2007. Both of my parents were gone that morning, and we had recently sold our "pink" car, so both the Subaru and the Taurus were gone, which meant I had to drive the Suburban to school. I was a little nervous to drive it to school, and I think I even had Susanne back it out of the garage for me. Then I drove to school and parked in the back parking lot. I got signatures from various people. I remember a discussion about how impersonal the "Hags" acronym was. I got a signing from Mrs. Jamison, who had been my French teacher. After she signed mine, she told me that she almost said she hoped I would get called to a French-speaking mission, but then she realized that she wished I would learn a harder language than French. (And then I got English.) She said that she wanted to know where I got called, so I should make sure it was announced in the Clipper. (That never happened either, neither when I left nor when I came home.) Eventually it was time for me to go home to get ready for graduation. I got in my grad garb and we took pictures of me in front of the fireplace. Then we went over to the "Turtle Building" for commencement exercises. People seemed impressed by all my honor cords. I had a light green one for science, a gold one for High Honors, and two light yellow ones for foreign language (one for Spanish and one for French). While we were standing waiting to go in, I remember someone saying they had asked Brian Mann if he was gay, and he had said, "No, but I support my brother," and they said that thought Brian just wasn't brave enough to admit it. Then we went in and sat down. We all had to fill out little cards with our names on them that the senior officers would read as we pretended to get our diplomas. I filled mine out as "R. Mark Melville" because I was in the habit of doing so (now I usually leave the R. off). They announced that there was going to be an opening remark by Jenelyn Perry, and when she got up she announced that it was a prayer for anyone who wanted to participate. I took off my graduation cap with others, hoping that I would put it on right again. When it was time to go up, I was surprised at all the cheers I got when they announced my name. But my cheers were nothing compared to Jacob Merrill's, the special needs kid who was after me. Then we had to wait in long lines to get our real diplomas. Then afterward I talked with my friend Houston Rowe. My family took pictures with me:
Then we went home and had pizza. The Thompsons also came over. Everyone had fun looking at my yearbook. Jesse read my emo poem, "I Am a Corpse," which was published in the back. He was surprised at how depressing it was and said, "It gets better." Allie looked at my picture. Of course, I was wearing that little fake tux in my picture, and there was a girl's photo next to mine. Allie pointed to her picture and said, "Who's that lady? Did you marry her?" Chancey, Jesse, and I all thought that was quite funny, so we laughed, and we were reproved by our parents, because apparently our laughter had interrupted Grandpa. After Grandpa told his story, we told them why we had been laughing. Since I was completely friendless, my graduation celebration consisted of watching episodes of The Flying Nun. One of the episodes made Sue tear up. After everyone left, I went online and wrote a blog post on my TV.com profile. (Apparently TV.com doesn't have blogs anymore, so I have to link to it on my Gamespot account, which you get automatically with a TV.com account.) I chatted with Jesse on Messenger. The title of my blog, "The time has come, the walrus said, to talk of many things," was a line from Lewis Carroll's "The Walrus and the Carpenter." I couldn't get quotation marks in the title, but Jesse told me that it was fine. He told me that the poem was about religions leading people astray before eating them up, with the carpenter being Jesus and the walrus being Buddha (because he's fat), but I didn't buy it.
2006. I wore my "Woods Cross Juniors" shirt, since it was the last time I would be a junior. I remember seeing seniors at school and thinking it must be sad for them, and I knew I would be in the same position the following year. At the moment I can't remember what else happened that day.
2005. The administration for some reason thought it would be funny to turn on the fire alarms that day, but it was mostly just annoying. (We had had real arson fires in February of that year.) I remember Natalie Cook was videoing people and videoed me and asked me to share something. So I shared words of "advice" from all the old TV shows I watched, such as "You cannot judge a doctor by the way he carves a turkey" and "Every silver lining has its cloud." (Yeah. I was really weird.)
2004. I remember encouraging my friend Houston to come up to the seminary building to get signatures. He did, but he left shortly after. I signed weird things in yearbooks--of all my school years, I think I was weirdest in ninth grade. Special-needs kids Jacob Merrill and Andrew Church had stickers they put in yearbooks. Brad Byington signed my yearbook saying he hoped I would go on the scout trip that summer. (I didn't.) Houston and Josh Ferrer wanted to go to Mrs. Birdsall's classroom to play Scrabble. I told Mrs. Birdsall that I was going to take French the next year. There were some former students visiting her.
