testing one two three.

I'm happy. Dad agreed to lift my sentence. I'm getting the car back this Saturday. That means I can go hang out with Karen on Saturday night and have a Wii party with Asians. It was just easier to tell everybody I was grounded. I hate getting rides to and from places. I don't know how I survived sixteen years without a car. Now I just have to survive two more days without a car (if you don't count today). School starts in seventeen minutes. The library is filling up, just like usual. The library isn't really an attractive place. Why would you hang out here before first hour? Don't these people have friends? Actually, from the types that are filtering in right now, I'd say it's a distinct possibility that they don't have friends. They should all be friends with each other! I'm looking forward to when first hour starts. Then it's nice and quiet. I looked behind me just now and the massive migration into the school is starting. I'm glad I get here early enough that I avoid that. And when I have a car, I come late enough that I avoid it. Parking absolutely blows, though. Today might be a bit of a long day. I'll have my hangout period here, six hours of school, and then a new club. My pal Michael Toner started it. It's called HCL. I think that was kind of a joke with himself. Hydrochloric acid? It really stands for Huron Classical League. For the people who take Latin. I'm supposed to go and recruit Garrett. He only dropped Latin because it didn't work with his senior schdule. Unfortunately for me, I don't see Garrett a whole lot. In the hall once in awhile is about it. Valentine's Day is tomorrow. Don't ask me how that's going to go. It's been pretty uneventful the past two years, but it seems like anything can happen these days. We actually had a snow day last year on the 14th. It was more of a cancel-school-because-it's-really-freaking-freezing day. I didn't want a snow day. I liked school last year. It was easy. I have to find something to do now. Lucky for me we have these handy-dandy laptops in the library now.

You could call this my fake-o diary, seeing as i have a real one. This is just something for me to do while I'm forced to sit in the library for all of first hour. This is going to be hands-down the worst three weeks of my life. For the purpose of background information, they took my car. Yeah. Dad was being an asshole and I told him about it and POOF! My car's gone until March 3rd. It's February 12th right now, so we have awhile. The bell just rang. First hour's starting. If this were last semester, I'd be in Mr. Bondroff's US History class right now. I went to AP at the semester. I have to get into college, right? Which reminds me, we have a quiz today. Two quizzes, actually. One in AP history and one in AC English. Good thing I finished the book. I like the library while most people have class. There are about fifteen other people in here with me but they're quiet. People are rude as hell in the library before school. Michael warned me about that before I came here. He said it's just a place for people with no work ethic to hang out and skip class. You do have to sign in and everything, but you could lie and claim not to have a first hour or a second hour or whatever. It's not that hard. On Sunday night, I realized that I really miss my brother. I wish we saw each other more. Most of my friends see their siblings a lot more than I see Michael. He was always the guy who was there for me. We got a lot closer after I got into high school. The only times I realize I miss him are when I'm going through a really hard time or clash with Mom and Dad or have a question about something I know he'd help me with. I'm bored. And kind of tired. I'd be waking up right now if I was clear with Dad. Maybe this will be negotiable in a few weeks. I miss my car. Dad took away my independence, which is what hurt the most. Damn, this library is cold. I'm wearing my letter jacket and I'm still freezing my ass off. That's all I have for today. Until tomorrow.

Hey. I just got back from a swimming party that was going on. It was so much fun. I'm glad I went. Today was our last practice. We really didn't do anything. Gabby, Lauren, Julie, and I were supposed to be practicing flip turns, but we just goofed around on the other side of the bulkhead instead. I'm both happy and sad that it's all over. Just SECs tomorrow and then the season is finite. Today was actually pretty cool. One of the best parts of my day was second hour. Hannan was gone and the sub either didn't show or wasn't called in the first place. They promptly shuttled us off to ISS so a hall monitor could monitor us instead of the halls. I sat in the back row with David Gessner and Amin. It was extremely entertaining. I kind of had an embarressing moment, but it was fun. So the embarressing moment went like this. I was laughing with the guys, and Katie Chamberlain turns around and she asks me, "So, are you excited for shaving today?" (We haven't shaved the whole season.) Both of the guys were like, "What?!" "Um, yeah," I said. "It should be good." "Why would you be excited for shaving?" asked Amin, confused. "Because we haven't shaved for ten weeks!" Katie said. Yeah, that's some disgusting stuff. Even I admit it. Nothing like saying stuff like that in front a guy you like. Great. Something tells me that I'm going to take some crap for that. That's what I get for switching my seat. My karma is going to kick me in the proverbial nuts. I really think about Amin way too much. It's almost stupid. I'm not usually like this. Practical Claire is falling off the deep end. I'm actually kind of sad that I'm missing math tomorrow. Not because I'm going to skip the test, but because I won't see him. Skipping school should be interesting tomorrow. I hope I don't fall way the hell behind, although I don't think I will, just because it's the end of the quarter. The very last day. My grades suck somewhat. I don't even want to know my chemistry grade. I think I might have to intercept my grades again and just claim they never came. Huron is so disorganized that Mom and Dad would believe it in an instant. And then they'll go off on a rant about ineffecient school administration. Well, next time we talk swimming will be over. Peace out.

It's a Sunday night here in Ann Arbor. I actually got all my homework done. That's quite the accomplishment, considering the year I've been having lately. I still need to catch up with all the math homework I've been missing lately, but there's still time for that. I can't do any more homework tonight. I think my head will explode if I try. My day should be okay tomorrow. Morning practices are over now (considering that the season is practically over), so I can sleep in until six-twenty-ish. Then seven hours of school, then practice, then a trumpet lesson, and home. Not so bad. It could be a lot worse. I just wish my seventh hour wasn't Personal Fitness. That is honestly the worst class in the world. I would rather take Speech again than to take that class. I don't mind Ms. Ohman so much anymore, but I hate her class so much. It just kind of screws my day. I can't believe swimming is almost over. I also can't believe that I worried so much over the summer about it. Why do I always have some sort of worry over the summers? Between freshman and sophomore years, it was what the hell I should do about Charlie. Last summer, it was dread over swimming. Yes, I was convinced I would be terrible. I'm not that bad. In fact, there's a chance I might letter this year. I really hope I do. A varsity letter would help so much for college applications. Also, I kind of want one of those letter jackets. Michael gave me permission today to unstitch his and use it if I get my letter. That would be cool as hell. I'm also looking forward to being able to drink soda again. I don't know why I voted for that. It was kind of hard sometimes. I don't live off of drinks like that, but I enjoy a Coke if we go out to eat or something. Also, shaving my legs is going to be cool, too. Disgusting, I know, but it'll be awesome. We'll have to see what's going to happen to me this week.

I lied. Here I go again. I'm just not able to write so much these days. At least Mom and Dad can't ever find this. Hooray for websites. And the information age. Sometimes I read over sophomore year. It's kind of interesting. I've really grown up a lot. I don't even realize how much I've grown up until I start reading everything. Then I start to get scared because I'm almost an adult and I have to go to college and everything soon. Damn it. So. My life lately. I haven't written anything in a damn long time. The big news is that my life as a swimmer is almost over. Our championship meet is in less than a week. You know, I never thought I'd say this, but I'm really going to miss swimming. Sure, it's a real bitch sometimes, but the people are amazing. I've met so many people just this year. Last night was really fun. We were at the Pioneer meet and Gabby was telling me how sad she was that she and Matt don't talk anymore. I came up with an idea that we should all go to lunch sometime. "Ooh!" she said. "We should hang out after the meet!" I thought it would be a good idea so I called Dad and he let me go. Matt, Gabby, and myself ended up in a twenty-four hour Shake 'N Steak. I had never hung out with Matt before, which is kind of stupid, considering I've known him two years now. We discussed... like everything. Including his little marijuana habit. That's the real reason that I would never date him. I don't go along with that. Drugs are no good. Even weed, the "non-addictive" drug. I don't even like him that way anymore. Sure, he's good-looking, but I don't like him. I haven't had a whole lot of time to think about who I do like, but I've been getting suspicious of myself. I think I'm getting a thing for the guy who sits in front of me in algebra. What can I say? He's freaking hilarious. Really nice dude. I don't want to admit it to myself, but I switched seats in math with Jen because I wanted to sit behind him. Then I made up some crap about my contacts to Ms. Hannan. She bought it. The lady loves me. I'm guessing she won't after I'm done with her. Ms. Warsinske was a far superior teacher. So explain to me why I love that class so much. I think it's because it's fifty-four minutes of constant entertainment. Ms. Hannan is a complete idiot and we have some very... interesting... people in that class. Matt Baxter, for one. David Gessner, Amin (who sits in front of me), and me, who's already taken the class. Therefore, I can correct her when she screws up (which happens a good amount). Math is my favorite class and I've never been able to say that. Ever. I spent the day with Cam. We went to the Minnesota game. We won by a lot. I was getting kind of worried, because they were ahead for awhile, but then Michigan pulled away. Afterwards, we hung out at his house like we usually do. We had lots of fun with the World Series and with Facebook. I had to show him the proof that Bella is dating Luis Anderson again. Facebook is fun for that kind of thing. Okay, I am going to make a commitment to never let that guy show up again within these pages. My freshman flip-out is over. (Took me long enough.) It's amazing how Cam and I have been able to keep going. I was honestly not sure what would happen to us about a month and a half ago. I mean, he loves me! That goes under the heading of "big news". I can feel how much he loves me. He walked me out to my car tonight and we hugged for a long, long time. I could tell he wanted to kiss me, though. Yet we're holding ourselves together. Everything else fell apart. We can't fall apart, too. Not me and Cam. And I thought the drama was over. Shows how much I know. That's all for me. I'll see you later. 'Bye.

Damn, that was a good idea. That's ten months of history all in one file. Maybe now I can destroy that file. I'm trying to go old-school again, with a book and a pen and all that. I suppose you could call this my good-bye. I'm not doing the computer thing anymore. I've got to remember to put this on private, because otherwise everyone can find out what I've been up to these past ten months, stalkers and hackers included. Also, I put some pretty personal crap in there. Private is the way to go. When I'm like twenty, I'm going to find this website again and read through all this and marvel at what a stupid sophomore I was. Well, I love my history and it's been really fun and Bob really was right. I'm out of here. Good-bye.

