September 25, 95

“Last nigt we had my bithday partty.  Beth, Mandy, and Danile, Kayla, and Roylin was there.  we had fun.”

 

You know its a party when there are two t’s. 

I’m so glad I can spell now.  besides ‘nigt’ and ‘bithday’, I completely ignored the phoentics of Daniele’s name.  Bah, phonetics, who needs ‘em?

At that time, those five girls were my best friends.  I still keep in fairly regular contact with Beth, despite all of our moving.

I like how there is no explanation of my ‘partty’ though. Probably pizza and cake.. but with extra awesome.  I wouldn’t have put that extra ‘t’ in there for nothing….

9-25-95

“Dear Joanna,

I liked your Journal.  Each day is something different.  Did you know, Elizabeth and I went to weddings too? Thanks for keeping the letters neat.

Love,
Mrs. Mayo”

 

Mrs. Mayo was the strangest teacher I think I ever had in grade school.  She had the same thing for lunch every day (tuna salad and crackers), a lisp, and she wore a microphone.  This was because she was insanely soft spoken.  This mic transmitted through the speakers scattered throughout the room.  She would turn it off when she took people in the hall to yell at them, but some times she forgot.  No matter what, as soon as she was out the door, my classmates and I would crowd around the strategically placed speakers to hear other kids get into trouble or other ‘juicy’ information.  Cause we totally cared as 2nd graders that one teacher told another that they paid off their mortgage…  overall though, old Mrs. Mayo was a good teacher, despite her strange tendencies.

I totally appreciate the fact she signed it “love”. That’s dedication.  

September 9-21,1995

“Yesterday was my brithday.  I got a sea world petshop from my dad.  and 7$ dollers. You are rich!”

First off, let’s note the date.  Clearly a classmate tried to tell me you could write the date in just numbers and dashes.  I probably didn’t believe this, and for the sake of future readers, I wrote down the month too.  You can never be too careful.

Aside from the misspellings of birthday and dollars (both are semi-understandable), we again see the ‘afterthought sentence’.  Train of thought goes like this: “Well, I did get 7 dollars.  Oh well, I will just tack it on.  I can’t erase the period before it.  I’m sure no one will notice.”

The same kid that gave me the info on the date probably tried to tell me that I could use just the dollar sign, instead of writing out the word. Once again,for the sake of absolute clarity, I decided to be painfully clear that I received 7 units of money.

September 20, 1995

“I roasted marshmollows.  last nitht.  with my dad.  I liked it. Me too!”

What concerns me most about this entry is not the ‘phonetic’ spelling of marshmallows, or the butchering of the word ‘night’ (yes ladies and gentlemen, that’s supposed to be night), or even the prolific use of punctuation.  It is the fact that this is my 7th birthday, and you wouldn’t even know!  Ever since I can remember, I would remind people weeks, even months in advance that my birthday was coming.  Not necessarily for a party, or for presents, but just so they would make sure to say ‘happy birthday’ on that special day.

Anyways, can we note here that I spelled roasted completely correct? and ‘marshmollows’ is acceptable enough. But boy did I ever crash and burn with the word ‘night’.

Oh, and P.S. I found it creepy then, and I still do that my teacher wrote “met too!” at the end of this entry.  She did not roast ‘marshmollows’ last ‘nitht’ with my dad, and the fact that she liked it too was a little weird to me.

Also:

I hope that with every misspelling, you’re trying to pronounce the butchered word out loud, and you are reading the sentences how they are written. short and halty.

September 19, 1995

“We went to nana’s house. and saw my cousin Kayla, Sissy  ->Is this grandma?”

The day before my birthday, and this is all I can come up with? Geeze-O-Petes.  I am way more excited about my birthday nowadays than I was as a kid.

So in reality, nana IS my grandma, but I’ve never called her that.  Regardless, 2nd grade me probably read that note as: “What? Is she my grandma? No! She’s my Nana. If she was my grandma I would’ve said it.” 

Also, I like how I saw my ‘cousin Kayla, Sissy’.  Sissy was Kayla’s little sister.  I must have forgotten about her existence, even though I saw her the previous night, and she was about a year and a half old then. I had gotten so far in my sentence, I couldn’t be bothered with restructuring it to include her.  Meh, why bother to tack on an ‘s’? Commas work just as well.  Her name is actually Brenda, and honestly, I had probably forgotten that too, explaining why I put her sister’s nickname for her. Haha, I was a jerk of a cousin.

September 18, 1995

“We had a grillout.  mom got out the frech fries. we aet a lot.”

I loved grillouts when I was a kid, especially ones that involved  ‘frech fries’.  You might call them french fries, but who needs that silly letter ‘n’? I mean really? .  I like how I stopped capitalizing the beginnings of sentences too.  My disdain for capitalization started at an early age :)

Please, make sure you pronounce ‘aet’ like ‘et’. I’m sure I was trying to do that whole Mark-Twain thing where I write how people actually speak.  That, or I had a mild form of dyslexia.  Both are just as likely.   

September 15, 95

“I went to Kings Island and got wet.  We rode White Water Canyon.  You are brave!”

So I’m sure you’ve noticed by now that some words are circled.  I have no idea why.  The type of word that is circled changes throughout the journal, too, so I am still baffled by it. 

 

I’m glad that I also don’t feel the need to write what century we were in, and went with the much cooler, much more hip: ‘95.

At the end, I must have given up hope on spelling the name of my favorite Kings Island ride.  I’m sure my teacher, Mrs. Mayo, just spelled it for me, as she was the one that had to deal with other spelling crisis.  I’m referring to the time I thought ‘of’ was spelled ‘ov’.  I’m sure it was that day that she gave up hope on me.  That is also her comment at the end, the “you are brave”.  Thanks Mrs. Mayo, you were pretty brave yourself, dealing with 2nd grade spellers.

September 13, 1995

“I went to a wedding.  It was my Uncls. Tim I bought a gift it was some bowls.”

 

This was my first entry in my 2nd grade journal, and this was the most important thing happening to me that day.  I put a period after the horrible butchering of the word ‘Uncle’, but then added my uncle’s name, Tim.  Probably because I was afraid I’d forget to put punctuation at the end.  Better to take care of it sooner, rather than not at all.

I really wish I could remember what those bowls looked like.  I hope they looked like this:

Children of the Stars

Greetings Ladies and Germs! Prepare to read the biggest stack of awesome you’ve ever encountered! You might be wondering who is this girl, why am I reading this, and why are my taxes so high?!

While I cannot answer the third question (though you should talk to your accountant about that) I can totally field the first two.

If you are wondering who I am, Ewzzy will be explaining that.  I discovered this notebook while cleaning out the attic, and felt the world needed to revel in the glory that is: My 2nd Grade Journal.

 

Coming soon: September 13, 1995. Oh what a day.