Wednesday, Sept 11th, 2006, 1:00 pm

Today there was a kind of vigil around the flag pole at lunch where the baptist kids usually pray every morning.

It's interesting how kids who are usually so, like, "I hate the world and I don't care", are different when that kind of thing happens. Everyone was so serious, and listened while a few different kids who had people they knew die shared their stories and talked about the people.

Ugly Pants boy ended up standing next to me and was actually sort of nice to me, which was too wierd for words.

aaaah! Mr Davies came in the room!!! I'm about to embarrass myself to death, but I know that at least I'll die happy, having sung that amazing black aretha solo just once with a choir to back me up.

oooohhh, the butterflies. They almost feel good. I'm such a masochist.

8:00 pm

I really am going o die this time. Someone, please put me out of my misery.


OK, the stairs run? I'ts about four flights of stairs which each have about 50 stairs in them. You do them at a NORMAL pace, and you can't walk around very well for the next hour.

That was not a normal pace.

I think Ella is on to me. As we were getting all set to race against each other (we're almost always paired as partners because we're the same size and level of experience), I concentrate on positioning myself for a good start. I glance at her and she's looking at me kind of funny.

Suddenly, she gets this determined look on her face and positions herself strategically, too.

I inch forward a little, so that I'm just a bit ahead.

She inches forward.

We're nearly toe-in-line with the first step by the time our coach blows the whistle,and we're off!

Ella's going pretty fast. I find it hard to keep ahead just one stair at a time, so I switch to two, keeping my technique sound so that coach won't call me back.

Ella switches to two.

I do three.

Ella's doing three.

I huff and puff and all I can see are the stairs in front of me, but I don't see Ella ahead anywhere, so I know that things are still going allright--

we get to the top and suddenly the coach yells, "Tie!"

I don't look at Ella because I'm sure I'll be giving her a dirty look if I do.

We both stop, breathing like like athsmatic elephants, and then we both make a beeline for a nearby garbage can and throw up--

at exactly the same time.

"Great teamwork, girls!" The coach calls from far below.

My mom nearly has to carry me to the van.

What is wrong with that girl?

Tuesday, Sept. 10th, 4:30 pm

OK, you're not going to believe this, but

I did it.

I went and sang for Mr. Davies, my choir teacher.

He was really surprised. Most people are, when they hear me... I'm a small girl with an enthusiastic pair of lungs. Anyway, he said he'd let me try it tommorrow in choir.

YES YES YES!!!

well, I'm kinda biting my nails, too.

My scary math teacher made a football player cry today. And then she came up to me and asked me if I wanted extra help with my homework... I haven't been doing so well on my assignments lately. Math is one of those things that doesn't come naturally for me. I make a million mistakes in every problem, and it takes me like five times to get each answer right.

I wish I could go after school, but I have ski practice. I'm actually late for one now.

One in which I'm going to cream Ella in the stairs run.

Monday, Sept. 9th, 9:30 pm

ohhhh, for the love of Mondays.

So this morning, I didn't wake up for some reason. Slept right through my alarm. I think I remember having a dream that my alarm clock was a VCR that I was trying to program in order to tape an episode of Gilmore Girls, my absolutely most favorite show on the face of the planet except my mom made me stop watching it when Rory goes to college because she said it's getting too crass.

At any rate, I think I messed with it.

My mom shook me awake at about 5:57, and I rushed through my morning routine, and got to seminary about 10 minutes late. Just in time for a scripture chase, which I enjoy-- everyone gets so competitive, myself included.

Well today, I was so out of it, that instead of flipping madly through my scriptures, fingering the spot and holding my book up high, I flipped madly through, found the passage, and without thinking, ripped the page out and held it up high.

ALl of my classmates looked at me, horrified. I, myself, was cringing. Isn't there some scripture about fasting for forty days and forty nights if you damage the scriptures?

Maybe not.

At any rate, Ugly Pants Boy smirks at me and wouldn't let me hear the end of it for the rest of class.

It was the third chapter of 1st Nephi, in case you were wondering.

At any rate, school was fine. I forgot one of my homework assignments, but luckily my teacher didn't want to turn it in today, he just wanted to discuss the reading. Which I prayed really hard he wouldn't call on me during, and he didn't!! Wow. My faith has increased a hundredfold.

Anyway, choir went allright. There's this crazy spiritual that we're singing, with a solo that I REAAAALLY want to sing. Like, I can taste how badly I want to sing it. But that means that I have to audition after school sometime. Alone. With my scary white-haired choir teacher.

