Throwback Thursday: Journal #9

2011-2012

     "I haven't written in here for awhile. Longer than I like. So much has happened!
     Well, since I didn't get into Coral Reef, and neither did Sarah. I was set to go to Robert Morgan. Sarah and I went to the extremely disorganized orientation and got all excited. Then in the middle of the week my mom got a call... and she called me... and I got into Coral Reef! I'm SO excited! Another one of my friends got in off the waiting list too, but I don't think that Sarah will...
     Nicole and I went to the Coral Reef Orientation today! I met another girl who is also in art! We got our pictures taken for our school I.D.'s then I went to the art room. Mr. McKinley already gave us our summer drawing assignments! Then we went out to the courtyard. I got my class shirt and my uniform shirts. Then I signed up to try out for color guard. 
     There was two days for color guard. One on Tuesday for us to learn what we need to know for the try out, and one on Thursday. Thursday was the actual try out. On Tuesday, I met Amber. She's in my grade too! Plus she is in art! I think we will be great friends. I also met Brittany! She is already on the team and helped me learn everything. Thursday went pretty good! My try-out went well! I didn't drop the flag, not once!
     A little over a week later, I got a call saying that I made it on the team! I'm so excited, I can't wait for next year!"

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     I was blinded by excitement at this point. I was ready to leave Princeton as fast as I could, and enter the exciting world of high school. If only I knew what a miserable four years were to come. It is NOT like it is in the movies, but much MUCH worse. Although, in movies certain aspects were worse than they were in real life. For example, there was not a group of bullies who pinned kids to lockers and stole their lunch money. The bullies of Coral Reef were much more sneaky than that, they were the kind of bullies you didn't see coming until it was to late. On another subject, there aren't very many sweet, caring teachers in the public school system. Most of the ones that I faced truly needed someone to tell them everything they were doing wrong. A lot of them did not seem to realize things, such as that shoving hours of AP homework in my face (due next class of course) would NOT help me learn. I would spend to many hours to the busy work that I rarely had time to actually study. These are just a few examples of the many things wrong with high school these days.

xoxo, tay

Throwback Thursday: Journal #8

2010-2011

     "Today was the Fall Festival at Princeton. I had a great time with my friends! My mom dropped me off and I hung out with Autumn and Amber until the rest of our friends got there. I did the rock climbing wall first, which was really fun! I forgot how much I like rock climbing. I got to the top really fast! Then Autumn and Amber did it. Autumn didn't make it to the top. Amber did, eventually. Later, we met up with Alexis. 
     When Alexis got there, we got in line for henna tattoos. I got a flower on my wrist. Later I went back and got my name on my arm. 
     We went to the dunk tank around noon to dunk Coach Johnny. Amber didn't get it with the ball, but ended up using her hand when he made fun of her "throwing arm."
     I did the rock climbing wall again, and made it up the hardest side!
     One of my friends put me in jail, so I put HIM in jail. 
      After the festival, I had to go to art class with Victoria, and worked on my drawing from last week."

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     Okay, my old journals are really starting to get boring. Also, I am beginning to realize that there are some really embarrassing stories in here that involve people I totally still know... It is getting pretty hard to pick entries to share. I tend to chicken out with the juicy stuff, and end up posting something similar to the entry above: a simple account of what happened that day. This is a time where I started writing about more than just my day. Many people have tried to refer to my journal as a diary, and I tend to correct them quickly. I am not sure why I did so, because according to the definitions of these two words, both a journal and a diary are the same thing. 

Diary: A book in which one keeps a daily record of events and experiences.

Journal: A daily record of news and events of a personal nature; a diary. 

