I wasn't used to it. Being happy for the first time. [Project life timeline, 14]

Stare straight ahead, stare straight ahead, make awkward small talk, 

sigh, it's over... I can go home.

10 days

My arm hurts sort of badly and I'm getting a tiny bit nauseous from a flu shot that I got at work today. It was a flee immunization that I got for working at Rite Aid, so that was a major plus. Diane reminded me about it. She's our sort of dark, no bullshit pharmacist. Almost all of our pharmacists like me for the amount of hard work I do and what I put up with.

I feel weird talking to anyone at work, so I get nervous when I talk to the pharmacists or anyone else. I'm really just trying to hold my good reputation and not have any problems with anyone; even if tensions get higher at times. 

Today I worked 7-3 (I usually work from 7:45-3) because we had a huge amount of ad. I usually cashier and do front end ad but now they want me out on the floor doing actual tedious work, I love it. Traci was head cashier for the whole shift, I was so grateful that Jodi let me work the floor today. I did a great job and hope I can again for my last Sunday shift. 

Onto my project timeline! I've thought a bit about what I'm going to say in this one.

Project Timeline, Age 14

2005-2006

I remember REALLY liking this picture, haha. Back at the beginning of standing in the bathroom taking pictures of yourself.

The reason for this of course being MySpace, which was really big at the time. I remember the scene kid look was just getting big, too, but I could never afford to complete an entire look even if I wanted too. I never really stuck to a trend for this reason, I always had a really random assortment of clothes; they were okay though I mean my mom had a better sense of style than I did. 

I recall 8th grade being one of the biggest transitional years of my life for a lot of reasons. 

I was taking my second class with Zorn, my homeroom was full of the same
"smart kids" (I'm sorry to say most, if not all, of them were white, and they went from class to class for the most part) that I hung on the tail end of. 

I mean I was smart, definitely above average emotional intelligence in comparison to other students and I would occasionally pop a good computer standardized test grade... But because my grades hadn't been fantastic I had classes with most of the students at ki-be from one time or another. 

I was in my fourth year of band, still playing the trumpet and starting to lose interest in it... I'm pretty sure at this point it was just Scott and I, and Thomas. There were quite a few of us to begin with but over the years more and more kids dropped and band became a little embarrassing. I took a lot of pride in having the opportunity to play the trumpet and really worked hard at it until I quit after Freshman year.

What was unfortunate about 8th grade Band is that Parks had retired and we were stuck with Neilson. Neilson had no enthusiasm what-so-ever and we would chop through songs. Parks was a little weird but he was still an incredible band teacher and I still appreciate what he taught me. Learning that guitar probably would have been a lot harder otherwise... 

I'm going to be honest, I was never really friends with any of these girls-- especially not in middle school. Hailey and I had a fight just a few weeks after this photo was taken, I'd assume. Don't get me wrong, Chelsea and Emily were both on my sports teams for years and I respect them. Emily B. and I actually talked at Katharine's college graduation party and got along a lot better now that we're away from the highschool environment... but back then, meh, I'm pretty sure I probably annoyed them both.

When I was 13 I was a HUGE NEGATIVE NANCY. This got a lot better my 8th grade year once I got a little more confidence but even more so when I started taking Paxil. 

Paxil was after a long string of problems, though. 

Hailey H.... I have not talked about this person in a long time. I don't feel any anger toward her, it's just weird to think she's the only person I've ever been in a physical fight with. It's extremely out of character for me. Hailey is pictured with the yellow sweater over her shoulder.

At the time the fight was about Wiley. I guess I sort of dated Wiley for like a week when I was 13; probably freaked him out a bit. ANYway, I'd gotten wind that Hailey was telling people the reason Wiley and I dated is because she had told him to go talk to me. I don't know why this would piss me off, but I think I interpreted it as 'she was in control of that situation' and I used it as ammunition to go for it.  

I remember talking to Jake H. about my dislike for Hailey, just talking a bunch of smack about her the week prior planting seeds of tension between us. Jake did NOT like me back then, AT all. In fact he told me this just recently when we were hanging out during christmas break. He told Hailey shortly after the note and boom, before you know it we were catfighting in the back of the school with a bunch of people watching.

It was a pretty wimpy and brief fight I'm sure, I have no recollection of it. I do however remember going to Mr. Wing's office and cursing up a storm and then crying to Katharine on the phone. I got suspended, obviously, for one day...