March 14, 2007 I’m doing this now, because I have to be up at Huron in about two and a half hours, so I know that I won’t have time later. It’s our first game and it’s out in the middle of nowhere. Everyone seems pretty confident that we’re going to win. I hope so, because it’s my first game. I think that I might have sorted things out with Amy once and for all. We talked for a long time last night, and I finally hit on the root of the problem. Turns out it wasn’t about me at all. She was just taking it out on me. Apparently, I’m “becoming something” while she stays “a nobody”. Later, I realized what it really was. She doesn’t want me to be good at something and become really well-liked. I told her something to the effect of that I’m trying to pull myself out of being a loser. She’s really convinced that there is not one good quality about her, so I listed thirty good qualities about her. Now, there’s no way that she can say I don’t care about her. That was also a major part of the discussion. Apparently I don’t care. It pissed me off, because I care very much. So, through my frustration, I told her exactly how I felt about the support through my big step outward. We worked it out, though. We usually do. Amy has such bad self-esteem. As I told her, she should really bring it up. With me, it took three years, Cam, one Latin teacher, and a psychologist. Hopefully it won’t be that way for her. Self-worth issues can be kind of hard to deal with, though. I really think her parents have no idea. Mom and Dad had a good idea of how down on myself I was (probably through Michael, who knows). Hence, I went off to the shrink. Looks like this is down to me to pull Amy out, like I did for Anne and for Cam some of the time. Today has been okay. Morning practice was good, because everyone knew that we got to go home afterwards. I was tired today, though, so I couldn’t do everything. It’s good that Chris isn’t the slavedriver his reputation makes him out to be. Maybe he’s just a slavedriver with the guys. He lets you rest if you need to, because he doesn’t want people stroking out in the pool and stuff like that. Well, hopefully I won’t make an ass of myself tonight. Peace. March 15, 2007- The Ides of March I don’t know why I marked that. It’s a huge Latin thing, so I guess it’s legit. Today was actually much less stressful than I had anticipated. Two big things happened today. Number One: Symphony Band auditions. Number Two (insert Dr. Evil voice): The National Latin Exam. I’ll start with Symphony Band. My audition was at 4:51 P.M., meaning that I had to cut water polo to go. Chris was okay with it, though. I told him in the weight room that I’d have to go, and I just wanted to make sure he didn’t think I was lazy or a slacker or something. I lifted with the rest of the team for awhile and then left for my audition (an hour early). I was sore as hell from all the weights, so I wasn’t sorry to be skipping some of practice. The band room was almost empty when I got there. Another girl from the team came later and warmed up. It was me, a French horn player, the girl from water polo, and Laura (remember her?), who now plays tuba. Now, I may highly dislike that girl, but I felt honor-bound to give her some good news that I had heard. I walked over to where Laura was warming up and sat down on the chair next to her. “I have very good news for you,” I said, trying to sound cheerful. I told her exactly what Toner had told me in Latin, which was that both Blogin and Luis are quitting, and he’s more than likely moving up to Symphony Band. Mr. Roberts loves him, plus the only tuba player is graduating. That leaves one spot open for ol’ Laura. “You’re going to be our sole tuba player,” I said, trying to be encouraging. Apparently it made her day, and I walked back to my spot feeling good. Laura may be annoying as hell, but I helped her do a good audition. You always have a good audition if you go in knowing you have nothing to lose. Laura went, and I followed her. For some reason, I wasn’t really that nervous. At least, not until the audition started. I sat out in the hall and looked at my music, sort of praying and hoping, but not being out-of-my-mind nervous like usual. Then Laura finished and I realized I was up. Swallowing hard, I went in. Mr. Roberts was sitting on his chair and he smiled at me. “Hello,” he said pleasantly. I grinned, trying to be confident. “Hi, Mr. Roberts.” “Would you like to sit or stand?” he asked, like usual. I thought carefully. “Um, sit, I think.” I did. I took deep breaths and tried to do what I usually did in Mr. Fox’s class. “Piece or scales first?” he asked. “Piece, please, I think.” He nodded. “I would recommend that, since you have you get through all three movements.” “Yeah,” I said. “It’s hard for us trumpet players.” Can we say bad attempt at humor? He smiled and picked up his headphones. “I’ll introduce you and then you can get started.” “Okay,” I said, trying not to panic. Mr. Roberts started the tape recorder. “This is Claire Beaulieu on trumpet, auditioning for Symphony Band.” I don’t remember the rest. My brain blacked it out. I know I screwed up my scales a bit, but I really don’t remember how I played the piece. I didn’t totally screw up, I know that much. What I do remember is that I got a nice vibrato effect on the second movement, because my arms were shaking so much. The third movement is my worst, but I think I did pretty good. So now, like chair auditions and everything else, it’s the wait. I’m not flipping out because I know I honestly have nothing to lose. If I make it into Symphony Band, then cool. Highest band, oh boy. If I’m not good enough, then I get one more year in Concert with Ashley and Matt, which would also be cool. They’re fun and I like them a lot. If I move up I go up with Caleb and with Blake. Either way suits me fine. Next topic. The infamous National Latin Exam. Forty questions, forty minutes. Paul really had me worried. I talked to him about it in second hour. I caught Hurley and said, “Tell me all about the National Latin Exam.” “Hard,” he said vehemently. I decided to go talk to Paul, since (well, nothing on Hurley) we’re probably at the same level. I don’t think language comes to Hurley as easily as it comes to me. Unfortunately, Paul was on this integrity kick. He wouldn’t tell me a thing about the exam, except that there was a lot more stuff he had to guess at this year. That really got me nervous. Paul was by far the brightest kid in our old Latin class, and if he had guess, the rest of us little people are in some deep shit. I walked into Latin feeling slightly nervous. Mr. Julius got us started quickly, and I filled out the school, student, and teacher information as I remembered Mr. Vogel teaching us. I remember Renton asked if he had to use a real name. Mr. Vogel had blinked and then looked amused. “You may identify yourself as Captain Zero if you want.” We had laughed. Renton may have been the biggest weedhead of all time, but he was good for a few laughs. I rocked that exam. Maxima Cum Laude. Silver medal. I could tell Mr. Vogel was proud as hell of me. He had this look on his face when he handed me my medal. I was always sort of the star freshman, but it was like that solidified it in Mr. Vogel’s mind. It was my finest Latin hour. I finished my information and started the test. Interestingly enough, it wasn’t nearly as hard as Paul made it out to be. There were a couple I had to think carefully about, but then I think I made the right decision. There was one I realized was probably a subjunctive, so I picked the one that Mr. Julius had mentioned awhile ago. I think I did okay, actually. I don’t think Garrett finished and Toner finished a little after I did. He can’t translate. It’s his only weakness. I was kind of worried for him. He knows everything else, but he sucks at correctly translating. Well, I have until late April to think about it, I suppose. That was my day. I’m out of here. March 16, 2007 Today wasn’t bad. At least it’s Friday. For the first time in living memory, I’m glad it’s Friday. Water polo has me all tired out. I realized that I never did get to talk about the game on Wednesday. I skipped it. My bad. I was right, first of all. Grand Blanc is in the middle of nowhere. The bus drove for probably and hour and a half. We got our bathing suits and sweats on Wednesday, too. The jackets are sweet. It’s black with bright green lettering on the left. It says my last name, which is kind of cool. We had to wear the sweats today, since varsity went to East Grand Rapids for some tournament. But anyway. We got off the bus and some girl from the other team showed us where to go to get into the pool. We warmed up and then the game started. My first game. I was actually really nervous. I thought for sure I’d make an ass of myself. The good news is that I didn’t even play until the second half and the team was really bad. By the end of the first half, it was twelve to nothing in our favor. I got put in along with some of the new people once Chris was sure we had it in the bag. It was hard, but fun. The only bad part was that I got pinched. The rest of the team told me that I’d get far worse. Plus, I deserved it. I think that was the same girl that I grabbed by the bathing suit and pulled underwater. It finally ended as sixteen to four. We won. Actually, we kicked their sorry asses. After that, we went back to the locker room and took showers, then got back to the stands to watch varsity. Interestingly enough, they lost by three. I guess Grand Blanc’s varsity team is a lot better than JV. I kind of talked to people and worried about my Symphony Band audition. Taylor Robinson was really good about explaining stuff I didn’t really get. The funny part about that is that Taylor is Spencer’s little sister. I haven’t thought about Spencer in so long, but the irony was most amusing. They really have the family resemblance thing going on. Today was fairly typical. I got up at about five-thirty and went to morning practice. It was nice to wear the sweats around. It was kind of like wearing pajamas to school (which people do). On my way to first hour, I was thinking, “Do I look like an idiot?” After a moment’s thought, it occurred to me that people have probably worn far weirder things to school. Also, I realized I was only thinking that because I don’t want any kind of reputation. For anything. It actually was really stupid, because there’s nothing wrong with being known as the girl who plays water polo. So I pushed past it. I did get a lot of, “You’re on the water polo team?” though. Not like in a horribly surprised way or anything, but just kind of curious. I guess I don’t give off the water polo vibe. Nick started telling me about all of his best attacks in English, since he plays, too. You can tell he loves the sport. According to Amy, he’s a damn fast swimmer, but he has asthma, so he had to stop. Alex put in his two cents every once in awhile. I told them about how it was my first year and all that. “Play hard, young grasshopper,” Alex said, turning his brown eyes on me. I laughed. You know, I really can’t figure out why Michael hates him so much. He’s a perfectly nice guy and he has a great sense of humor. So now I’m here. It’s interesting to have my audition all over with, since I’ve been dreading it since about September. I looked at a calendar in third hour today, and realized I was counting the days until my audition. I have absolutely nothing more to dread for the rest of my sophomore year. Just Michael leaving, I suppose. Well, I’m going to go relax. I’m out.

