In which I start highschool

At the end of grade eight, Marek and I went on the grad trip together. On the way home from Canada's Wonderland, we were holding hands under our coats, and that is how we started dating. Over the summer we had our first kiss in my back yard. We hung out a lot and did all of those cute things when you first start dating. It was sweet while it lasted.

Highschool... In grade eight I remember how worried everyone was about how different it was going to be. I was only ever excited, ready to be out of that "small pond" hell-hole called elementary school. Shortly after starting highschool, Christina decided to switch to Chrys.

Chrys and I had a bunch of classes together, and slowly we added to our group of friends. Our main addition was Lorin. Lorin (at the time) had long dyed black hair, and a real FOAD kind of attitude. She was in our english class and I always admired her drawings. (Chrys and I were both into drawing and anime at that point). Chrys had biology with Lorin and told me that she found her frightening. Being the social butterfly that I was back then, I ignored Chrys and started to talk to Lorin. The three of us made up this strange little group of neurotic misfits... but we worked. New friends came and went, and rotated between us and the other group of our friends... kind of like a Venn Diagram, of sorts.

Marek broke up with me on the way to English class not too long before my birthday. I was talking to him recently (we're still friends) and he told me that in class I stood up, threw a book at him, yelled "WELL I GUESS IT WAS ALL A LIE THEN" and ran out of the classroom sobbing. All I remember is crying in the girl's bathroom and Chrys coming to check on me.

I joined the school play in grade 9. We did the Sadako story. I think it was called 1000 cranes. Chrys was the assistant director, so when the girl playing Sadako dropped out, Chrys filled in. I was the main character's sister.

Later, around the beginning of second semester, Chrys, Brody, Lorin and I (Along with a few other friends) started hanging out in the math/computer room on the third floor. There was a guy that started hanging out with us because he had a small crush on Chrys. Brewster wore goggles every day, was in the gifted program, and was a nerdy, happy kind of guy. After a while, we started dating and, as far as I remember, whe had our first kiss between the two classrooms in the computer repair area. (Basically a long closet filled with old CPUs and busted monitors.) His father got a job in Alberta and after only a month of us dating, he moved away. We continued to date long distance. He came back for about a month during the summer and we went on lots of dates and daytrips.

Grade 9 for me is just a bunch of bits and pieces of memories. Nothing terribly linear overall.

Chrys and I pretended we were lesbians after someone made an ignorant snide comment about how "close" we were.

Amy, Chrys, Tyler and I danced on the art room tables, singing Stand By Me on the last day of classes.