     I have always referred to mine as journals, mostly because that is what my mom called hers. It is the term she used when she introduced the hobby to me, when I was a little girl. I have always taken my journalling pretty seriously, and when people called my journal a diary, I tended to correct them. I suppose that I thought the term diary was taken as being more childish. Only young girls in movies kept diaries of there silly little problems, is what I thought. But now, I can see that the term diary and journal are very much the same thing. People tend to use the term diary to tease me, not a lot of people keep journals anymore, that I know of. However, journaling (or keeping a diary) is a habit I intend to pass down to my children. I hope that they grasp it the way I did. As silly as it sounds, journals like this could be the next version of The Diary of Anne Frank. They could be what provides history to the future generations about what life is like for us here, and now. 

Throwback Thursday: Journal #7

2010

     "I went on a field trip with Princeton today. The whole 7th grade went to Island Dolphin Care. I had a great time! Then again, I like Marine Biology. In the bus on the way to the Keys, I sat next to Priscila. 
     Ms. Debbie wanted to make it an all day field trip, so we stopped in Biscayne National Park to walk a trail. It went to far into the water, there were some parts that we had to jump from rock to rock not to get wet! Priscila and I walked together the whole time.
     When we got there, first, we watched a movie about mollusks. Then we dissected a squid! It was so cool! The squid I dissected was a guy. I could tell because of the color of the insides. I got to skin it and use its ink to draw stuff!
     After dissection, we went to the touch tank. I held several star fish, one brittle star, a sea cucumber, hermit crab, sponge, and a live clam! I kissed the sea cucumber to get seven years of good luck. I even touched a sea slug and a sea anemone!"

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     This is one of my coolest journals to look at on the outside. It has this beautiful wood on it with a lizard cutout. I acquired it from Costa Rica, and the pages on the inside are made from recycled paper. The content of this journal is absolutely, horrendously boring. I don't know what happened here, but I seemed to have gotten into a groove of just recording what I did throughout the day. It is, for the most part, absent of other thoughts. I totally struggled to find a good entry to share with you guys, so I settled on this passage about a field trip I went on with my seventh grade class that I apparently thought was "so cool!"

xoxo, tay

Throwback Thursday: Journal #6

2010

     "I wasn't going to do much today, but ended up having some real fun. Tomorrow I was supposed to go to the youth fair, but we were looking at the tickets online and discovered that the 'pay-one-price' ticket weren't good on weekends. So we bought them, and decided to go tonight! We called Nicole, and she was free. When her mom was done with work, she met us there.
     We picked Nicole up at her house and drove an hour to the Miami-Dade Youth Fair. Since we didn't get there right away, we got a parking spot that was really far away. 
     Since we bought our tickets online, we got to go right in. The first thing we did was get in line for the swings. The line was long, but the ride sat a lot of people so it went by fast. After that we got in line for the fireball! Nicole was terrified! It's a bunch of seats in a circle facing each other. The circle spins while the whole thing rocks like a rocking chair. We had just barely made it on and we didn't have seats next to each other. I had a great time, but Niki not so much. 
     The next ride was the one that spins in one little circle while the whole ride spins in a big circle going the opposite direction. In the line for that we met two girls who sounded like they were from out of the country. But we found out they live by dolphin mall. We told them we live way south by the Everglades. They were debating on whether they should go on the ride or not. I told them it was really fun. 
     After that Nicole made me go on the haunted mansion ride. I hate those rides! They are so scary! I screamed a lot! My face was in my hands the whole time. I didn't uncover my face until Nicole told me it was over. The guy operating the ride laughed at me. 
     For the rest of the fair we rode a BUNCH of rides. Plus we pigged out on junk food. Nicole's mom joined us later. At around 11 o'clock Nicole felt sick and we went home. My mom and I ate a funnel cake and went home. By the time I was in bed it was midnight."

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     My ride description skills are quite superb, aren't they? Also, Nicole totally made me go on the haunted house ride as payback for the ride I made her go on in the beginning. Yeah, Niki, I see you. I must have felt really cool for going to bed so late with the way I stated it at the end....
     I still cringe at my writing at this point. I think what really bothers me is that I am pretty sure, at this point in my life, I thought that I was a good writer. I just keep reminding myself that I was young, and this is from my journal (so a place that I was not concentrating on making my writing itself as amazing as possible). We can't just become a decent writer over night, we all have to start from somewhere...

