Old Journal

I've always kept little notebooks and journals. Not so much diaries, but logs of random stuff. Like my blog, but on paper.

I found one just now from the summer between 8th and 9th grade, and let me tell you, there's some funny stuff. Like the following (misspellings, bad punctuation and all):

To whom it may concern:

I am a thirteen year old girl who just may, one day decide to be an Air Force pilot. My father was in the Air Force, and, I think he was saddened to find his only son didn't want to enlist.

I want to be around planes and bases. I have a great interest in them. But, as a female, I feel that I wouldn't be trusted as a pilot for my home countrie's Air Force. This makes me angry. Because even though I don't like war, who does? Some men have been to weak in combat, and its these men that fall.

If I enlisted in the Air Force, I'd probably get some "weak" job. In America, all men are created equal. Shouldn't that go for women, too?

-Megan Cooper
Folsom, California

In between my rare journeys into feminist thought, I had the typical journal. I had a crush that summer on Steve, an 18-year-old boy on my bowling league team (yeah, I was in a bowling league for a couple of years. Now I can throw a mean gutter ball but not much else). I listed baby names: Victoria Marie, Myra Lyn, Douglas Matthew and Neil Louis.

I think I was 15 when I came up with Hannah, and that one stuck.

There are various packing lists (I went to NYC with a group from school and L.A. with my bowling league) and to-do lists. There's even a budget on how to spend babysitting money and money I earned helping out at the school district.

And stories. I had all kinds of ideas that never got past general descriptions and maybe a chapter here and there. I was really into an idea about a girl named Victoria (but not Vicki) who's father owned race horses. Victoria would raise a sickly little filly into a champion. It was "loosely" based on a book I'd read. Once upon a time I wanted to be a writer. What happened to that? Well, music was the bigger pull, and there is no doubt that I love music. Now I'm getting back into the writing some more, and that's good, too.

I don't know how many wistful games of "True Love" I played, and how many games of "True Love and Romance Forever and Ever" these games turned into when my "True Love score was too low for my tastes.

The inside cover of my notebook has the following list:

Megan's Book
7-1-92
I (heart) Paul
I (heart) Steve more
I (heart) Steve way more
I (heart) Jason (oh, brother)
I (heart) Chris N.
I (heart) soooo many guys! (the dot on the exclamation is a heart)

One of the funnier pages is a list of strange mixes of words that I made up (or found somewhere). It took me a minute to realize that they are acronyms.

Sam Houstin Institution of Technology
Austing School of Snorkeling
Folsom Underwater Comeback Karate
California's Radical Aviation Program
Denver's Academic Moron

I spelled "damn" wrong.

My musical tastes were interesting, as per the graph I found on one page:

Songs I Like:
Guns n' Roses November Rain, Live and Let Die, Don't Cry
Tom Cochrane Life is a highway

Songs I tolerate:
Jump, Jump

Songs I hate:
Tennessee

The tapes I planned on taking on my LA trip were:

Billy Joel
Cocktail Soundtrack
Mariah Carey
Rod Stewart
Madonna
Phantom of the Opera
Queen
Michael W. Smith


This notebook was filled up between my graduation from 8th grade and my first day of high school. That summer, I transitioned from a geeky kid with acne to a band geek with a clarinet. Looking back on it, I can't help but laugh at myself, at how precocious I tried to be. I could be reading the journal of almost any one of the 13-year-old girls I've taught.