When we last left young Robert, he had finished up elementary school and was getting ready for the new world of junior high school. Unfortunately, we do not get young Robert’s impressions of adapting to a new school environment; I didn’t write a new entry until March of my 7th grade year, when the school year is nearly over. But that first entry sure is a doozy…

March 27, 1994 – I hate seeing people in love. It makes me really mad to see someone like that. It makes me think of second grade* and the fun Shawna and I had walking home together.** That year in school will always stick out to me. I hate not being in love. Sometimes I want to go to my room and cry. I wish someone would at least learn to like me. But I guess there’s always next year, right. But maybe I should face the facts. I’m just an ugly fat slob.*** Nobody will fall in love with me. I’ll die a lonely man in a rest home with no one to come visit me. The Boyz II Men song “End of the Road” used to have some meaning in my life. Not anymore. Sure, I got**** good grades but no one is ever going to like me. Maybe I should jump of a bridge or something to prove to myself that I am a useless body on the earth. I’ll write in you tomorrow, hopefully. Goodbye.

Shawna is an ugly hoe. I hope I never see her again in my life.*****

*Need to move on and get over this. At this point, it is five years in the past and I was 9?
**This was the extent of my “relationship” with Shawna. Remember, I was 9. We also hung out at recess but what else do kids do in 2nd grade when they are in love?
***No self esteem issues here. And everyone says it’s little girls who think they are gross and disgusting. Should have turned to anorexia or something.
****You’re killing me with the “got,” Kid.
*****Awfully dramatic, wouldn’t you say. If by some random chance that Shawna finds this and knows that I am talking about her, 13 year-old me didn’t mean it. Sorry.

March 28, 1994 – Met a new girl at school today.* She didn’t tell me her name. I met her at lunch. She’s kind of cute. If I see her tomorrow, I’ll ask her her name and her grade. I hope I see her tomorrow. On Wednesday the term ends. On early Thursday, we’re leaving for Disneyland.

*I remember this day semi-vividly. In hindsight, I think said girl and her friends were just being nice to me to make fun of me. Junior high girls can be so mean.

November 1, 1994 – It been eight months since I last wrote.* I’m going to write a little bit down every day. Since I last wrote, I got** a paper route, started to like a new girl and asked her out in a few letters, and started a new school year. Since school started, I sort of started to like a few other girls. They are Emily Loch and Jennifer Alvarado. I sort of started to like Amanda again.*** The term ends on Thursday and I’m getting straight A’s (I think). My birthday is 49 days away.**** The girl I mentioned earlier is Mandi Voshell. She hasn’t given me an answer yet.***** I’m going to write another letter and drop it in her locker (hopefully). Getting late. Gotta go. Goodnight. BE******

*Just in case you didn’t know that November 1st does not directly follow March 28th.
**Grr….
***I guess I liked to edit my journal at later dates when my moods and opinions on girls changed.
****My fourteenth birthday.
*****Not to ruin the surprise, but she either never answered me or said no. We never “went out.”
******My initials. I went by Bobby in school and growing up until I started applying for colleges and stuff.

November 2, 1994 – I walked halfway home with Shawna. We had a pretty nice talk. It was just like 2nd grade.* The term ends tomorrow. Tomorrow I get my POGS** back from Miss Raines***. I don’t have anything else to write today. Good night.

*Get over it already. Really. It was SECOND GRADE!!
**POGS were awesome weren’t they? Wish I still had some so I could play on occasion. Not!
***Miss Raines was my American History teacher. Probably the worst teacher that I ever had. But I had some fun that year in school just annoying the hell out of her with my friend Jake Whetstone. Good times.

November 3, 1994 – End of the term. No school tomorrow. I got my paycheck today. Went to music store. Bought some music. Goodbye.*
November 4, 1994 – No school today. Bought some POGS today. Nothing much happened. Goodbye.
February 15, 1995 – Wasted $4 buying roses for Emily.** Turns out she doesn’t like me the way I like her. I’m going to try and forget about her, but that’s going to be hard. I think I love her, or maybe I just like her a lot.*** I’m not sure. I don’t know who else there is that I could like at our school. Maybe I can have someone set me up with someone else. If I could make the basketball team next year, it might help me find a girlfriend.**** Until then, I can keep on dreaming. Goodbye, write tomorrow.