Throwback Thursday: Journal #5

2009-2010

     "Hannah's Dad drove us to church camp today. It took a good six hours. Maybe more. We watched 2 movies on the way up; Yours, Mine, and Ours and The Day after Tomorrow. That and we listened to music and talked. Hannah's Dad took us to Quizznoss's for lunch although he kept pestering us to go to McDonalds!
     When we finally got there we had to wait in a long line for check in. Then we went to our cabin to unpack and hang out. When everyone in our cabin was here we went to Praise Time. Its where some of our counselors that can play instruments get together and make a band. They sing awesome Christian songs about God and Jesus. Everyone sings and dances along! Hannah would not dance though, only clap to the beat.
     From there we were separated into small groups after plating a bunch of games. We went to a big room. Like a gym. The games we played were: People to People, Ghost in the Graveyard, and two others who's names I don't remember. One was like a rock paper scissors type thing and the other is a Simon Says kind of thing. 
     Once in our small groups we went to little mini buildings, sat in a circle, and talked. We had to use our name to put with a word than put a movement with it. Mine was Terrific Taylor with jazz hands. We also told what grade we are going into and our hobbies. I was surprised to notice that Hannah and I are some of the youngest in our group. Most of the kids are going into eighth grade. None in sixth. Three or four in seventh. One was even supposed to be a freshman in high school, but signed up as middle school to be with friends."

So, that is the description of my first day going to camp. At that point in my life I did not have any sort of relationship with God, so camp was a very eyeopening experience for me. Also, I would like to note that this entry actually ends a paragraph later. I left out the last paragraph because it was literally like five sentences of me going on about some boy that I thought was cute in my small group. .. smh middle school Taylor smh....

xoxo, tay

Throwback Thursday: Journal #2

2006-2008

"On Wednesday we went to Chimny Rock. It was so cool! The rock was so high up! On the way back to the parking lot we could hike back or take the elevator. I hiked back. It was cool. 

Hannah and I split our money to buy a box of taffy. On the way to the restaurant I had a piece of taffy and it made my tooth come out! It wasn't even loose! It started to bleed a lot, I hate the taste of blood. I got blood on my new pants! Sad me. I hope it comes out. I put my tooth under my pillow but the tooth fairy didn't come when I check this morning nothing was there. So I will just wait."

Every time I read old journal entries, I cringe at the lack of quality writing and the embarrassing content. Then again, I was in elementary school, so what can we really expect? Please note the run-on sentences, referencing myself in 3rd person, me not sparing the gory details of my tooth coming out, and my lack of ability to find a synonym for "cool." If I remember correctly this was the experience that made me low key realize that the tooth fairy was not real. There was also a  following experience where I lost my tooth at girl scout camp that confirmed my suspicions. 

Keep a look out for next weeks Throwback Thursday, because they are finally back!

xoxo, tay

Throwback Thursday: Journal #1

"This is from my ballet recital! It was an Irish theme. We got tambourines and pretty green and black costumes and wore flowers on my head. I felt like a princess! I was really good and did just ballet and tap. My tap costume is red and silver. That one is kind of embarrassing."

Oh those were the days. I remember always enjoying my dance classes a lot. I love the modesty I had as a child (note my sarcasm). That dance had always been one of my favorites because it seemed to be a bit more unique compared to other ballet classes, plus we had cool tambourines that we got to dance with. That same year was my first year taking tap class. I distinctly remember hating that costume and the theme of the dance. I mean the actual dancing was fun, but I remember not quite being fond of the theme. My other friends all had such cute tap costumes and I was in a red and silver mess of sequins. I figured that was my first year and it could only get better from there. Oh was I wrong. My second year of tap class I was in a dance themed "The Ugly Bug Ball" and of course the costumes were once again pretty bad. Neon green with black and white polka dots. You can imagine the way a costume for a dance with a name like that would look...

