Friday, Sept 6 2005 12:15 pm

I'm sitting here with Marsie and a huge pile of french fries. You can get like a pound of french fries for a dollar at the school cafeteria, and everything else is way overpriced. Fried zuchini, for instance, costs a dollar twenty five.

Who thought of that, fried zuchini? Why not fry something worthwile, like cheetos. Or mozzarella cheese sticks. Or potatoes. As in fried potatoes. As in french fries.

I know what my new food staple is.

Marsie thinks I'm disgusting.
IN a way, I don't blame her.

ANyway, we're planning what to do this weekend. We have to do this way in advance, because we are both from the boonies and our parents require a lot of psychological preparation to be willing to drive us.

WE have almost decided to go window shopping in Bluffdale City. Which isn't a city, it's more of a town. Or actuallly, more like a couple of streets with builings on them. But oh well. We take what we can get.

it is very unlikely that our parents would drive us to sacramento, where the real window shopping is.

11:16 pm

Top Ten Wierd things that my teachers have done:

10) My elementary math teacher told my mom that I was doodling psychotic drawings on the edge of my paper and sent me to the school psychologist. Ok, so I was bad at drawing. Rub it in, why don't you, Mrs. Elton.

9) My eight grade history teacher flicked boogers at people.

8) My sixth grade english teacher had us build grahm cracker houses as an english assignment. She brought in a big vat of frosting and several boxes of grahm crackers every day and we'd mostly eat them.

7) My sixth grade science teacher had us dissect chicken legs. Which he cooked because he was afraid of us contracting salmonella. Hello? Other jr high students are dissecting cow's eyeballs and fetal pigs. I'm sure you can get a much wierder disease from exposure to raw cow eyeballs than you can from dissecting Tyson chicken thighs.

6) My seventh grade history teacher one time threw a radio across the classroom and ran out of the room crying. Ok that was partly our fault... we liked making her mad. But still...

5) My seventh grade science teacher broke a yardstick across his desk once. ANd he made us do pushups for him when we ticked him off. He was from the military. He had a loud voice and an australian accent. He was scary.

4) My fifth grade teacher always had two students come up to massage her shoulders when she started feeling "tense".

3) Same teacher- had a total of seven gerbils, three rabbits, a turtle and two mice in her classroom as "class pets" at one time.

2) My second grade teacher wore bleached jeans and tie dyed shirts and played the guitar, and taught us war protests songs.

1) The urine thing. Nothing can be wierder than that.

10:15 pm

Wow. I'm flabbergasted.

My mom isn't going to make me weed the garden to pay for ski team! She told me that it's a legitimate expense and she wants me to do a team sport in high school, and so she and Dad will support me by paying for it.

This from the woman who only buys us two shirts, two pairs of pants, and a pair of shoes for each school year. And tells us that if we want "anything extra" we have to earn the money ourselves.

Which means weeding, because, legally, I cannot get a job. And even if I could get a job, mom would have to drive me every day. And she'd probably charge me. Hey, if I were her, I'd charge me.

Well, I mean, who needs more clothes than that, really.

Except I'm starting to feel really self conscious about my stupid pants.

I guess I'll be weeding the garden for a while, after all.

9:20 pm

It's Kelsey's dish night tonight.

My ski coach says I can't use the equipment that my parents gave me to use for ski team. He says I have to get new stuff.

My mom and dad have skiis and poles and boots from the late seventies. The poles have those round donut things on the bottom the size of horses' hooves. Apparently this is not cool. Ella smirked and slightly pretended she didnt' know me when we got out on the snow.

I like going down hills better than going up hills.

ANyway, my ski coach has a fixation with urine. He spent a whole half hour lecturing us about what the right "color" of urine is. And how we have to drink a gallon of water a day every hour if we're going to have urine that is a "healthy color".

Seriously embarrassing.

So now I have to tell my parents that I want new ski boots and ski poles. The team loans out skiis, thank goodness. So it'll only be about three hundred dollars, including the ski club membership.

