by at this speed. I feel like I've missed so much. Everyone has been reminiscing about all the little clubs they belonged to. I never experienced this. I only had a few friends growing up, not enough where I'd get caught up in huge fights or form exclusive little clubs. Maybe it's a good thing that I missed out on that aspect of childhood.

07/11/99:
Just was thinking about how I feel like I really don't fit in anywhere. I'm not an athlete, I'm not popular or fashionable, I'm not a nerd, not really, anyways, I'm not a goody-goody, even though that's probably what many people see me as, I'm not a comedian, I'm not poetic, I'm not depressed (according to a depression inventory, I just might be, though), I don't know much about computers, I'm not an artist, I'm not completely devoted to writing, I really don't think I'm any kind of origional thinker, I'm not a leader, I'm not into conforming, though... I can figure out what I'm not, but I can never figure out what I am!

08/18/99:
Finally have time to say more. And boy do I have a lot to say! I think I'll just say the whole story about bible camp and stuff now. That'll be enough... It all started Wednesday night, prayer night. Now prayer and praise night, as an upbeat version was the only way for prayer night to exist since the little kids were refering to it as "cryfest" and the board didn't like that. Anyway, the girls from my cabin all are going through some pretty tough times. Except for me. My life's peachy :) Some of the guys were going through a lot, too. Since they were all really good friends, they did what it's natural for a bunch of sobbing teenagers to do. Group hug. And a lot of group hugs. But the counselors didn't seem to like it too much. They broke them up. Quite a few times. One of the guys lost it at Amy, one of the program directors. They were yelling, but not much came of it. And they continued to hug, and the counselors continued to break them up, get mad, tell them to sit down, etc. And so, around 1:30 am, prayer night ended. The girls came back to the cabin pretty steamed, I found out about it (I was up jumping around and having a good time with about 5 other girls during prayer & praise night), got mad too, and we talked about it for awhile ('til about 2:30 am, making it the 2nd night in a row we got less than 5 hours of sleep). The next afternoon, also the last day of camp, our cabin and the guys cabin got together and had a good long talk with the program directors. We found out some stuff and were a lot less mad. But I didn't get to do arts and crafts that afternoon cuz our talk took too long and we had creative worship (where 2 cabins go up and put on skits) and then after that banquet. That night, after banquet and our guest speaker, was gender talks (girls go w/ girl counselors and talk, guys go w/ guy counselors and talk, then the guy counselors come talk w/ the girls and the girl counselors come and talk w/ the guys). That went way over, so campfire didn't start until 1:30 am or so. And since it was so late, the counselors shortened our last campfire considerably. The same guy that got mad at Amy got mad since it was some people's last campfire ever, but they counselors were all tired so they wouldn't let us stay longer. So, thinking that was that, I went back to the cabin. But none of the rest of my cabin did. After sitting around for about 5 minutes waiting, I decided to go look for them. All I found up on the campfire hill was the group that had stayed to do s'mores, and 2 girls from my cabin up there crying (I won't go into that, though, one was going through a really tough time). But the other 3 were still missing. So I walked down to the chapel (not a very far walk from the campfire spot) and found them standing outside talking. I met up w/ them and we decided to go inside the chapel and talk. We sat there for awhile, until it dawned on us that Sheila, our counselor might be worried. So I volunteered to go down there and tell her where we were, before she sent out a search party. But she insisted that we come down to the cabin and talk. So we did, and we talked in there until the 2 girls that were crying came down. Then, partly because we needed to brush our teeth and stuff and partly (on my part) because we didn't want to sit and listen to them cry (I felt really awkward doing that) we went to the bathouse. We met up with another girl there and stood around and talked for awhile and talked about how we planned to meet up with the guys cabin at 3 am (it was around 2 then) until Chris and Amy (the program directors, who were doing bedcheck and stuff) came and flushed us out. On our way back we met Sheila, who said that the girl who had been crying had cried herself to sleep, so we should be quiet when we come back to the cabin. Anyway, once we got back, we sat and talked with Sheila for awhile, until the topic, and all of us, were thoroughly exhausted. By then it was 3:30 and we never did go meet the guys. The next day we left around 2:30, so not much more happened then. So that's that story.