2003. The administration had had the brilliant idea that we should still report to all our classes that day, but there would be fifteen minutes between classes for yearbook signing. It only took a few periods for them to realize that was a terrible idea. During the science class, we got our cement boats we had made back (mine didn't float). During the choir class, Dennis Jones was really amused at what I wrote in his yearbook: "Witches--or is that Hags?" I rode the bus home, but when I got to the church/bus stop, no one was there, so I had to walk home. I remember my brother saying, "Well, that was anticlimactic."
2002. This was the only year that school ever got out in May for me (it was May 31). I can't seem to recall what happened at school, but I think that night Jesse had a sleepover at our house, although maybe he only came over but didn't spend the night. There was a Powerpuff Girls marathon in which they counted down the best episodes. I was disappointed in their choice of the best one (the one where all the characters switched bodies).
2001. I brought my Niagara Falls four-color pen to sign yearbooks with. There was a fifth-grader who would talk to me because he liked my Charlie Brown shirt. He asked me to sign his yearbook, so I signed it with my attempt at a Charlie Brown drawing. Kari Fox had brought some Otter Pops, so she took them to the cafeteria freezer so they would freeze. We all signed yearbooks, and I lent my pen to someone, and it ended up missing. I was really sad. Montess Vilchez was crying, and someone said to her, "Don't cry!" But I was sad too, although I didn't cry. When it was time to leave for the day, the Otter Pops still weren't frozen. I had mine open in Laura Ulmer's car on the way home, and right by Walker's gas station, Shantel Cornejo and another girl jumped out into traffic, and Laura slammed on the brakes, making my liquid Otter Pop splash all over me and my yearbook. Laura apologized, and I wondered what made Shantel think she could dart into traffic like that. When they dropped me off, I dowsed myself with the hose, since I was sticky and I thought it was a good way to start off summer.
2000. We had to do a quiz on the states, and I was pretty annoyed. We also had to write a letter to ourselves. I can't remember what else happened.
1999. I remember Mr. Williams showing us a Looney Tunes summer vacation TV special. Then my mom and I went to the building where our eye doctor was; it was very rainy. Then it was time for David's graduation. When everyone was graduated, people threw their caps up, and one cap got stuck on a ledge. After his graduation, David had pictures taken with his friends Michael, Preston, and Heather. They were silly and moved their tassels back as though they hadn't graduated, and my mom had to tell them to put them back. Then we went to China Platter with Preston's family. Sara Hawkes (Preston's younger sister) asked David if he still had his Mad Hatter hat. Preston had a brother with blond splotches dyed in his hair.
1998. I think this was the day my dad had packed my lunch with cookies in it, even though I was going without sugar for a month to earn $20. I ate the cookies, but my mom later told me that I didn't get the $20 because I had cheated too much that month. It was raining while it was sunny, and Jacob Duggar said he didn't like that because it bugged him. Our teacher Mrs. Slagowski gave us some nuts in their shells. We had no way of cracking them. My friend Brian tried to break one open with a spade, but when he struck it, it just shot it across the room and didn't open it. I thought they would be good to use as Thanksgiving decorations, and when I got home I even glued strings to two of them (and put glitter on one) to use as Christmas ornaments. That night I had a sleepover at my house with David Christensen. I asked my mom to buy some peanuts, because I thought that would be a good snack, but then I learned David didn't like them. My brother David was watching The Simpsons; he said it was one of his favorite episodes (the one with all the short stories about Springfield). So I tried to come up with an activity to do with my friend David, so I came up with sledding down the stairs on pillows. But the bottom set of stars had the carpet pulled up, with tacks sticking out, so we could only sled down the top set. We watched The Pagemaster that night. David thought that the name of a literary figure in the movie was a swear word (I won't repeat it here because it will put bad thoughts in your head, since I just said he thought it was bad--even though on its own it isn't bad).
1997. Miss Slater cried when she read the poem she wrote about our class. My grandparents gave my sister a stereo for her graduation. (I don't think they ever got me anything, not that I really wanted anything at the time.)
1996. We signed yearbooks, and I think I might have been annoyed when administrative people signed near their pictures instead of in the autographs section.
1995. All of us clueless kindergarteners thought it was so cool to get a book that had our pictures in it! We didn't know why we got them. I got a slip of paper that said my teacher for the next year was Miss Penman (who would marry over the summer and become Mrs. Taylor). I remember Hillary Ulmer telling her mom excitedly that she got a book with her William Boy in it (oh, kindergarten crushes, if you can call them that...).
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