The Fuzzy Yellow Diary

When I was in 2nd grade, I asked my mother for a fuzzy yellow diary from a school book order. She actually bought it for me.

I started writing in it when I was around nine years old. I wrote almost daily entries about what happened during my day. A lot of it was simple factual things. Sometimes, I would insert a little bit of opinion.

October 19, 1999: I got a 100 on my communities test and on my simple machines test.

So I was a pretty good student in 3rd grade....

December 13, 1999: I got a 67 for social studies.

...or not. 

December 30, 1999: Yesterday, I got a vase, a decoration, and a book of brainteasers.

I still have this vase, decoration, and probably the book of brainteasers although that one is not at my house. 

January 7, 2000: We get to use the internet today in PACE.

The internet must have been a very exciting thing in the year 2000.

January 18, 2000: Today I got to make kaleidoscopes [sic]. I also got to make a gallon guy. Tomorrow I am having a test.

Who remembers making gallon guys in school? Anybody? I learned my volume measurement equivalents from that. I can still picture it in my head. Counting all those cup fingers....

January 22, 2000: Today I did not have to go to Chinese school. That is good because...I can play with my doll house. I love my KALEIDOSCOPE. 

This kaleidoscope. I still remember it too. Made it out of a Pringle's can and an applesauce cup. My PACE teacher provided the mirrors to go inside and drilled the hole in the bottom of the can. I put little fake gems in mine. It made for a really pretty kaleidoscope. We wrapped the outside in a tessellation print we made on the computer. Mine was matted on pink construction paper. Is it strange I can remember all this in detail? Also, if you'd asked me how to spell kaleidoscope right off the bat today, there's a 99% chance I would not have spelled it right. Good for me for spelling it right in my diary as a nine year-old.

January 25, 2000: Today I went to PACE. It was really boring because we had to go on the internet. I want to shred those bad papers. 

Oops. The internet got boring again. Also, the extent of how bad those papers were was probably only to evade a scolding from my mom. They don't hold a candle to the "bad papers" in today's news. 😐 

Can we just take a minute to admire my cursive as a 9/10 year old? 

It's amazing looking back and reading these diary entries and being able to know exactly what I was referring to in them. Since this diary, I've kept 20 complete years of diary entries and it is still a habit I continue to this day. When friends used to come over to hang out during high school, they'd joke about finding my diary and reading it. I was never fearful of them finding my diary. It was the other journals and notebooks I wrote. My diary was just a summary of the day's events. 

This year, I stumbled across the exact same diary I had received as a grade-schooler on a website for sale. I bought it. I'm planning on saving it for my daughter when she's a little bit older, can write cohesively, and see if she wants to pen down some of her own thoughts. It's not the same color as mine, but the overall style is the same. Ironically, when I google "fuzzy yellow diary" I cannot find this one on any of the large major retailers, so it was kind of a stroke of luck to find it elsewhere. 

If you know my daughter, don't tell her about this. 🙊 I haven't chosen when to surprise her with it, but it won't be for a long while.