8/21/99/b:
Well, now I can catch up on the week. Sunday was the Sweet Corn Festival up at the bible camp. Kristin came up with us to see what the bible camp was like since she wanted to go there next summer. Once there, I ran into Dubi, Larissa, Ari, David, and Walter. Also another girl whose name I can't remember. All I know is she's Ari's friend. But everyone was Ari's friend. Anyway, after we ate, we went and hung around with all those people. Then we all went up for the candy drop, Dubi's dad flew the plane, so some tootsie rolls were dropped almost on our heads. So we stood around and talked for awhile, until some of the girls decided to go get their faces painted. So we walked the entire camp, trying to discover where they had the face painting thing, gave up, and decided to hang around the tent where all the entertainment was. But Kristin and I ran into a member of Julia's family, so we found out she was eating and went in to see her. After she was done, we went and got our faces painted, while everyone else stood and waited for the wagon ride (commonly refered to as the horsie ride). Julia got "WE" painted on her face, I got a heart, and Kristin got "ARI!". By then, the horsie ride came back and we lined up to show Ari. Of course, we were in the wrong order and it took him a couple minutes to finally get us arranged. Then we decided to go on the horsie ride. We sat in order on it and then came back, stood around and talked some more, ate ice cream and went on again. Then we tried to wash the paint off our faces and discovered it just smeared. So I ended up with a big red smear on my face the rest of the day. After that we went and sang some camp songs and stuff, as that was the closing event. Then it started to rain. We stood in the tent for awhile, talking to Sheila, and then decided to go out and stand in the rain with all my friends from camp (along with a few people who I knew by face but not by name) until it was time to go. This involved several group hugs, one that ended in all of us lying on the ground. Then we went home. It was a lot of fun, now I can't wait for camp next year. I hope everyone can come next year.
I went school shopping Thursday and got all my school supplies and 2 pairs of jeans and a shirt. We're doing our clothes shopping later, sometime after pay day. I also ran into Kelly (a girl from camp) when I was leaving JC Penny.
So that's pretty much my week, the last full one of summer.

09/06/99:
School started the 26th. I wish it were summer again. Or that this year would be as fun as my freshman year. Almost all my teachers are evil. At least in my opinion. Mr. Hoornaert (pronounced hornet), my homeroom teacher gave us a seating chart. We're the only homeroom in the entire high school with a seating chart. Mr. Anderson, my Law and Justice teacher, is satan. I've had him 2 times before, and this year only proves it. Now he's even stopped trying to have the boring movies we watch pertain to the class! On Friday we watched a movie on the Caribbean! What does that have to do with Law and Justice? And then he also give out the longest, most boring writing assignments imaginable. And even Mr. Schwartz is being an (content censored by parents) this year. He's yelling at us, and he even is forcing me to get an opinion on an argument I want no part of. And the band director, Mr. Erickson is, as always, an (content censored by parents). Then there's also Mr. Zenz, the new math teacher. Lindsey and I are presently arguing over whether Mr. Anderson or Mr. Zenz is the most evil. I say Mr. Anderson is, she says Mr. Zenz. Either way the year doesn't look very fun right now...

10/12/99:
Well, I'm pretty sure I now have a B+ in Algebra II. Mr. Zenz can go back to where he came from: hell. What possessed our school to hire him? What would possess ANY school to hire him? Grrr... Oh, this morning I made one of Lindsey's disturbing ideas even more disturbing. Yes! That's hard to do, you know. She is one of the strangest people I know. Updated the character profiles and added a new list. Maybe I should put up my sister's pheasant story, too...

10/13/99:
It's official. I have a B in Algebra II. I got an 83% on the quiz, my lowest quiz score yet. True I got a lot of extra credit from the worksheet, but it's not enough to help my grade much. I need to get A's on pretty much everthing between now and parent-teacher conferences or my parents won't be happy. In other news: Matt Clary is STILL obsessing over communism. He just sits there in class "kill the commies." I almost want to kill him. Or at least duct tape his mouth shut...

10/16/99:
Yesterday we read our stories in English. Mr. Schwartz liked mine. But he didn't like the fact that I used people I know in it, even though none of them objected. I also played pep band at the football game last night. It was 35 degrees, windy, and raining. Mr. Erickson said that if it rained we wouldn't play. But it was raining, and we were playing, even though the entire band was reminding him of what he said. Needless to say, I wasn't too happy.