Stay tuned for next weeks Throwback Thursday! Expect the entries to become longer and more detailed as I get older. I was so young in these first few so they are pretty short a lot of the time.

xoxo, tay

Throwback Thursday: Journal #0

It's Thursday and that means that this is the first entry to my Throwback Thursday series! Every Thursday I am going to share a journal entry with you all from my journals, starting with the first one and going down the line! For this first journal, I cheated and picked several pages to share due to how short each entry is.

This is the first journal in my collection. I did not know I had it until recently when my mom found it in our garage and showed me. This is why I have it labeled as journal zero, for many years I had another one labeled as my first journal. My handwriting is quite awful in these pages, I was pretty young, so don't judge! Of course, me being the art lover I was I had to include drawings in some. Also, if you look really closely you can see where my mom wrote in corrections. My mom works in the school system and was probably a teacher at the time so having me start a journal was most likely her way of trying to get me to work on my penmanship and spelling skills.

"I went camping with the Girl Scouts. We went to the aquarium."

"Auntie Kristin went to the movies with me. We saw Finding Nemo. Nemo is a clown fish."

"Gramps and I are swimming in the pool. I am squatting Gramps with water."

"This is my dog Baer. He is sleeping with pups. There are 9 pups. He looks cute."

"I am learning how to ice skate. I can ice skate all by myself. I have gone ice skating 4 times."

"This is Trey and I on Rodeo Day. I rode Betty the horse. I also had my face painted."

xoxo, tay

Keeping a Journal: My Safe Place

I feel like journaling is something that is slowly becoming a forgotten habit. I do not know many other people who keep some sort of journal or diary other than my Mom. However, I do also think that journaling, or keeping a diary (its basically the same thing), is something that some people may be slightly embarrassed about or is simply something they would rather keep private. Wishing for privacy is understandable, if anyone read my journal I think I might actually want feed myself to the alligator that lives in the pond next to my freshman dorm. Even though I do not want other people reading my journal, does not mean I keep the fact that I keep one private.

When people see that I have a journal the response is almost always the same: a laugh in my face, a joke about it being something only middle school girls do, or they ask if they can read it. Sometimes all three! Every now and then I get slightly embarrassed because it is something I am so passionate about and most other people think it quite silly. Journaling is my outlet, it keeps me sane. No matter how many people tease me, I do not plan to stop until the last days of my life.

I have been keeping a journal since I was in elementary school and my Mom has been journaling ever since she got pregnant with my older brother. My mom and I are very similar in the way that we both really enjoy any sort of paper products (sorry to all huge environmentalists out there!). Whether it is cute little notepads, stationary, notebooks, sketchbooks, planners... we are all over it. We have found ourselves, on more than one occasion, giving into buying cute journals we come across and adding it to the pile of empty notebooks on our bookshelves.

Since my mom and I have been journalling for so long, we have both started to acquire quite a hefty pile of used journals. I am currently working on my thirteenth journal and she her seventeenth. Technically I am on my fourteenth, because my first journal is numbered as zero. My mom unearthed it not long ago while going through some of our belongings and declared it as my first journal. I had not even known it existed, turns out my love of journalling started much younger than I had originally known! I wonder all the time what we will one day do with such piles of journals. My Moms response is to give them to the Smithsonian, maybe we will become famous for recording history through our writing! Watch out world, the Anne Franks of the modern world are coming at yah!

More than anything else, writing is an outlet for me so I do not lose my mind. There is stuff in those journals I am not sure I have ever told anyone before. Not only are we recording our personal lives to reflect on later, but we are recording history. Things will be so different in five, ten, and twenty years. I want to be able to remember all of my thoughts and feelings and memories.

So make fun of me if you will, but I will never stop writing. After all, my love for writing in my journal is what brought me here.

My journal collection

My Mom's journal collection (accompanied by our precious yorkie, Trixie)

P.S. Keep a look out every Thursday for a new post about my journals! For the next thirteen weeks I am planning a throwback Thursday where I share about a specific entry from each one. I am excited to share my journal history with you all!

xoxo, tay