February 16, 2007 Tomorrow is David’s twentieth birthday. One more and he can buy me beer. Just kidding. Apparently I can’t tolerate alcohol anymore. It’s a damn shame. I guess it means I’ll never be a true Beaulieu. A great thing happened to me today. The student teacher in English, Miss Davis, passed back the vocabulary stories that we wrote awhile ago. Now, it’s probably good to say here that I came out of nowhere with my story and it ended up being the funniest thing I’ve ever written. I thought maybe she would chuckle at it and move on. Anyway, she gave Grace hers back (which was ten pages long) and then she asked if she could keep it for her resume. Joking around, I said, “You mean you don’t want a copy of mine?” Miss Davis looked straight at me. “No. I do. Your story was hilarious.” I was extremely taken aback. She told me about how she had cracked up and said that she had made her boyfriend read it, saying, “Look how funny this is!” She told me that she wanted it for her resume. “For what?” I asked, not quite believing it. “For examples of excellent student work,” Miss Davis answered me. Eh? That didn’t especially compute. I had spent about a half-hour tops on that story. I must be a better writer than I think I am. Well, it was a funny story, that’s for sure. I just didn’t think Miss Davis would love it so much. Great day in English. The story made Karen laugh, since that story was the most random thing I’ve ever come out with. Today was also the band test on “The Saint and the City”. We had to play the annoying redundant fanfare part and then a part later on. I think I actually did good. Both Matt and Toner told me that I was the best of the trumpets, and I think I was. The upper chairs screwed it. “Trumpets, you will be heard again on measures forty-six through fifty-three again on Tuesday,” Mr. Roberts said. Translation: You all suck. Get it together or I’m going to get mad again. It meant a lot coming from Toner that I was the best, since he’s quite good. He said something odd to me, though. “You should have seen the look on Luis’ face when you played it flawlessly,” he said. I was interested. Toner couldn’t really describe the look, which didn’t help me out any. Of course, it could have been because Blake held up a piece of paper that said, “What kind of tree are you?” at him. I was kind of pissed when Roberts said that he was retesting us, because we didn’t do that bad. I think he’s just punishing us for our bad chair auditions some more. Man, Mr. Roberts needs to learn the concept of “letting it go”. The horns were pretty bad and I don’t see him retesting them. Mr. Julius is in a bad mood with us. We’ve all been talking a bit much lately, so he’s getting mad. Our class can be obnoxious, so honestly I don’t blame him. A lot of those people need to be told exactly what to do. Poor Mr. Julius. Today, Toner told us that his mom was Japanese. I didn’t buy it for a second. “If your mom was Japanese, you would not have blue eyes,” I pointed out. Toner has very blue eyes, kind of like mine but slightly lighter. Kind of like Cam’s actually. Garrett does, too. Very German-looking guy. He came over and rested his arms on my shoulders. “Your maternal mother?” he asked. I rolled my eyes. “Maternal mother?” I asked, looking straight up at Garrett. Turns out, it’s true. Toner’s mom is Japanese, but by nationality, not ethnicity. She was born and raised in Japan. Therefore, her son still ended up being blue-eyed. The genetics unit did something to me. I always check out people with genetics now, sort of. I most likely got my blue eyes from Mom’s side of of the family, because hazel eyes run with the McGee line. Probably the German side. However, I remember her telling me that her grandfather, who was Italian, had blue eyes, since they were from northern Italy. Anyway. We sort of translated until the bell rang. Mr. Julius wanted us to parse, but he wasn’t really enforcing it. “How’s the Latin going, Garrett?” he asked later on in the hour. “Pretty good,” Garrett answered, ever the smartass. “I’m almost done,” I chimed in with my best-little-girl voice. “Can you parse it?” asked Mr. Julius, scanning me. “Yeah, actually.” “And I believe that,” he said back warmly. Good thing I have a good reputation in there, otherwise I’d be sunk. And I can parse it. Garrett and I walked together to the 6200 hallway and I went to Health. I spent a rather boring period there learning about minor injuries and how to treat them. I actually got Symington to let me out early to catch the bus that leaves at three-thirty, not four. She concluded after a long interview about my parents that I was a good student, so therefore I could go. Too bad I can’t pull that off every day. It’s nice to get home earlier. Now it’s a three-day weekend. Damn. Monday will be my first day of water polo. Karen advised me not to attempt to drown anyone for awhile. I’ll remember that. I’m not scared anymore, for one really good reason. I got Anne of St. Francis to join with me. She took a class on water polo for quite a few years, so it didn’t take much to get her on board with it. The best part is that we’re going to be on JV together, since they don’t have enough freshies to make a separate team. I’m thrilled. This makes it completely less scary! “And we can invite Cam to watch us kick ass,” she added to me online. We’re meeting Karen in the lobby for her to show us where to go and all that. Seven-thirty on Monday. I have to remember that. Seven-thirty to nine-fifteen. I’m still thinking that Amy is weirded out by this, however. I was asking Karen today what the swim team was like, since a lot of water polo players are on the swim team, too. Amy started going off on a thing about how it’s so hard and I didn’t want to do it. “I just don’t want you to go away,” she said. “I don’t want to lose you to sports.” “Well, you’re going away yourself, aren’t you?” I said (being perfectly tactless myself). But I meant it. It’s probably inevitable that Amy’s moving, and I want to have some friends. According to Alex, she might be moving to St. Louis. That’s far away. I mean, yeah, I’m going to be sad, but I really am going to need a plan. Plus, I really want to do this. I tried on Michael’s letter jacket tonight. It’s really nice, green with a gold collar, “Mike” written on the right breast in gold. His year is on the left sleeve. “Lacrosse” is written on the back in gold cursive. Yeah, but what if it was yours? a little voice inside me whispered. And it said 2009 and “Claire” and “Water Polo”? It was an interesting thought. I want to make it through the preseason stuff first. We’ll see how it works. Another thing about Amy that I shouldn’t care about. She thinks she’s kind of into Chris Jalilivand. I’m not sure why I’m weirded out. She asked if she had a shot, and I had to say no. After all, she said I had no shot with Garrett (she’s got a point- he’s freaking seventeen!), but still. Maybe it’s just because of the Interlochen thing. I think that if Amy knew about that, she would back off, but I’m not going to say a thing. I have to be a good friend and try to get past this. I had to do that when Anne and Cam started going out, but I just think I was having trouble letting go of him to another girl. I think it might also because I know for a fact he’s a friend of Luis’s, and our paths could possibly cross once again if something happens with them. If there’s one thing I would never repeat about my freshman year, that would be number one. Okay, it’s late, and I’m going to go read. February 18, 2007 I spent last night with Anne. Cam was doing the lights for Burns Park Players, so she was planning to go see the show. She asked me to go with her, and I went. It was funny, because both of us detest musicals, but we both went for other people. I went for Anne and Anne went for Cam. However, I felt kind of bad, because the musical was Oliver, and I know for a fact that it’s Amy’s favorite musical. So it’s like I was getting close with my other friends during her favorite musical. Pretty much doing exactly what she keeps accusing me of doing. It was a good night, and Anne got a sort of nickname out of it. She’s Pirate. So now the three of us are Shorty, Banjo, and Pirate. No wonder some people think we’re whacked. “Where do you get these names?” exclaimed Anne when I dubbed her Pirate. From a VH1 show, actually, with all these weird names that celebrities named their kids. My iPod is dead. At least that’s what we think. For some reason, it’s not turning on anymore and it refuses to charge. Well, those things are kind of weird sometimes. Mom said that she’d get me another one if it came down to that. My parents are pretty nice sometimes. Well, this is my last day of being completely sedentary. Water polo is tomorrow. I don’t know why I’m scared! Chances are, it’s going to be fine. I have Anne and Karen. I don’t know who the water polo people are, but they’re probably nice. I mean, it won’t be like Naomi Kesten’s soccer team. They were just a bunch of assholes. Oh. Another thing. I think Bailey might die soon. I cried for awhile last night about that. I’m hoping that she only has this thing with her back that Mom and Dad said she could have, but there’s an equal chance that she has cancer. If she has cancer, Mom and Dad have said all along that they’re going to put her down. I don’t want Bailey to die! She’s supposed to live a really long time. I’m writing this part about an hour after I wrote the last thing. Dad is now the coolest person in the world. He pronounced my iPod dead and then just shrugged and said, “Okay. Let’s go get you a new one.” Just like that, he took me to Circuit City and got me a new one. It’s bright blue, four gigabytes, and it fits into my iPod dock without a problem. Freaking awesome. This is an awesome day. Now, the only thing left to do is to find that Def Leppard song that I wanted from Michael’s library. I have to go over to the Kelleys’ house in about an hour. Mrs. Kelley is hiring me to watch their two dogs over midwinter break. Would you believe she’s going to pay me about $150? I tried to go over there just now, but she was taking a nap or something. Neal Kelley answered the door. Cam and I have a bad track record with Neal. He was a real ass to us in eighth grade for no reason. It’s actually too bad, because I’ve known Neal since I was little. For some reason, this time he was civil. I told him that I had seen him in the play last night and that he did really good. He thanked me and said that his mom would call me. As I was walking away, I was thinking, “You know, Neal’s actually okay.” Maybe he’s grown up or something. Well, a year and a half will do that. So, now I’m probably just going to hang out and wait around. I think I know what I’m going to buy with the $150. Clothes, probably. I don’t have many pairs of pants, so I think I’m going to buy some jeans or something for the trip down to Florida. ‘Bye. February 19, 2007 Awesome news. Bailey’s going to be okay! Mom just took her to the vet and he said she just had a swollen knee. He gave her some medication and now she’s going to be okay. I’m so happy. I mean, Bailey’s only six. That’s half of what their usual lifespan is. Thank you, God. Well, tonight’s my first night of water polo. I’m actually not freaking out. I figure that I have no reason to be freaked out. Whatever happens will happen and I’ll still have Anne and Karen. I am sort of waiting up here for Amy to get on, though, because I need to talk to her. You guessed it. She’s all mad at me again. Also, I was totally right. She is weirded out by me playing. I figured it would be a passing shock, but no such luck. She’s worried that I’m going to slip away through water polo. Her fears are legit. I know how these things go. But then she told me not to ever sit at the “swimming table”. She made me promise. I wouldn’t do it. I knew that if I promised, it would come back and bite me in the ass. If I make new friends, I don’t want to give them the shaft. I don’t want to be popular. That’s not why I’m doing this. I just want more stuff to do. She got really, really mad. And, of course, Dad picked that time to kick me off. I haven’t talked to her since. I feel kind of bad, like I always do, but she pretty much told me I can’t be close with other people. That’s just stupid! People have other friends and that’s kind of a given in life. I told her about a million times that it’s nothing about her. I wonder if Michael ever feels this way? He’s got a lot of friends in a lot of different places. Well, we’ll just see how water polo goes now. Wish me luck. February 20, 2007 I am so sore. Sore as hell. I swear, if every night is like it was last night, I’m literally going to die. To