Knowing my mom, I'll be weeding the garden at 50 cents an hour for the next three years of my life.

5:45 pm

Hahahahah I am a terrible skiier.

I'm laughing because, as they say, laugh and the world laughs with you, cry and everyone thinks you're lame.

Anyway, downhill skiing and cross country skiing are different sports. With downhill skiing, you have the benefit of the ski lift to get you up hills.

With cross country skiing, not only do you have to go up hills without the benefit of complex machinery, but you have lovely slick skiis and long pointy poles to trip you and stab yourself with.

I have square-shaped bruises on my knees from falling forward directly onto my skiis fifty times.



I don't want to talk about it.

2:15 pm

I'm in choir class right now. We're singing for the first time today.

Actually, nobody is really singing. They're just holding up their music to hide their faces and doing various non-singing related activities, such as applying lip gloss.

There are two girls sitting next to me who actually are singing, although slightly off key. I get to sing alto, which basically means I sing three notes over and over again. The three notes change from song to song. So I'm exercizing seven notes of my range, at least.

In exactly thirty minutes I will be dismissed from this class, and will have nowhere to go but ski practice. There's no backing out now. I'm terrified. I have suddenly realized that I have no memory of ever being on skiis, other than that picture I mentioned. And I don't even have a memory of that incident either... only the picture.

People are going to laugh at me.

Thursday, September 5, 11:20 am

Another thing that is shocking me-- boy facial hair. Apparently, some boys in high school think they're old enough to grow it. It seems that Soul Patches (also known as 'flavor savers') are the thing this year.

I am, however, experiencing many varied examples of creative facial-hair growth. Goatees. Mustaches with beards. There's one guy who's sitting in front of me right now in my biology class who has no hair on his chin, just UNDER his chin and all over his neck. Like Brigham Young. In those beard pictures of him. You know what I mean.

I didn't know boys grew hair on their necks. I'll have to file that information away for future reference.

11:20 pm

You may ask why I am up so late, after a long day of school, when I have to get up at an ungodly hour when the Spirit is Still Asleep. (If the Spirit retires exactly at midnight, it logically follows that He is still probably asleep at 5:15 am.)

It is because My mom is making me do the dinner dishes. I complained until she threatened privelege removal.

Dad felt sorry for me and so he gave me a bowl of Jelly Bellies to make my dish-doing more pleasant.

I started at 10:30 and am am almost finished now. A family of eight people makes a lot of dishes.

I just have the forks and spoons to wash, and only four jelly bellies left. (jalapeno, peanut butter, and buttered popcorn. I can't eat buttered popcorn jelly bellies because when I watched the movie White Fang for the first time I ate a popcorn-flavored jelly belly just as they showed the shot of that dead guy in the coffin underwater. So buttered popcorn jelly bellies to me = corpses.)

Anyway, my church freind Ella has convinced me to join the cross-country ski team. Don't ask me how she did it. She only had ten minutes between seventh and eight period and somehow accomplished it in that short amount of time.

I've never done a real team sport before. Well, OK, I take that back. I was on the track team in jr high. But I was the only girl sprinter. Sometimes I was the only girl sprinter at the entire track meet. So I'd race against myself. It was a little embarrassing. Plus I wasn't that good.

So I bet I'll be good at endurance sports. They say you're either one or the other. That's what they say.

Anyway, there's a team meeting tomorrow. I'm worried I won't be able to get my gargantuan load of homework done what with all the extra time spent at team practices. Maybe mom will let me drop AP History if I complain enough.

On the plus side, that means I don't have to ride the bus home anymore, because practices go until after the busses leave. I ride the boonies bus, and it takes a little over an hour to get home. So maybe it will all even out, time-wise.

OK, I feel better now. On to the forks and spoons.

Those popcorn jelly bellies are looking tempting. But I know better. I already tried one tonight and it nearly made me vomit.

7:45 am

Some days you have a lot to write about, you know?