11/5/99:
Woah. A lot has happened this week. I think I'll go in reverse chronological order in telling about them. Yesterday, Thursday, was the PLAN test. I got out of my 1st 3 classes for it. I did okay, I think. The only hard part was the science reasoning. Wednesday was the FCCLA district meeting, here in Watford. We won the trivia contest, thanks to President Kristin. All hail President Kristin. Also I saw a couple people from bible camp and we snuck out and reunited them with David and Ari during sr. high lunch hour. And finally, Sunday. Halloween. A LOT happened on Halloween. Only I'll have to let the suspense build cuz I've gotta go!

11/06/99:
Well, to the events of Halloween now: 6:15. Ready to go. Kristin, Julia, and Lindsey come and pick me up. We go to Julia's house and Julia and Kristin show off their costumes. We're dressing as Cuban immigrants. We look for Julia's keys. And look for Julia's keys, and look for Julia's keys. Finally we find them, at about 6:35 or so. We head out to Amber's. When we're almost there, at about 6:45, a dust storm hits. Winds are like 60 mph, and we're out on the highway. At first we thought it was snowing because so much dirt was flying. Anyway, we get to Amber's safely, then head out to do some trick-or-treating. We go to Mr. Schwartz's first. Julia and Kristin run up the steps first. The wind's still blowing, and stuff's flying at us, including a rug on his porch. Kristin and Julia tangle with the rug. Amber and Lindsey run back and forth between the door and the van, trying to make up their minds what to do. Emily sits calmly on the step, waiting for something to happen. Suddenly, we see his dogs run out. "Mr. Schwartz!" I'm thinking. Then he shows up. He says he doesn't have any candy or anything, but if we come back in half an hour we can have hot cocoa. So we leave. The wind still doesn't let up. We also see several fire trucks and ambulances going south of town as we are heading back into town. We trick-or-treat for awhile, then since it's still so windy, and hot cocoa sounds good, we head out to Mr. Schwartz's shortly before 7:30. While we're there, we meet his dogs, Jed and Cub, and his 2 cats. We sit around and talk. His mom calls twice, telling him to go fight fires. One's south of town. He refuses, then tells us the story of when he was fighting a grass fire in high school and the wind suddenly came up. We sit around 'til about 8, then it's time to take Amber home. It's still really windy, and Lindsey wants to get home too, so Julia takes Amber home and Lindsey to her pickup, which is at Julia's house. So it's just me and Kristin sitting around at Mr. Schwartz's. Shortly after Julia left his dog threw up on the carpet. We were both laughing inside because Mr. Schwartz had to clean it up. Eventually Julia comes back. She tells us about Amber not hanging onto her door when she got out and the wind breaking it. By then it's nearly 8:30 and time to go, so we leave. When we walk out the door, we see the fire. It's huge. And appears to be pretty near Kristin's. We go back to Julia's, then her mom takes us to drop Kristin off. The fire looks to be RIGHT BY Kristin's, but luckily, it wasn't. It was a couple miles south, but still pretty close. It was a really big fire, and the strong winds were making it uncontrollable. Everything that could haul water in Watford was being sent out. We stand around and talk with Kristin's mom for awhile, then take me home. You could see the fire from my house, and my mom stayed up pretty late watching it, just incase the wind changed. Amazingly, nobody lost their home to it, although several people had to evacuate. It ended up burning nearly 20,000 acres. The other fire in our county burned from the Montana border to south of Alexander. Only one house was lost in that one. A total of nearly 95,000 acres were burned in McKenzie County alone.