tell you the truth, I had a decent amount of fun last night. The team is really nice, actually. It was a bad night to just be joining up, because we were doing something with the EMU people, so it was some slavedriver guy running the practice. From what I’ve heard, it won’t be that hard-core tomorrow. Well, Amy is extremely mad at me. Extremely. As in she-might-not-speak-to-me-for-weeks mad. Every single time I saw her today, she literally sprinted off in the opposite direction, which caused me to put up my away message. Homo currens fatuum apparet. It means “a running person appears stupid”. Translated by yours truly. I mean, I understand how she feels, but I just want to keep my options open. Next time I meet her online, I have to assure her that I don’t mean to just disappear and leave her behind at all. In fact, I’m planning to hang out with her about ninety-nine percent of the time. More, even. I just want to know that I can run my own life without my friends being controlling. I’m actually not angry at all about this. In fact, I think this is really stupid. Amy’s fighting with me about something that hasn’t even happened yet! I haven’t once gone over to the “swimming table”, and she’s not talking to me. I was sort of talking to Wyatt about it in Geometry. “Amy’s probably not going to be talking to me for a very long time,” I started out. Wyatt looked interested. “Why?” I oversimplified it. “Because I joined the water polo team.” He raised an eyebrow. “Really? Are you good?” I shrugged. “I’m okay. Yesterday was my first day. Amy thinks I’m going to be friends with them and she’s just going to fade into oblivion.” “Yeah,” Wyatt said sarcastically, “And not talking to you is really going to stop that from happening.” I had to laugh. He had a point. Wyatt makes a lot more sense than most people sometimes. The rest of the day was fairly uneventful, except for Fuzz popping up every once in awhile to bring Amy’s side of the story. I hung out with Karen and Anne and we talked about the practice last night. The scary thing is that it doesn’t bug me at all when Amy’s all mad at me, probably because I know she’s mostly trying to get me to feel guilty. Sometimes she reminds me of how I was, with the guilt-trip thing. I know it doesn’t work anymore. Latin was good, as always. I got 96% on my synopsis. Mr. Julius has officially given up on the passage we were translating. We did subjunctives as a review today, partly for the French exchange student guy, who had never learned them. It’s amazing how easy Latin is becoming for me. It’s one of the only things that just makes sense to me. Well, some things make more sense than others, I suppose. Well, I have a ton of homework, so I’m out of here. February 21, 2007 The good news is that Amy finally got over herself today. The bad news is that she’s not fully over it. She’s scared more than anything. I had to tell her over and over and over that I’m not looking to ditch her by any means. It was sort of interesting how it ended, though. Karen and I were talking about how Amy was acting during Western Civ and Karen said that she had heard her talking to Fuzz, and she was saying some really bad stuff. “She’s overreacting,” Karen said, shaking her head. I talked to Grace and Wyatt, and they both were on my side. “It doesn’t mean you’re going to leave her behind,” Grace put in. She would know about these things. Grace has other friends, and she does crew. The world needs more people like Grace. She sort of comes off as antiestablishment, but she’s great. Western Civ is a lot of fun. We finally settled it during the time where we settle all things, during lunch. Karen suggested that we just work it out right then. Then Fuzz came up and saw us, asking, “Are you talking?” “Nope,” Amy said, looking away. I kept my surge of anger down. It was all I could do not to point out that the problem was not with me. I assured Amy for the millionth time that I don’t ditch my friends. “Cam is living proof of that,” I said, fingering my necklace. “A lot of stuff happened with us.” Amy lightened up after awhile. She starting talking wistfully of last year around this time for some reason. “It was just the three of us- well, the four of us, sometimes.” she said. “That was the only problem.” I was about to say something back when Karen said, “So what was that story that you guys were going to tell me about that?” The three of us laughed. We decided to go around and tell points of view, since there were a LOT of sides to what happened near the end of last year. We started from the beginning, with the second semester beginning and the Walrus and Amy fighting. Then we went to me liking the Walrus to the St. Patty’s Day Blowup. It was calm for a month then the note was written. I told the Walrus, then the last day of school happened, then summer rolled around. I heard some interesting stuff that I hadn’t heard before about the things that the Walrus told Fuzz. For example, the “one answer” thing. Apparently in about May, I was so bad at talking to guys that I could only think of one answer, and to my memory that answer was “yeah”. The Walrus asked Fuzz what he should do about it. Fuzz’s advice was to ask me a question that required more than one answer. I laughed so hard. This is hilarious because we were so different back then. Last year changed everyone, I think. On a good note, Fuzz rides the number three downtown with me now. I heard something kind of bad about the Walrus from him on the way down. He didn’t come to science today, and I was wondering why. Douda told Hurley who told Fuzz that he was escorted from Huron today. I’m actually worried. Also, I plan to find out. Douda will tell me, anyway. My guess is that they caught him. I know what he does, and I think the administration caught him. Poor guy. I’m going to get right on that tomorrow. It’s water polo tonight. This will be my first real representation of what the preseason stuff is going to be like. People are telling me that last time didn’t count, because the EMU coach was running the show and he was kind of being a slavedriver about it. Emily in Western Civ told me that it was the hardest practice she had ever been to, so I have hope. This might actually work out. I still can hardly see myself on the team, but with time maybe that will get easier. I hope, anyway. Well, later. I’m out. February 22, 2007 I’m not at sore today, believe it or not. I think last night’s practice took away all my soreness from the one before it. Weird stuff. It seems like every day I come home with more news. Well, I suppose seven hours will do that to you. Okay, first bit of news. I won my challenge and I think I’m getting back on Roberts’s good side again. Ashley decided to challenge me (and I was actually worried). But that’s okay. I won. I felt bad though, because Ashley and I are friends, and I didn’t want to be like “show no mercy!” or anything. I did make sort of an ass of myself when Mr. Roberts was telling us what to do, however. We were inside the music office for the challenge, and Mr. Roberts was telling us about how he would go into the other room, so he couldn’t see us. We would decided who played first and who played second. “I will refer to you as ‘Number One’ and ‘Number Two’,” he said. Pretty much forgetting completely that Mr. Roberts was standing right there, I turned to Ashley and did my best Dr. Evil impression. I actually think Mr. Roberts wanted to laugh, but he couldn’t. Ashley was Number One. I was Number Two (enter Dr. Evil voice). I think I did pretty good. After I played, I couldn’t help thinking that I had just won. “I have to go in favor of Number Two,” Mr. Roberts said. “Who was that?” I raised my hand. Then he gave us comments about what we should work on. He told us both to slow it down. I didn’t realize it had to go so slow. He was doing a slow tempo yesterday, but I thought we would go faster. “I thought you were just dumbing it down for us,” I said to Mr. Roberts, surprised. And that led him to quote me in front of the entire band. I was sort of toning him out at that time. Ashley and I were having a discussion about the composer of the music was a man or a woman, because the first name was Zo. I wasn’t really listening until I heard Mr. Roberts say, “I thought you were just dumbing it down for us.” I shot upright and started listening. He didn’t mention names, but he said that during a challenge, one of the people had said that. I was actually grateful, because even though it’s been awhile, he still remembers that I hate being called out in groups. “Hey, Claire, he quoted you,” said Ashley playfully. I laughed. I think I might challenge Zach soon, actually. He just got his wisdom teeth out, so now is the time to go for it, when he can’t really fight back, as cheap as that is. Sometimes I don’t know if I like Zach or not. He’s Jessica’s boyfriend, so I try to be nice to him, but he can be a real ass. I know that Blake hates him. I’ll think about it. I think that Mr. Roberts is better with me now, because he knows that I work now, and this challenge was proof of that. Maybe now he’s forgiven me for all my shenanigans first semester. I found out what happened to the Walrus, too. He got suspended. Fuzz told me. He was saying that he wanted to shoot his dad or something, and somehow the administration got involved. He was escorted off the campus and he’s suspended until after break. Damn. You know, I don’t know what’s going on with him lately. He’s suddenly trouble. I feel sorry for him. That’s all for me. ‘Bye. February 25, 2007 It’s been a few days because I’ve been sick. Really sick. My fever was 103 degrees. I couldn’t stand or walk because I was so dizzy. It totally came out of nowhere, too. I woke up at about quarter to two on Friday morning and I had such a bad stomachache I immediately thought, “Oh crap. I’m going to throw up.” However, it wasn’t for another hour until I did. I figured it would be a bad night all around if I didn’t at least make an attempt for the toilet, so I went and sat in the bathroom for awhile. An hour actually. I was trembly and I couldn’t stand, so I knew it was coming. I won’t rehash details or anything, but it was quite bad. I yelled for Mom and stopped after awhile, thankfully. She sent me back to bed. The only thing I remember saying is, “I don’t think I want to go to school today.” And that was the about when I lost all track of time. I slept for the better part of two days. Mom and Dad kept making me drink stuff, but I kept trying to tell them no, I was going to throw up if I drank anything. Now it’s Sunday. I still don’t feel very good. The disorientation is gone, but I still have a stomach ache. I guess this rules out water polo for tomorrow. This really sucks. My job with the Kelleys started yesterday, since it’s now break. Mom’s been having to do it and I feel pretty irresponsible. I hate it when my mommy has to do stuff for me. Also, since I was sick on Friday, I didn’t get the chance to say goodbye to anyone. I would have at least liked to have gone to Latin. Band, too, actually. Ashley was going to vacation and Zach isn’t playing, so Matt had to hold up the whole section. Poor guy. I’m sure Mr. Roberts was tearing out what little hair he has left. When we get back, it will be The Dreaded Month of March in band. Mr. Roberts always makes a huge thing about how hard March is. Festival, Bands in Review, Symphony Band tryouts, and our trip. That’s partly why I had no intention of losing Ashley’s challenge, because he hinted that he wouldn’t be able to set up anything until early April, since March is freaking insano. I had no desire of losing my chair for a whole month. I’ve been out of contact with everyone for a few days. I know that Amy wanted to talk to me about something on Thursday, but I went to my lesson then did my homework then went to bed. She called yesterday, but Mom told her that I was sick. Well, I didn’t expect anyone to call Friday, except maybe Anne. Friday was the three-lunch thing for assemblies. Anne and Fuzz were the only ones in my lunch, so I didn’t expect anyone else to figure out that I was sick. I’m actually glad I missed that. If I remember correctly, I skipped that one last year. Yeah, I think that’s right. I was in my bad-ass phase and for some reason thought it was really cool to skip Goebbel’s class. Man, I was stupid. I mean, just to hang out with people? Stupid. The first time I ever did it was to lend an extra hand when Melanie and Wyatt were about to take each other’s heads off last February. I was just being a good friend. However, somehow it turned into a huge thing and I ended up looking like a snake in front of Goebbel. Recently, I realized something. We may not have seen eye to