We'll see.

Ski Practice was allright except Ella kept teasing me about my ugly pants. I think she heard Ugly Pants Boy this morning and thought it was funny enough to continue the joke outside of seminary. It made me mad enough that I beat her in the 2-mile run. I nearly killed myself doing it-- my face was beet red and I nearly hacked both of my lungs up afterward. But it felt Soooooo good.

I think I've decided I'm going to be a better skiier than her this year. Out of pure revenge.

Sorry if that shocks you. But let's face it... girls are mean to each other. And you can either be mean in a lame way, by making fun of someone, or you can be mean in a powerful evil way, like beating someone at their own game.

Thus, I have decided to go to the extra dryland practice this week. My mom will be thrilled for my legs.

On a slighly wierder note, my family had a combined family home evening with these freinds of ours The Stevensens-- another family in our ward. I know them pretty well because, well, we've grown up together, really.

But Most of the kids have either been just a bit too old for me to be freinds with, or too young for me to enjoy. But tonight I decided, I'd better just grit my teeth and try to be freinds with the older kids. I'm a high school student now, for crying out loud. SO what if some of them used to babysit me.

Well, the only one there was Mark. ANd he's been a little wierd lately-- getting all into his switchblade symphony, wearing black trenchcoats and all. But I decieded, what the heck? ANd struck up a conversation.

It was pretty cool, in a wierd sort of way-- he likes to use big words, I can tell. But then, Ella accuses me of this crime as well, so I guess maybe we deserve each other as friends.

I'm tired, and tonight is NOT my dish night, so I'm going to take advantage of the early hour and get the correct hours of sleep tonight.

5:30 pm.

My knees are permanently week. I might as get knee replacement surgery right now. As I was changing out of my skirt and into jeans after church, I nearly killed my little sister by falling on her.

Hey, if I have knee replacements, do you think maybe I could get out of the 5K ski race this saturday?

Probably not, knowing my coach. He's more worried about the color of my urine.

Well, my talk was OK.

My mom said she was really proud of me, and that it was very articulate except for the part where I rambled on about stilletto heels.

I didn't see ugly pants boy anywhere today. Thank goodness. And Sister Schottal asked me if I would be available for babysitting on Saturday after my ski race, so I guess I can buy the Perfect Pants pretty soon.

Good thing--- I think these ones are getting shorter. At least, they look higher on my shins than the last time I put them on.

Sunday, Sept 8th, 5:30 am.

My life is so ironic.

So here I am, up at 5:30 on one of the two days of the week that I do NOT have to get up for seminary. And what am I doing? Studying the scriptures. With much more focusedness that I would be in seminary.

Why?

Because I do not want to make a fool of myself in front of Ugly Pants boy.

No, he's not in my ward. But he goes to my BUILDING. And so he could possibly be listening in the foyer or something, and if I make a fool of myself, and he makes fun of me on monday, He'll not only be ugly pants boy, he'll be ugly-pants-lame-talk boy. His name could potentially get very long at that rate. And so, in order to save myself from having to repeat such a large number of words over and over, my resolve is to never embarrass myself in front of him again.

And guess what else. My topic:

chastity.

Euuch.

Maybe I should talk about french kissing?

because I definitely am not going to talk about anything further along than that, chastity-wise.

I know. I'll do that one scripture in Isaiah that Marcie showed me once... the one about the drawing the toungue out the mouth. We giggled for a while over that one.

And I think my mom told me once that President Kimball talked on it...

No. Then he'll be ugly-pants-embarrassing-french-kiss-talk boy. And a boy should definitely not have something morally unclean in his nickname.

I think I'll have to stick to the topic of holding hands.

OK. I am so pathetic. I can't even spell the word s-e-x without blushing
furiously. I DESERVE the name Molly.

I'll just have to steel myself and not look at anyone in the eye, especially not my Dad who can't spell S-E-X either... when he finally got around to giving me "the talk," I was 13. And he said Peanut Butter instead of S-E-X, as a kind of wierd code word for it, because he was so embarrassed. Why he chose Peanut Butter and not something more pertinent like Stiletto Heels, I don't know.

But to this day, I feel guilty whenever I eat a PBJ.

Maybe I should say a prayer. Do you think Heavenly Father laughs at pathetic Mollyness or do you think He's understanding?

My mom would say He's understanding if I asked her. But she would also laugh at me if I based my sacrament meeting talk around condiments because I'm too embarrased to say the S word. So there you go.