And sometimes whole weeks go by where nothing happens but boring stuff.

I don't want to walk back in those doors of Eastlake High School. Yesterday, I felt so completely lost... literally. I walked up and down, around, outside, explored four builgings before I finally asked someone for help. I was trying to find my math class. The woman I asked turned around and I saw that she had the most evil face imaginable on a human being. She scowled at me. I gulped out "nevermind" and ran quickly away from her.

I asked an older-looking student for directions. She rolled her eyes and pointed to the building directly behind me.

Guess who was the teacher of my long-searched-for beginning Algebra class?

That's right. The evil-faced lady. I kept my head hidden behind my new purple 3-ring the entire period.

Anyway, like I was saying... the kids at high school are Wierd. None of the girls wear shirts. Of course I don't mean they go topless... no. They do wear gratuitous torso coverings. It would be illegal not to.

But I thought our high school had a dress code? Maybe I misinterpreted it. Maybe, instead of saying we're not supposed to wear spaghetti straps and bare-midriffs, it was really indicating that this is the school uniform.

I know. Snideness doesn't make freinds. And something about moats and eyeballs.

Sept 4, 7:35 am.

Ach Du Lieber, it happened. It finally happened. I’ve been dreading this event ever since I watched the movie, Single’s Ward, for the first time, and realized the cruelty that my diabolical parents inflicted upon me in the form of my first name.

It is (I kid you not), Molly.

If you’re not Mormon, you do not know the significance of this epithet. Let me explain.

“Molly” is a derogatory term for a girl who is Mormon, who is also a goody-two-shoes, a wet blanket, a hypocritical fun-sucker. That is what my parents condemned me to—a lifetime label that will probably spinsterize me.

Not that I’m thinking about marriage just yet. I have to pass the ninth grade, first.

Anyway, I’ve been dreading being in a class with other Mormons for this reason. My friend Marsie was the only Mormon at my elementary school, and she’s my friend, so she’d never tease me like that.

Confirming the worst of my fears, as soon as the teacher called out my name, ugly pants boy snickered, looked at me, and started whispering to his friend again. The other kids in the class looked surprised, and a few of the girls gave me pitying glances. I’m sure I turned beet red.

Ironically, I learned recently, while googling something completely unrelated (that’s how I gain most of my education), that “Molly” can also be a derogatory term outside of Mormon culture. It’s probably not used much, anymore-- I think it’s more of an old-fashioned thing.

But, anyway (don’t be shocked by this, now), it also means a prostitute. Which is about the furthest thing from what it means in Mormon culture.

I’m kind of wondering which one I’d prefer, if I had a choice. But it’s a moot point-- I don’t have a choice.

Maybe if I told my parents what I found out online, they’d let me legally change my name.

Sept 4, 6:27 am.

I don’t know how I’m going to do this. The teacher hasn’t even finished the roll yet, and already I’m falling asleep and making puddles of drool on my desk. Well, it wasn’t a puddle… more like a damp smudge. But drool of any kind is way embarrassing.

I know two of the girls in my class pretty well-- Marsie went to elementary school with me and we’ve been practically inseparable since the first grade when my family moved here. And Ella joined my Merrie Miss class when the wards were reorganized, even though she went to a different school. She actually went to a school that had an elementary school and a junior high school that were separate, and so she’s a little more with-it and trendy than Marsie and I.

In a way I sort of secretly admire Ella’s dressing habits. All jokes about wrinkly shirts aside, I’m starting to get sort of self-conscious about my wardrobe. Well, just started being self-conscious, fifteen minutes ago.

That may possibly be because a boy who is sitting in a desk next to mine snickered at me and pointed out to his friend in a whisper loud enough that I heard that I was wearing ugly pants.

Well, I guess they are kind of wierd looking. They’re high on my shins and are a sort of pink color due to being washed with my new red shirt.

But I would think that he would have the decency to introduce himself to me before whispering about me behind my back.