eye, me and Goebbel, but she was a fine teacher. She knew how to put the material out there. And honestly, looking back, her class wasn’t all that hard. She just had the radical idea that if you do your work, it’ll pay off. I was stupid. Well, I’m kind of bored and still feeling sort of like crap, so I guess I’m just going to hang out for awhile. February 26, 2007 I’m feeling much better today, although the virus made my muscles all sore and I can hardly extend my arms. That means I’m skipping water polo tonight, as much as that sucks. Those workouts are already hard for me when I’m healthy, so I want to know what’ll happen when I’m slightly sick. It’s only Monday and I want to go back to school. I have nothing to do, since I was sick Friday. No homework and it’s driving me insane. At least Amy called today. Now she thinks that she’s moving away to Massachusetts, and Alex is, too. They would be in different cities, but I know she’s thinking of getting back together with him. It’s going to be an utter disaster if it does happen. Alex himself told me that she’s just too clingy to be with, at least for him. I hope it never ends up happening. We were brainstorming who she should go with to the AIDS in Africa dance thing. The Huron guys are not to her liking. Well, Chris is, I suppose. I found out today that my longtime hunch about Grace liking him was right all along. Amy told me over the phone that she had competition, and she told me who. I said, “Well, yeah. I could have told you that.” Then I had to tell the whole Laura at Interlochen story to clear it up. I can’t think of anyone she’d like, honestly. Paul? Ha. Funny. Fuzz can’t pay for the ticket and she’s not even going to think about the Fairy March. I thought joking around and saying, “Okay, you can have Toner,” but something tells me that he’s scared of girls. He gives off the vibe. Michael Toner is now officially the person who follows me everywhere I go. I found out a weird thing. I had to switch my trumpet lesson because of water polo, so I had to switch with someone else. It turns out that the guy I switched with is Toner’s little brother, Stephen. Small music community. That’s Ann Arbor, I guess. I’m going to head out. ‘Bye. February 27, 2007 Nothing interesting is going on. It’s still break and I’m still bored. And it’s only Tuesday. February 28, 2007 I’m kind of tired. I just got back from water polo. It wasn’t that hard tonight, because the coach, Chris Keenan, showed a lot of videos and talked a lot, so we ended up only having about a half an hour to swim. I really like that guy. He’s really nice. I also like the team. They’re funny. Karen said that they like having new people, so I guess it’s true. Anne’s gone on a cruise, so I was somewhat alone. That meant I could blend in without her talking my ear off. In the end, Anne’s great, but she’s still a freshman with a lot to learn. I agree with popular opinion, which is that all freshmen deserve to be slapped. Some are funny but most are pretty annoying. It’s Wednesday. At least break is half over. That’s good, because I’m sick of it. Now I’m going to go to bed. March 9, 2007 Ooh, damn. It’s been a long time, hasn’t it? Well, the basic news is that I’m finally settling into water polo. The practices are hard, but it’ll be okay. I want to work hard, so there’s no way I’m quitting. I like it a lot, actually. I’m not particularly good yet, but I’ve got time. On that subject, the schedule finally got to Anne. She quit. Just like that. She quit and left us behind. I tried to tell her how I feel about quitters to keep her from doing it, but it was a longer story than I cared to tell. So I’m on my own now. I have no one to swim with now. To tell the truth, I got as close to angry as I get with any of my friends at her. I mean, come on! She’s just rolling over and dying! She said that she wanted it to be like it was in Rec and Ed and it’s not. In layman’s terms, she doesn’t want to work. Okay, maybe that’s unfair. Still, I think she could have pulled it off. When I have a minute with Michael, I’m going to ask him if he ever gets frustrated when his lacrosse friends are lazy. In other news, tomorrow is Festival. We have to be there at quarter to twelve. Well, at least I get to sleep in. I’ve been getting up for conditioning (water polo thing) at about five in the morning. It’s been slightly killer. I found that I’m more awake during the day, though. I can concentrate in Geometry without thinking, “I’m so tired. I could go to sleep right here.” I can’t say the same for Wyatt, though. He’s dead out in every class. I remember Festival last year. We played the Second Suite in F and the Ascension. I loved the beginning of the Ascension. It sort of reminded me of the start of that old song we played in eighth grade, Encanto. Killian Williams was our first chair and he was just about the most inconsistent soloist of all the first chairs. He would play fine sometimes, then screw it at the concert. And, of course, that was the day I cried at “You’re Beautiful”. I swear that James Blunt has it out for me. As I’ve said before, it was the line, “But it’s time to face the truth- I will never be with you.” Enter the boo-hoos. So, yeah. We’ll see what this year is like. Of course, I’m in a much better place this year, blah blah blah. My only complaint is that we have to wear the dresses. I’m not cool with dresses. They don’t work with me. Why couldn’t I have been a guy? Then I could have worn one of the spiffy tuxes. Well, I look pretty good in mine, so I guess I’m not complaining that much. Let’s see. What’s going on in school? In English, we’re finally done with Kindred. We finished with a project, a newspaper. We got to work with a partner, so Nick and I worked together like we usually do. I wouldn’t have minded working with Alex, but I think he was doing it with someone else. Our project came out good. Nick’s a good partner. Now we’re watching The Butterfly Effect. I’ve seen it before, but it’s so much more fun to watch it with your friends. Alex and Nick are quite the comedians, especially since the movie is really screwed up. It deals with time travel, which is probably why we’re seeing it. It’s kind of sad, though, because he keeps trying to make his life right, but he still ends up killing his girlfriend pretty much every time, or she hooks up with the fat ugly guy instead. We didn’t quite finish it, so I’m hoping we’re going to do that Monday. I’m going to go. Peace out. March 12, 2007 It’s Monday night and we have no school tomorrow. The juniors are taking some test tomorrow, so the rest of us get a couple days off. It doesn’t apply to water polo, however. We’re still going in for conditioning at six in the morning. The first day of the season was today. I couldn’t swim, though. My physical isn’t in yet. First, we had a team meeting that lasted about an hour. Chris left and the captains started running the show. Everyone got into a circle and we had to say our name, grade, and something weird that we could do. It was freaking hilarious. After awhile, it turned into a mockery of Alcoholics Anonymous. I love the team. Everyone is really nice. I think I hit gold here. I’m still trying to think of a way to talk Amy around. I swear, every week we go through the same thing. I don’t get it, myself. None of my other friends had a problem with me doing this. Somehow, the same argument keeps coming around. I’m not making an effort and she can’t get her way. I say something to the effect of I control my own life and she’s blowing this out of proportion. Usually I end up with the upper hand (for obvious reasons) but it’s getting annoying! She’d better get used to this, because it’s not going away for a very long time. I sat on the side of the pool for the remaining time, which was about an hour and a half. Toner came by and I said hello to him. At six, I went out to the Athletic Lobby and blinked with surprise. I had never seen the place so full. I swear, everyone and their grandmother was there. Well, of course, the sports starting today are soccer, track (guys and girls), baseball, softball, golf, tennis, lacrosse (guys and girls), and girls’ water polo. It was interesting to see the lacrosse team. I remember the banquet last year. That was fun. For the most part, the lacrosse guys are really nice guys. Michael’s playing goalie this year. Their dumbass goalie from last year graduated and the backup thinks he’s going to get drafted for playing long stick midfielder. That leaves The Fabulous Mike Beaulieu as Huron’s goalie. It’s too bad, because he was a damn good attack and a good midfielder, too. I realized today, now my two Latin buddies and I all have something in common now. We’re all in water sports. Garrett got the late news today that I’m playing. I told him today in the 6200 hallway. I was going down the hall without Wyatt for some reason when I saw someone behind me closing in. I knew it had to be either Toner or Garrett, so I took a guess. “I see you, Garrett!” He grinned and caught up with me and we headed down the hallway together. “How was your day?” he asked, beating gently on my arm. I resisted the temptation to point out that it wasn’t even second hour yet. “Okay,” I said. “I had to get up at five in the morning to swim, though.” “You’re on the water polo team?” “Yep,” I said, nodding. He high-fived me and grinned. “Is Chris making you work hard?” I groaned. “Yeah, he’s trying to kill me.” We split up at the 4200 hallway like usual. He goes to the 5200 hallway and I continue down the hall to Wilson’s class. I don’t know who Garrett’s girlfriend is, but I hope she knows just how lucky she is. Speaking of Wilson, the student teacher is gone. Yes! Well, she’s not gone, she’s just not teaching anymore. At least we’re done with the stupid middle school partner projects now. Back to individual high school work now. I’m going to miss working with Nick on everything, though. Nick’s a quality guy. I know for a fact that he used to smoke like a chimney, but he kicked it. Now, anytime anyone brings up drugs, he makes sure to say that weed is “some bad shit”. He’s a really cool guy. I’ll miss him next year. Well, I don’t know what I’ll do now. I think I’m going to go get some food or something, because this water polo is exploding my appetite. March 13, 2007 I’m so exhausted. Today was my first real practice, since I got all my forms in. It was kind of hard. We did the weight room and then got into the pool. We did a lot of shooting drills. Our goalie is really good. She blocked six straight shots, one after another. It’s a lot of fun, but it’s exhausting. Today mostly consisted of me running all over creation trying to get my water polo stuff together. I woke up at a little after eleven. After much begging and pressing, I got Michael to get off his ass and take me to the doctor’s office to get the sports physical form. We dropped it off at Huron and I got the slip that says it’s okay for me to practice. After that, I had to go to the VA and get Mom to sign another form. Before we left, Amy called. She actually called the Fairy March to see if he had a problem with her going to Florida. I’ve told her a million times that people forget stuff. Sure, it was kind of big, but it was nearly two years ago. Then she asked if I could hang out. I told her I had to go get my mom to sign some stuff, then I had to drop it off, then I had to go to practice. It was the truth, but hey. You can guess what that brought up. The old generic argument. “You’re ditching me for practice again?” she exclaimed. “Well, it’s not like I have a choice,” I said. Then she went off on a thing about how she knew that things were going to change once I joined water polo and all that. Thankfully, Michael called me to go, so I told her I had to go with no regrets. I’m sick of this argument. Really. This is not my problem! I told her over the phone, “We can’t keep reinventing this, you know.” I mean, come on. It’s my life and unfortunately I can’t center it around her. I’ve been thinking, I’m really the one who should be angry, but I’m not. I mean, the support was just awesome through all this. (That was sarcastic.) This was a major step out of the box for me, and this made it that much harder. Amy’s going to have to get over this. There’s nothing I can do anymore. Our first game is tomorrow. I’m kind of nervous. It’s away at Grand Blanc (wherever the hell that is). I told Mom and Dad that I don’t expect them to come, because it’s far away, but also because I don’t want them to see me when I haven’t picked it up fully yet. I didn’t tell them the second part. Michael tells me that they’d just be proud of me for trying something new, but I have my pride. I have a headache. I’m going to go.