11/8/99:
We've come to an agreement. Mr. Zenz is satan. He is indisputably the most evil person any of us have ever met. Runner up: Peggy, my confirmation guide. And no, I did not sell my soul to Mr. Zenz for an A in his class. You might want to ask Amber if she did, though... In other news, I'm looking for a fanatical Catholic to tell me Martin Luther worshipped the devil and I deserve to die for questioning the Church. That goes up next to my anti-Catholic list. Non-psychotic Catholics: could anyone tell me what they're saying about us at your church? If you can, e-mail me

12/2/99:
today in english we had to do something rather unusual: think for ourselves. we had to write about why we would or wouldn't like to see legislature passed to stop hate speech. i thought that was a real no-brainer question. in my mind it's black and white: free speech good. censorship bad. it's practically instinct. i thought that it was that way for almost every american teenager. but i was surprised to find that only about four people out of my class actually were against it. and only one other person really seemed to know why. that, not surprisingly was martine. of course, we have completely different ideas on just why we're against it. i spouted the typical "save our constitution or we'll become like the commies" crap, and was prepared to debate it fiercely with anyone who objected. martine just pointed out something i had barely looked at, which seemed to be her own origional opinion. just like always, it seems. she's really unique and i just pretend to be.
have you ever felt so completely unorigional, like nothing you call yourself is actually you? like you're just a randomly assorted pile of popular opinion? well, i don't feel exactly that. i'm more of a randomly assorted pile of UNpopular opinion. i find myself either mirroring or being the exact opposite of a lot of people i talk to. and that scares me because most of my life i've thought of myself as an individual and wanted to be as unique as possible. but lately i've started to wonder if i'm really as origional as i think i am. martine's given up on fitting in and is going to just be herself. maybe i should just drop the facade of individuality and try to fit in, make friends, and just be one of the faceless masses, which is where i probably belong. but maybe i don't. there's still part of me that clings to every opinion i come up with on my own, like the catholicism thing. and there's this. this journal. i mean, if i can manage to keep this unique, keep this me, what little of me is left, maybe...
And I guess you're right, Martine. Reading the Fountainhead can be a real eye-opener. You found your idol, maybe even your purpose in life. I, on the other hand, found myself. Or I guess I should say my lack of a self. Is it already too late for me?

12/03/99:
am i depressed?

12/10/99:
I know I promised that there wouldn't be much seriousness here, but I think it's necessary. First of all, everything in the last ten days seems to have come out of extreme depression. I'm starting to realize now that I don't hate myself, and maybe there's hope left for me. In fact, my considering of myself is almost opposite of when I first mentioned our english assignment about hate speech. I've discovered that the world hasn't yet destroyed me, and I can't just stand by while people like Megan destroy it. Yes, I've seen the enemy, the person who stands for the one thing I'd like nothing more than to see an end to. The thing I've had a profound interest in and hatred of almost my entire life. That's conformity, censorship, the idea of some universal right or common good. Basically, the opposite of individuality. I need a copy of Megan's essay so I can quote her accurately, but basically, what she said today was that we should have free speech, but only for those who say nice things, which really isn't free speech at all. My eyes about popped out of my head as she read it. I wanted to go hide in the corner and cry. I never thought I'd hear anything like it. I never thought the menace of conformism would present itself so plainly to me. And I guess I never belived Martine when she said that that was what Megan represented. But that blonde haired, blue eyed, perky, bubbly, happy cheerleader was it. Martine and I talked about that tonight. Now I have something I HAVE to fight against. I can't let the Megans of the world take over. But will anyone listen to me?

12/24/99:
Lindsey's party was fun. We watched the South Park movie, Lindsey taught Julia how to rope, and Lindsey and I talked until 6 am. Maybe not your idea of fun, but I liked it. I'm also enjoying Christmas vacation immensely. Nobody yelling "Emily, SHUT UP!" every time I open my mouth. I wonder why Megan and co. pick on me so much. Plenty of other people talk, but they don't get chewed out after every word they say. Kristin says they hate me because I don't hate Martine. That doesn't make sense. You shouldn't make someone's life miserable just because they refuse to make someone else's life miserable. But I guess they don't see anything wrong with that... Still, I think Megan and Liz are gonna get a good bitching out when we get back to school. I think I'll very politely point out that whether I talk to Martine and Kristin or not is none of their damn business and if anyone has the right to loudly, rudely, and continually yell at me to quit talking to them and get my work done it's Mr. Schwartz, Martine, or Kristin. Wonder if that little speech will get applause or booing. Probably the latter. Or they'll just tell me to shut up.

12/26/99:
Last night I dreamed I did tell Megan off. She was really bitchy about it and I screamed and started crying and Schwartzcoff gave me detention. I woke up thinking "It's not too late! I can still not tell her off!" My own subconscious has betrayed me.