Who says that Mormon kids are any different from normal kids? If anyone does, have them come chat with me.

I'm actually sort of dissappointed. I was hoping mormon kids WERE different from all the others.

Maybe I need to find myself some new pants.

Sept 4, 2005 5:59 am.

I absolutely cannot eat breakfast this early. Mom made a special breakfast to celebrate my first day of Seminary. OK you can laugh, but remember I’m her first child and so this is really, really exciting. For her.

Anyway, she made all the stuff I usually like—bacon, eggs, and those little sausage patties from the pig we slaughtered this summer. I like the extra hot kind. My dad likes them, too. He went on his mission to Korea and came back liking really spicy food. Legend has it he fed me extra-hot Kimchee as a toddler.

Anyway, much as I like spicy sausage, it is not a good idea to eat it before 7:00 am, especially if you have a long, curvy drive to endure. I nearly threw up all over the front seat, which my mom had just cleaned in celebration of my First Day.

Well, actually, she found out yesterday that she was scheduled to carpool from the church to the high school this week, and so she went on a cleaning binge. She was up until about one in the morning, but the inside of the van is undeniably spotless. I really have no words to describe how weird that feels. Which is why I made a great effort to refrain from vomiting. I’m such a thoughtful daughter, aren’t I. And yes, I did thank her for making breakfast, despite what it did to my innards.

Ok I’ll admit it… I’m terrified. I don’t want to be a high school student! When I got off the bus yesterday, everyone looked so—old. At first I thought it was all the sophomores and juniors and seniors who looked old, but then I saw my friend Ally. She was one of my best buds last year—we did drama club together. I didn’t hang out with her at all this summer, due to the fact that she lives in town and I live out in the boonies. So it was kind of a shock.

There she was, arm-in arm with some tall, muscly-looking boy who had a nose ring and spiky blue hair. She had on stiletto heels and a very short skirt, and, to my utter amazement, was smoking a cigarette.

Wow, those things do age you fast.

Just kidding. It was the stilettos.

So is that what’s expected of me as a ninth grader? Am I going to have to go buy some six-inch heels in order to be cool and mature?

No, thank you. I can think of a dozen more enjoyable ways to break an ankle.

3 Sept 2005, 11:10 pm

Ok, the world is officially ending.

I know. My posterities and random internet people viewing this blog are all going to think that I’m a dramatic and immature person. But I just have to say,

Why do girls (and boys) go mental in the ninth grade? My grandfather, who has been a high-school English teacher for twenty years, warned me about this. He said that ninth graders should be put in a deep freeze until they reached the tenth grade, to save everyone a lot of trouble. I thought he was just exaggerating. He tends to get dramatic about these things.

Come to think of it, drama must run in my family. My mom gets dramatic about things too… like when I use improper phone etiquette. Or put on my Sunday blouses without ironing them. What’s so evil about a wrinkly shirt? It’s not like Bishop Marvin is going to take away my temporary recommend because I wear wrinkled clothing to church. He does, however, lecture sternly about abstinence from caffeinated beverages.

I’m proud to say that I have never had soda with caffeine in it. But I have heard that weird things like broccoli and potatoes have caffeine in them. Which was pretty confusing to me, theologically speaking, until I thought it through and figured that maybe potato caffeine is a good kind of caffeine, whereas soda caffeine causes Leprousy and we’ll find this out in twenty years or so, after half the American teenage population is quarantined in Peruvian leper colonies.

I’m not one to question the D&C 89. At the same time, there is no way on this planet that I will ever stop eating chocolate, which has a lot more caffeine in it than broccoli. And probably not the good kind, either.

Anyway. I knew that the world had officially ended almost as soon as I stepped off of the school bus, which, by the way, I have decided never to ride again. It’s a moot point, really; I start seminary tomorrow morning, and my mom will have to drive me. There is no bus that comes to the boonies where I live at that hour of the morning.

Ugh. I can’t believe that I have just set my alarm clock for 5:15 am. It’s indecent.