January 29, 2007 Another day with me all alone. It’s Monday, but we get today off to recover from finals. I’ve been alone all day, since Mom’s at work and David’s at college. He should actually be home soon. I’m kind of bored and a bit cold. We went to Outback Steakhouse last night for dinner, since it was just the three of us. I don’t know what it is, but I always end up feeling a little sick and over full when I go there. It was nice to go out to eat, though. Before we ate, we heard a Dave Matthews Band song that I knew, but I couldn’t bring up the name no matter how much I thought. I Googled it when we got home, and apparently it’s called “What Would You Say”. I ended up buying it later on that night. Along with that, I got two other Dave Matthews Band songs, “Everyday” and “Grace is Gone”. I have to say, I love “Everyday”. Since no one is here, I was dancing around upstairs singing it. I burned a really cool CD with all the songs I bought, plus “Lips of an Angel” and that Lit song, “My Own Worst Enemy”. Michael is going to be after that CD. I’ve been practicing for my solo. I think it’s going to be okay. I worked out all the rhythms that were hard for me, so I just have to work on getting it up to tempo in the next five days or so. Ashley is supposed to call me today to tell me the time we’re going to practice at her house. Hopefully Caleb and Blake will be home this time around. Despite what MacArthur said, I think we’re doing pretty good. Caleb and Blake have a hard part, but they’re doing good. That doesn’t stop me from being nervous as hell about going to Solo and Ensemble. On that note, I’m going to go work on my solo. January 30, 2007 Well, today was the first day of the second semester. I have seven hours. I was really quite bummed. I like six hours just fine, thank you very much. But, on the plus side, I’ve switched Speech for Western Civ. and I know that’ll be okay. I have Western Civ. third hour. It’s probably going to be the best class ever. Karen, Wyatt, and Grace from English are in that class. I don’t know about Mr. Overbey (or Kent, as he wants to be called). The man can tell a long, hairy story very well. Half the time I had no idea where he was going with whatever he was talking about. He (like Mr. Fox, funnily enough) has a huge monotone, but he’s funny when he wants to be. Well, I have some people I know in that class, so I’ll have some fun. My second new class is Personal Fitness. If that weren’t a required class then I wouldn’t be taking it. I am unathletic and I know it. My teacher for that is a dude named Mr. Simons, or Coach Si. He seems... dense. He’s really old and not really a great thinker. We don’t have to bring clothes until Thursday, which is good, because I was stressing out about whether I should bring clothes today or not. It’s mostly freshmen, but I know a girl in there who was in Samulak’s class with me last year. Today was actually decently interesting. Fuzz is back for good now. I’m happy that he’s back. He actually contributed to a rather interesting scene involving the Walrus and I today. We took Fuzz down to see him, because he mentioned that he wanted to see him. The Walrus made a huge thing about seeing him for the first time, even though I had let him know that Fuzz was coming home awhile ago. We were all standing there talking, me, Amy, Fuzz, the Walrus, Karen, and Anne popped in every once in awhile. He was joking around like usual, and it made me realize how much I missed the guy that was my friend. Amy had to open her big fat mouth and she recalled the time of the note. I swear he had nearly forgotten. “For the record, those two suckered me into it,” I said, pointing an accusing finger at Amy and Fuzz. He looked me straight in the eye. “Do you really feel that way?” he asked in a sort of quiet voice. I smiled. “No. I’m glad I did it.” And I am. Even if it didn’t work out so well, he served his purpose. Then, it was the strangest thing. We looked at each other and he said, “I’m sorry. I had something good and I just...” he trailed off. “I was an ass.” I was taken aback. If anything, I should be apologizing. “Don’t be sorry. It was my fault. I got grounded and everything.” (Note: Total Lie.) “Still, I feel bad.” “Don’t feel bad,” I said back. I took a look at him, sighed, and said, “I’m sorry it worked out this way.” We hugged and then stepped back. I realized then that, right there, that was it. The end of a ten-month saga. Karen looked very confused. I laughed. “Very, very long story,” I explained. “Yeah, it is,” Amy put in. Fuzz nodded. And it was almost like a miracle in Earth Science. I swear, the ice was broken. It was like I was seeing the guy for the first time since I told him on that bright day in May during the fire drill. It was like last semester, only without him and Amy going at it every other day. We joked around the whole time. It was the best day in Earth Science for a very long time. The rest of the day was pretty uneventful. I ended up with an A in English for the semester. Some people switched out, and other people switched in. Right now, I sit next to a kid named Alex Pearlman. It’s killing me. I know the name, but I have no idea how! I’m going to ask if Mom and Dad know the Pearlmans. He’s a perfectly nice guy. I like him so far. Nick and Paul both know him. Right now, we’re reading a weird book called Kindred. It has a lot to do with time travel. We’ll see if I like it or not. Mr. Julius also put up the grades today. I went to go see my grade with some trepidation, since, looking back, I didn’t think I did all that good. I glanced at my student number. 113681. Semester Grade: A. Huh? Final Grade: A+. No way, I thought. No freakin’ way. I was ecstatic. I really thought I hadn’t done that great on it. I was so happy I gave Mr. Julius a big hug. I was so happy. That means that I’m getting four As this semester, Bs in Speech and Earth Science. Then we all watched Spartacus. It’s actually kind of cool. Mr. Julius said he didn’t want to do anything related to finals anymore, so we watched a movie instead. Toner made Garrett take off his hat before the movie and I gasped. Garrett had cut off all of his blonde curls. It’ll take some getting used to. What is it with guys and getting a Marine cut lately? Ashley gave me a ride home, since Dad and Michael were coming home from Purdue. Her mom is really nice. I kind of felt bad, since I hate it when my friends have to act as my taxi service. But, I don’t know how the seventh hour bus works yet, so I had to do something. We’re probably going to do our practice for Solo and Ensemble tomorrow. We’re doing good. I’m not worried. Now I’m here. Dad and Michael are back. I should probably go talk to Dad, since I haven’t talked to him for a few days. January 31, 2007 Not much happened today, unless you count that I’m getting used to having a seventh hour. I still hate it, but at least it’s a little better. Coach Si is kind of a nut job, but he’s an okay guy. Today he showed us the locker room and the weight room and such. I hate taking a class with so many freshmen. I think all freshmen should be consciously sedated until they learn to grow up. Mr. Julius got sick or something, so we got another Latin sub. This one actually showed up. Fortunately, he was totally out of it. Toner, Garrett, and I played tic-tac-toe on the board, then hangman. Garrett and I got into a debate over hangman strategies. I say you should always name vowels first, because every word has them. He said that you should name the most common letters first, like R, S, and T. I missed a couple of the easy ones, then Toner got in on the act. His word was “unrhythmic iambic pentameter”. I had to roll my eyes. “You have been spending way too much time with Mrs. Wright,” I told him, shaking my head. He has her this year. I told him how sorry I was. She’s a bitch to freshmen, in the words of Blake. It was kind of hard, dividing attention between Toner and Garrett. I mean, at one point, I had two hangman games going, me versus Garrett and me versus Toner. Sometimes Garrett would come to our game and whisper suggestions in my ear. I try to give them both equal attention, even though I seem to be more inclined towards Garrett. Yet I hang with Toner for his sake and because I honestly like him. Nice guy, really. He’s misunderstood, but in a way he reminds me of a cross between David and Cam. It kills me, because I know how he feels. I’ve had experience as a freshman going after the attractive sophomore who I could never have. It sucks, and I don’t mind Toner. The student teacher in English isn’t all that good, and quite frankly, I miss Mr. Wilson. She’s a pushover and the only reason she’s kind of in control of the class is because it’s mostly guys who think she’s hot. I like Mr. Wilson’s style a lot better, where we just read the book and talk about it in class. She has us put a bunch of sticky notes on the book about stuff we found “interesting”. I wonder how far away March is... Speaking of which, I’m going to go read Kindred. Damn awful sticky notes reading assignment... February 3, 2007 Whoa. Been a few days. Well, it’s the wonderful month of February now and it’s damn cold. We’re supposed to hit minus three or something tonight. On the extremely bright side, today was Solo and Ensemble, and I am done! It was really hard this year, since I got two twos. I can make excuses to my parents and friends, but I can’t make them to myself. A two kind of made me mad at myself. Strangely enough, I was so calm on the way over. I remember the car ride over last year. I was listening to “Vindicated” (Dashboard Confessional) and freaking out. This time, it was better. Mom even commented on how calm I was. I went to the practice room alone. I spied Blake on the other side of the room, talking to some people. I suddenly realized who it was. Zach’s brass quintet. Just take a wild guess at who the tuba player is in that quintet. I heard a story concerning them, which Blake had me cracking up at. Laja, who’s the other trumpet besides Zach, showed up about a minute before they had to play, so Blake was setting up to fill in. Then Laja came at the very last minute, but then Coleman Alexander, the French horn player, had to leave mysteriously for something in Huron Players. So, they had to draft a horn player in Symphony Band who was passing by. Also, Luis showed up in jeans. That cracked me up. Jeans are a tad frowned upon in Solo and Ensemble. “It’s too bad you missed it,” Blake added. “It was like a bad soap opera.” We played our quartet piece. We definitely got off a little, but somehow we pulled it back together. In the end, we got a two, which I think Blake was disappointed in more than anyone. Mom said we sounded good, but she’s my mother, so she’s required to say that. After that, we went to go get some lunch at McDonald’s and I told her stuff about band in the car. Then it was time for my solo. Actually, it wasn’t. We were backed up by two hours. The room itself was backed up by about twenty-five minutes, but since Susan Wagner had to do a bunch of other peoples’ solos first, we ended up waiting for two hours. I’m not even kidding. That really had an impact on my solo. I was really dried out, so I couldn’t hit a lot of the notes and a few of the articulations. And, of course, I got the