The fight itself really had nothing to do with Wiley, even if at the time I didn't know... The fight was really about breaking away from Hailey. When I was that age I used to hang out with her as a "Safety blanket" because I felt I was more attractive than she was even if I had zero confidence at the time and she had all the confidence in the world. She seemed to accept me for who I was for the most part. That and she was an open and pretty intelligent person so I felt I could open up to her more.

She caused a lot of drama in my life, somehow. Though I do think I made a lot of that myself, too, just from being a big mouth myself. I don't know, I'm sure wherever Hailey is now she's being quirky, loud and opinionated and I'm sure she had a better time at Hanford than she would have at Ki-Be. I'm happy she wasn't part of my highschool experience, honestly. 

I never had to face Hailey again, though I know she's probably seen me around CBC. Reason being I didn't come back to school after that suspension 8th grade year. That day of suspension was that day before spring break, and I went camping with Katharine's family that week. I had a head injury and almost died. I'd rather not go into great detail about that experience. 

I didn't have to go back to school for the remainder of the school year because of my throbbing migraines. Let's say that I was never addicted to oxys but I was a little sad when my big bottle was gone. Just in time, too. 

Bahh okay side note I'm in absolute heaven right now. Tater tot casserole, weekend shifts are over and I have the night to myself to just practice and practice. Bliss, complete satisfaction at this moment. 

This was taken on Jeff's camera at his house. We practically stole the thing.

Katelynn and I had a falling out around soccer season my 8th grade year. That previous summer at Benton City Daze Katelynn had come with me to hang out with people. Well, me being still pretty funky, zitty, insecure and awkward and Katelynn with her long hair and large boobs... You can kind of imagine how this went. 

If you can't imagine, Katelynn got a lot of attention from guys and I felt jealous and couldn't take it. 

I remember the one day Katelynn and I hung out that went south. I had always loved going to Katelynn's and we'd spend a lot of time together staying up all night and talking, being imaginative, whatever. As we grew up we became more and more competitive, predominantly from my end because even if Katelynn's home life with Jeff wasn't perfect I thought it was so neat that she was able to go to the huge Desert Hills middle school when I was stuck at stupid Ki-Be where I couldn't find any friends...

As Katelynn got prettier, skinnier and seemed to have lots of friends at Desert Hills, I began to feel more intimidated and started bragging like CRAZY about sports and other stupid shit that didn't matter to Katelynn at all. This bothered Katelynn and she finally called me out about it at her house one day that fall in 2005. She couldn't take it and I didn't blame her.

Later that night I sent her some horrible bashing messages that she pretty much responded, "Okay? Lol." I was CERTAINLY put in my place. You see, this situation has taught me a lot. First of all, I now know how girls act when they're jealous. Second, I now know how to handle myself if I have crazy girls come at me like this... and I have, just in the last year. I'm happy that I learned this lesson when I was 14 and it was more excusable. 

Katelynn and I made up again in May. That picture was taken a time that we had hung out again after a long hiatus. 

I never liked this cut out, I wish I would have just left it as is in the store. This is genuine, though, Katharine and I loved cutting people's heads off in photos and sticking them on things. I came up with some really funny, weird ones too and I wish I could show them too you. 

Eighth grade really was a big year for Katharine and I because for the most part she was my only real friend at the time. Jordan G. had moved the previous year and that group that we had formed dispersed because Jordan was the glue that held us together. It's not like Valerie or Cheyenne would have wanted to hang out with me at the time. 

So I sort of just floated around.. I remember the popular kids hung out over by the backstops. 

Back then the really popular girls were Jessica, Haeli Z., Hannah E., Lisa B. and Genee M. (previously in the Jordan group mentioned earlier). Kayla S. really was the Queen Bee in middle school, she was so beautiful, confident and everybody loved her. She moved after middle school to Kamiakin and there was never really another Queen Bee from our class again.  There was a handful of popular guys, but when Peter Z. and Tyler F. after 7th it was easy to say that Sheldon B. was the King of popularity (bahaha). 

Having popularity in middle school was really all about confidence. I didn't have much until I started taking Paxil when I was finally diagnosed with depression. 