hardest trumpet judge. Glen Ackers. I’m not going to say that like he’s on my list or anything, but he was really hard. He made some kid cry, a kid who was playing the same solo as me. He gave me a two, which I was glad about, in the end. It wasn’t my best, and I knew it. I wonder what Blake got. He was playing the same piece as me, too. We went home after that. I was beat. It had been a long day. The rest of the day was easy. I hung out and watched Court TV for awhile. Then, we had to go to our grandfather’s seventy-eighth birthday party. He’s actually a funny guy these days. Sometimes I forget he’s the guy that Dad tells all the horror stories about. The dude was a terrible father. That’s part of the reason the last four of Dad’s brothers and sisters are so messed up and are going to be forever, probably. I’m really glad Solo and Ensemble is over. I hate Solo and Ensemble. In the practice room, waiting for my solo, I realized that I would rather audition for Mr. Roberts than for some judge who doesn’t know me. I don’t know why, but I would. Mr. Roberts isn’t really all that scary. He’s just a really good musician and band director with a slightly swollen ego. Man, I hope he doesn’t give me a bad comment this quarter. He shouldn’t be angry with me anymore. The last time he yelled at me was a long time ago. Grades do come out kind of soon. As far as I know, I got three As, one A-, and two Bs. The Bs were in Speech and Earth Science. The As were in Latin (since I found out I got 113% on the final- second-highest grade of all Mr. Julius’s finals), English, and band, if I’m on Mr. Roberts’s good side now. The A- was in Geometry, which pissed me off. I had an A! I need to calculate all those, but I think I got around a 3.6 GPA. Not bad for a slacker. Okay, it’s late, so I’m going to bed. February 5, 2007 I’m supposed to be doing Earth Science homework, but I’m already kind of done, so I’ll just hang out for awhile. We had a snow day today. Well, more a cancel-school-because-it’s-freezing day. The temperature this morning was ten below or something, and Ann Arbor was included in the districts that didn’t have school. I kind of hope we have one tomorrow, too. Whatever. I’ll try not to jinx it. I literally did nothing today. I went back to sleep after I heard the announcement on the radio, and had some strange dreams. What I remember is that I was on the edge of some village, trying to save some animal over and over. I found the animal down a gorge, right above a river. The water was unnaturally blue. Then, I was in Mr. Drake’s room. I was in the room with a bunch of animals, and they could talk. The only animal I remember was a white tiger, and he had a boy’s face. Tigers mean emotions that scare me. Odd stuff. At about quarter to one, I finally woke up. It was really bright outside, which is really weird for Michigan. I got up and got some breakfast, and found out that David had been sick upstairs. I swear, he’s got some issues. He throws up like once a month, and I haven’t thrown up since last May, and that was the first time in about four years. The rest of the day, I just hung out and did nothing. Absolutely nothing. It’s been fun. I finally did calculate my GPA with what I got this semester. If all my grades stayed the same, then I got a 3.61 GPA. “That’s respectable,” Michael commented. Well, gee, thanks. He wouldn’t have told me that I did well unless I had gotten a perfect 4.0. I thought it was funny that Michael and I got the same semester grade in Geometry and from the same teacher. I wonder if Mr. Kim noticed that. We both got an A-, according to the transcript that I found on his desk this summer. But that’s enough for me. I did as well as he did in math, which is a real first. This year has been going so great. I have good grades! Really good grades, grades that can get me into a good college. So is this what all those teachers in middle school used to preach at me, that I have potential? Mr. Thobe in particular used to go after me, because he knew that, despite how I acted in his class, I really was smart. I’m loving this. I love school. Right now, I’m not sure if I want to go back to school. Another snow day would be nice, but I’m sure I’ll be going crazy by tomorrow night. I kind of miss Latin. What’s my school career without Toner and Garrett? It’s good we finally found a language that I like. I should probably get off of here, before the parents catch me. February 6, 2007 And yet another snow day. I’m bored and blasting “Semi-Charmed Life” to drown out David’s music. Amazing how different two people can be, people who are raised in the same circumstances and have the same parents. It’s hard sometimes, but at least I have Michael, I guess. I didn’t realize until I looked up the lyrics awhile ago that “Semi-Charmed Life” is a druggie song. It’s about being addicted to crystal meth, actually. The sky was gold It was rose I was taking sips of it through my nose I wish I could get back there Someplace Back there Smiling in the pictures you would take Doing crystal meth will lift you up until you break It won’t stop There’s a lot more too it than that. The whole thing is about two really long verses. He never does get off of crystal meth. Sad song. Well, there is officially nothing to do here. We found out that they canceled school last night. It had been on the website for a long time. I would have called all my friends to alert them that school was canceled, but it was pretty late, a little after eleven. I think every school in the county was closed today, because I heard on the radio that there were too many school closings to say on the air. Damn, I thought. That must be a lot. I ended up having a dream that we did have school. Now I’m sort of hoping that we’re going to have school tomorrow. I don’t think I’ll be able to survive any more days like this. All my homework has been finished for awhile now, so it’s not like I can do anything to expand my GPA or something. Hm, that reminds me. Grades probably come either today or tomorrow. Let’s just hope that Roberts lays off this quarter and doesn’t give me a bad comment. Well, that’s all for now. ‘Bye. February 8, 2007 Quite the interesting day today. A lot of stuff happened. The first of all that was that we got our course selection sheets via the annual pointless assembly for the class of 2009. I got to skip second hour for it, which I was kind of glad about. The student teacher drives me nuts. I had forgotten that we probably had the assembly today, since we had a test in Geometry, so I was focusing on that. Nick brought it to my attention when I walked into Mr. Wilson’s room. My last name starts with a B, so I went with about half of Wilson’s class to the auditorium. I sat with Amy and Karen and we made snide wise-ass comments all throughout the assembly. Karen is hilarious. I’ve decided what classes I’m taking. Band, Latin 3, Chemistry, U.S. History, Algebra 3/4 (kill me now), AC English, and some elective. I think AC will be good for me. I like English a lot, and I might get Karen, since she’s taking it too. During the assembly, Mrs. Caudle started talking about Health or a required class or something, and I started thinking about how I hadn’t taken Health yet, and how I really didn’t want to take it with a bunch of people who are freshmen now. Then a brilliant idea hit me. Maybe there was a summer course or something that I could take in its place! And that led me to Mrs. Caudle’s office at lunch, along with everyone else and their grandmother. And that was the place that a really interesting thing happened. The line was really long, at least five or six people. The Fairy March came up and joined the party. I grinned and made an attempt at friendliness, since we’re in Geometry together and all. “The line’s really long,” I said somewhat lamely. He nodded and I ended up striking up a friendly conversation about math. “So how did you like the test today?” I asked. And that set it off. I can honestly say that I’ve met the famous Fairy March now. We’re actually really similar. I like him, actually. I think he’s a nice guy. Kind of quiet, but a nice guy. Amy came onto the scene with me a little later, and we all talked. It was odd, like one of those things you don’t really expect. I talked about how embarrassed I was about how bad I did last year. “What’s your GPA?” he asked. “You just met her!” Amy protested. I laughed. “Well, now I have a three-five, but I did really bad last year.” I handed him the transcript that Mrs. Caudle had given me. “You wouldn’t even let me see that,” Amy interjected. I rolled my eyes. “You can,” I said. “I was joking.” “You got a C- in Samulak’s class?” she asked. “Samulak’s class was so easy! No wonder you got a bad GPA,” she added. “I have a three-five,” I retorted. “Observe the three-five.” I glanced at the line and sighed, “I’m going to have to get a pass to Drake’s class.” Amy groaned. “I am in no hurry to get to math,” she complained. “Skip!” the Fairy March and I said together. “I’m not going to skip, you guys.” “You’re outvoted,” I said, grinning. “You have to skip.” I’m glad I finally talked to him like Amy has been after me to do. My main wish is that this doesn’t turn into what it was with Zach and Alex. She says it won’t, but I’m not sure I believe that. I mean, Alex was just her boyfriend, and she loved this guy. If I make one wrong move, I’m scared that it’ll be the same thing. In other news, I dropped Personal Fitness. After the Fairy March scene, I went in to see Mrs. Caudle and she told me that it was in my better interest to take Health in Personal Fitness’s place, seventh hour. She told me to come back after Latin and talk more about it. I’ll fast forward and say that we ended up switching me. As much as I’m going to miss “Coach Si” and the rest of Personal Fitness, Health is better. I got some lady named Mrs. Symington. I like her so far. She gave me an override to get into her class, anyway. I just pretty much went from one blowoff class to another, really. So, yeah, that was my day. Until tomorrow or whenever. February 9, 2007 Well, I’m finally getting into the rhythm of my new schedule. After school, I rode the city bus home for the first time on my own. To tell you the truth, I was kind of scared. You can get really lost on city buses if you don’t know where you’re going. However, I pulled it off with no incidents. Victory for Claire. I realized on the bus that this is, in some ways, the first step to adulthood. Getting yourself home without your parents having to come pick you up and worry about you. I forgot my course selection sheet today, so I couldn’t get Mr. Kim to sign me for Algebra 3/4. Course selection is suddenly becoming a huge thing to the sophomores. Last year, everyone just kind of picked generic classes, but this year everyone’s all freaked out about what’s going to look good for college and what won’t. Amy is getting all bent out of shape about how she needs more AP-like classes. I suggested that she take AC with Karen and me, but she absolutely hated that idea. She’s a slow reader. It sometimes kind of annoys me how Amy complains about stuff like that but she’s not willing to work to earn the grade. For example, she could probably pull off AC if she just worked at it a little, but she doesn’t want to and complains. “All my friends are taking AC this and AP that,” she said during lunch. I didn’t really know what to say to that. In the end (I’m sure it was because she was sick of all our AC English talk), she said that it might not even matter, because she might be moving to England. Oh yeah. Amy might be moving to England (the Walrus, too, actually). Her dad sent an application out there. I don’t know how to react. Really. It was one thing when she might have been moving to D.C., but now to a whole ‘nother freaking country? It sucks big time. But on the other hand, I’ve realized recently, we’re becoming really different people. Sometimes I would rather just talk to Karen about stuff that we have in common. I mean, I get a work ethic this year and suddenly everything changes. Suddenly I want friends that can talk about the stuff I talk about. I don’t want to say “smart friends”, but just aware friends, I suppose. That’s all for me. ‘Bye. February 10, 2007 I realized a few days ago that the snow will probably be melted kind of soon. We only have eighteen more days left in February. It was a nice thing to think about yesterday, when I had to make the hike home from the city bus. Eighteen more days, and not all of them school days. I won’t even be taking the bus for all those school days. Then it’ll be March. This year’s going fast. It’ll be summer before I know it. I think I had one of those epic dreams last night, one of those really big dreams that go a long time. I think it had to do with me going on an adventure of sorts, kind of a rescue mission. I had to get past this wall of soldiers. They would attack if I tried to get by, but otherwise they just stood there. I don’t know how, but I got by. Then I was descending down into a hole to find something. I ended up saving three babies. Then I was in my living room, trying to take care of them. I was thinking of them as dogs for some reason, and sometimes they even appeared to me as dogs. I decided to put them in the playpen but couldn’t do it. I was thinking to myself, “This would be so much easier if they were puppies!” Other than my weird dream, the day has been kind of boring. Typical Saturday, I suppose. February 12, 2007 I didn’t get to sleep until forever last night. I had a lot on my mind. It started when I realized another drawback of seventh hours. I’m going to have to give up practice club. Michael can’t take me after seventh hour, because he has to lift weights. I was pretty upset. “I don’t do a whole lot, you know,” I said angrily to Mom and Michael, down in the basement. “This is important to me!” After awhile, I realized that I had lost. I was going to have to give it up. I cried, as stupid as that is. Michael walked in on me feeling sorry for myself and said, “You know, if you want something to do this semester, you could do a spring sport.” I told him no. No way. I suck at sports, remember? It’s especially bad, because Michael’s a pretty great all-around athlete. “You could do lacrosse,” he suggested. “You would be a great goalie.” I put my foot down. “No way. I highly dislike the lacrosse girls.” And I do. They’re a bunch of athletic bitches, and I hate that word. “Besides,” I added, “the only sport I would ever consider is water polo.” Truth be told, I thought about playing last year, but I was too scared. In the shower about a month ago, I thought again about what it would be like to play. Too bad I’m a pansy. Michael’s eyes lit up. “Yeah!” he exclaimed. “You should do that!” I had really nothing to say. I couldn’t let him talk me into this. No way. We ended up talking for another hour. I told him just about everything, about how I didn’t want to have to break in to the team and how I didn’t want to make myself look like an idiot. Also, I didn’t want to be the sub-par athlete next to my fabulous older brother. He shrugged, apparently unconcerned. “We can both be athletes, you know.” Athlete. Just the word sorely tempted me. Every single time I even hear the word I wish I was one. But there were too many reasons not to, and I told him so. Most of all, the idea scared me. Really. On the inside, I’m scared of what people think of me. Also, I haven’t had a good record at breaking into teams. Then I told Michael a story. When I was in late elementary school, I played a lot of soccer. Looking back, I was nothing spectacular, but I really liked it. One day, a little before Christmas, Christy invited me to join her team. They weren’t Rec and Ed, the elementary school thing. They were United, the next step up. I was way excited. I thought everything would work out just magically. However, that was Naomi Kesten’s soccer team. To this day I have no idea what I did wrong. They hated me. I tried so hard, but I couldn’t fit in. A girl named Jenny Chappuis picked on me the most and I hated that team with everything I had. The one bright point of that season was the game that we were missing most of the team and I ended up scoring three goals, which conveniently made Jenny and Naomi hate me more. They purposely excluded me and I can’t forget it. I know I was much different back then, but I still remember. That was the end of my soccer career forever. And Naomi hasn’t changed one bit, for the record. “It’s not like that in high school,” Michael promised me. In the end, I realized he was right. I could bring up a million reasons to not play, but for once in my lifetime I had to be brave. Michael outlined all the reasons why I should. The one that most appealed to me is that I might get my letter. I have crazy fantasies of lettering in something trumpet unrelated. Also, as he said, I would meet a whole other group of people and the semester would fly by. And that’s what drove me to talk to Karen today. “Are you seriously thinking of joining?” she asked, grinning. I nodded, and that set off the conversation. Karen was really helpful. She told me that a bunch of people join up as sophomores, some even as juniors, like Lisa Winters. (If you remember, her brother Peter was my squad leader freshman year at Interlochen.) She joined water polo as a junior and was elevated to varsity at the end of the season. Amy couldn’t believe it when I told her. She kind of overheard, but I kind of told her, too. “So, tell me about this game you call water polo,” I said jokingly to Karen at lunch. “Especially since I’m thinking of joining,” I added for Amy’s benefit. “What? Seriously?” she said incredulously. “But you can’t swim, Claire!” That nettled me. “I can swim very well, thank you very much,” I said back coolly. I’m a great swimmer. I’ve always been. I think Amy just felt strange, though. She started going on about how she would never play any sports. Maybe she thinks I’m slipping away or something like that? Whatever. I’m still me, even if I do starting playing. So, yeah. I don’t know what’s going to happen. I mean, I want to do this, but there’s a part of me that’s really scared. I’ve never played in my life! I don’t know the rules or anything. Karen said it wasn’t a problem, but I still worry. I told myself I’d look up the rules on Google on the bus ride home. I’ve got to do some thinking. I need to pray for the strength to do this or something. Okay, that’s all for now. I’m out of here. February 14, 2007- Valentine’s Day It’s yet another snow day. Someone kill me now. We got a huge storm last night, so now I’m sitting here being incredibly bored. However, I think that everyone with a girlfriend or boyfriend is happy, because that means they can get together today outside of school. I know Anne and Cam are at his house today. They’re a good couple. Cam calls me Shorty now. I call him Banjo in retaliation. If school hadn’t been canceled today, Amy would have skipped English, for kind of a strange reason. Yesterday, she was at her creative writing thing with her English class in the library, and she read a story about a really bad summer in front of a bunch of people. To tell you the truth, I didn’t really understand what was so damn mortifying about it. However, I spent about an hour telling her not to. It sort of made me mad, because she’s satisfied if she looks like a weakling! Maybe I have personal honor issues or something. Well, I finally did end up looking at the rules for water polo. It seems like there’s a lot to it. The fouls pretty much say you can’t do anything. I’ve heard that referees ignore a lot of it, though. Karen told the coach that I’m probably going to join, and he told Karen that she should bring me soon, so I can be as prepared as possible. I’m having kind of a weird mix of emotions on this. I really want to do this, like really bad. Yet I’m scared. It’s like I can’t wait, but I’m scared to death. If that makes any sense at all. I was sort of thinking, maybe I could get Anne to join up with me. She told me last year during a karate class that she planned to go out for water polo. I asked her about it, but she had to go, since she was off to Cam’s place. That would be really cool, and would be beneficiary to her, since she once told me that her classes have a bunch of assholes in them. Freshmen have it so easy. I wish I had known that. So, the way I’m going to make myself not wimp out is to repeat all the good things that are going to happen because of this. I’ll play a sport and be considered an athlete and contribute to the 60% or whatever of Huron people that play sports. I’ll meet new people and they’ll probably like me. I might get my letter and get one of those spiffy letter jackets. Athletic involvement looks good for college applications. Also, (although this is stupid) I’ll get to order a hoodie and stuff. I might be a respected and well-liked member of the class of 2009. I might just be good and I will have found something that I’m better than Michael at. I’ll be less of a loser and I’ll have a life. Karen has been really good about this. She’s been telling me that the coach is more than happy to teach first-timers and that JV is mostly social, not necessarily the “let’s kick some ass” mentality. Overall, and in time, I think I’m going to be fine. I mean, I want to play contact sports, but there really aren’t many for girls, so water polo is the next best thing. Also, I love to swim. Michael’s also been great. A few days ago, he had to drop David off at a rehearsal and wait there, so I went with him. “Are you seriously going through with this?” he asked me. I nodded and said, “Yeah, unless something comes up.” “Like what?” I thought. “I can’t think of anything.” He laughed. It was good to talk to him that night. He started listing off why it was good that I’m doing this. I think he may actually be proud of me, which is a nice feeling. He told me to start going to the preseason stuff, because he said that people won’t like it if I don’t do anything with the team and I’m just a random walk-on that didn’t earn it. It was great to talk to him. In the end, I laughed and said, “You know, I can’t believe I’m doing this.” “So that’s why you should do it,” Michael said simply. He’s actually right. Eleanor Roosevelt said, “You must do the thing you think you cannot do.” Hell, if I can break into the team, I can do anything. I need to be brave. Otherwise, I have no room to lecture Amy about being weak and facing up to the stuff you’ve done. I think I’m going to go try to enjoy my snow day.