Once paxil kicked in, all my problems in middle school seemed to fall off my shoulders! I wasn't used to it. Being happy for the first time. I'd spend most of my spare time with Katharine and we'd come up with the most crazy, hilarious stuff-- songs, pictures, anecdotes, impressions.. whatever. We had an incredible amount of fun that Spring and Summer, regardless of the head injury situation. 

I just remember sitting in Zorn's class and he called on me to read the super boring, bland Social Studies textbook. I just started taking Paxil that week and I started reading the text in a weird accent and laughing my ass off. I didn't even care if nobody else was laughing, nobody was even really paying attention to the text and it was the end of the year.. Nobody else wanted to read, so I just kept reading because he kept telling me to read and I really remember it being the first time I ever felt happy. 

..but I think..

..At that very moment...

I stopped caring so much what my class thought of me, and I'd sort of given up. I was ready for highschool and something new. 

Overall: 

Sports:

Ha ha, I talk about bragging about sports earlier but I wasn't really a star athlete. I kicked a kid in the balls once, I was so embarrassed and kept on saying "I'm sorry!! I'm sorry!!" about 40 times. I look back on it and laugh though, I was a pretty wreckless sweeper but I wasn't bad. Mr. C (Scott's Dad) had played me quite a bit. 

Love:

I had a big crush on Scott for years and years and probably drove him completely apeshit. I used to give him notes and crap, it's really humiliating to think about that too. See, these are all LEARNING experiences. I also liked Matt M. who has always been really rude to everyone, don't really see what the point of that was. He's always been really pretty though; kind of like Tyler F. or a lot of other half Mexican guys that I've seen. 

Clothes/Looks:

I had really cared what people thought of me in middle school. I'd try to impress people by wearing tanning lotion and stupid polo shirts and other preppy garb my mom would tell me looks cute (it probably WAS cute clothes, but when you're slumping and having a bad attitude I probably would have been better off dressing dark, would have made more sense at least and I wouldn't have looked and felt like as much of a poser) 

I did start experimenting with eye makeup my 8th grade year though, and a lot of it was horrifically smudgey but hey, I was trying. Also started the side part bangs look this year instead of the straight across look that didn't do my face any favors as much as I had wanted it too.

Academics: 

I have never been fantastic at math, it never came easy to me or made much sense until I had it with Dickman my 7th grade year. He taught me so much and helped me get the confidence that I'd lost after taking it with Thomas in 6th with all the kids that are GOOD at math. Anyway, 8th grade I had math with the average kids in Harris's math class. 

Harris was known for being a ridiculous grader but he had to follow a strict government protocol for 8th grade that made him out to be the bad guy a lot. Though I think I only got a C- or so in his class, I worked my ass off and respect him a lot as a teacher and he helped me more than a lot of math teachers have as well.

I learned a LOT in Price's 8th grade science class because we had to do really boring book-and-worksheet activities IN class. That was Price's last year after some shit hit the fan and I never saw him again. I don't think he DISliked me necessarily but he did report me to the office a lot for my bad outfit choices. At the time low rider jeans and short cut shirts were in so I had a really hard time with my butt crack or underwear sticking out, super lowriders is NOT a good cut for any girl with a booty. 

I think my BEST class in 8th grade was Mrs. Hartill, then "Valdez" after she got married during our school year. She's was a very cute, sweet, YOUNG teacher at the time. I mean fresh out of college, probably only 23. She taught us so well, even if she was a little nutty at the time with her very intense lesson plans.

For instance, we had this enormous creative writing portfolio that we were doing at the end of the year. I wrote a 60 page book about this kid on the Titanic, it was intense. I can't really remember what happened but I used this BIG, thick Non-fiction book I'd found in the library and read it cover to cover recapping the events of the titanic before I wrote the story for historical accuracy. 

I got a D- in Herman's 7th grade because I f*cking hated Ray Bradbury and Sci-fi but here I am writing a book the next year using REAL information and getting a total A, who would have thought. That Titanic book paved the way for many years of non-fiction reading about other miserably depressing but fascinating events, crimes and cold cases. 

Alright that's all for now! Doing 13 tomorrow, oh jeez into the awkward stage. I'm going to have to stop at 12 though, it would be nearly impossible for me to clearly and accurately recap my childhood... I suppose I could try. My mind such a vault for all these memories that probably don't mean much but the least I can do is write them down if I ever want to reflect later while I still can. 

peace.