*Would have been a perfect “Tweeter” back in the day for sure.
**The cheerleaders at school sold roses on Valentine’s Day as a fund raiser or something, and they delivered them for you. If I remember correctly, I sent Emily her roses with an anonymous note or something. How I knew that she didn’t like me the way I liked her is beyond me. To be honest, I probably had the roses delivered the period before history, since that was the only class I had with her, then acted like an idiot when I saw her in class. Real smooth.
***Probably closer to the latter there, Bub.
****Not to get your hopes up, but neither thing happened. I gave up the first day of basketball tryouts, and didn’t end up with a girlfriend. Not too hard to figure that out I bet.

July 16, 1995 – School’s been out for a month. Emily thanked me for the roses on the back of my yearbook. It was so cool. She told me to call her this summer. Guess what? I haven’t called her yet. I’m overcome with shyness.* Maybe I’ll have Colin ask her out for me. Oh well. We are going to Lagoon tomorrow. How exciting! School starts in a month and a half. Yeah!** I won’t be bored anymore! Back to Emily. She is so cool. If I wasn’t so shy I’d ask her out in a heartbeat. I could probably do it now. The worst thing she could say is no.*** Well, I will try to remember to write tomorrow. The end. Goodbye.
July 17, 1995 – I am actually writing this on the 18th but that’s okay. I went to Lagoon today. Had fun. I dreamed (sic) about Emily. Got lost. That’s all. Goodbye.
July 18, 1995 – Went to the Quest**** house. Created a new character. I’m going to write the history for him right now. Goodbye.
July 19, 1995 – Got my paycheck today. Need to borrow about $15 if I want to go on the weekend.***** Nothing else happened. Goodbye.
Sept 1, 1995 – Today is Friday. School started on Monday. My favorite class is Seminary.****** I don’t see Emily much. Have to do some reading. Good night.

*Didn’t prevent me from riding my bike past her house numerous times during the summer all stalker-like though.
**Apparently I dug school. Or exclamation points were how I indicated sarcasm.
***A philosophy I still don’t follow to this day.
****Quest was the Live-Action Role-Playing game that I played for about 4 months before losing interest. But not before spending a bunch of money buying PVC pipe, insulation, and duct tape to make fake weapons. Good times. I’m beginning to think I had ADD or something and lost interest in things pretty quickly. Or maybe I realized that beating people up with Styrofoam swords was lame.
*****To cap of the lameness that is my LARP-ing experience, “the weekend” is Quest weekend when they all go and camp out in the woods and play Quest. I did it once. I mainly played goblins and things because I didn’t have enough money to play my character. Or something.
******I loved Seminary so much that 9th grade was the last year I did it. And completely left the Church for good shortly after. Funny note: Shawna was in my Seminary class. Weird!! 
This, unfortunately, is the only post written during my ninth grade year, which is unfortunate. You will see why when I finish this little series off next time. I pretty much skipped all of ninth grade, probably because of my ADD or simply because I am not that good about doing running commentary. However, the 12 days of entries that are left in the journal are pretty interesting, and I cap the whole journal off with a list of goals that is quite interesting. You will have to check this space out on Monday (possibly before) for the exciting conclusion of this. After that, I may publish some of my awesome high school writing.
Until next time…

Since Part I was so fun, I’m just going to continue on with this little series. After completing the last post, I read the remaining seven pages or so that remained in my journal and found it very interesting to say the least. Towards the end, I turn much more vulgar than a 8th grader should, so I might be editing some things down the road. If you want all the gory details, you might just have to ask. I really wish I was better at the journal thing growing up. This post will have a lot of one line entries, but we’ll pick it up on April 29th, 1990, when I was a little over nine years old.

April 29, 1990 – I earned my Bear Badge, my Faith in God Award, and my Wood Whittling Chip Card. My Pinewood Derby got an award for most original. That’s all for now.*

*This post is apparently to bring everyone up to speed on my progress in Cub Scouts. This may be the last time I mention Cub Scouts. Let’s find out.

October 9, 1990 – I’m sorry I haven’t written in a long time. Shawna and I are friends.* I am in the forth (sic) grade in Mrs. Verhaal’s class. I’ll be ten in December.
October 10, 1990 – I’m leaving for school.**
October 12, 1990 – I’m out of school for U.E.A.***

*After our little rough patch, Shawna and I ended up friends, though the “forth” grade me is still struggling with spelling friends. I’m sure I’ll figure it out eventually.
**A day in the life…
***U.E.A. has been mentioned twice now, so I guess I’ll explain that it stands for Utah Education Association. It’s the teacher’s union in Utah, and we had days off from school when they had their annual conference. It was always in October, and I believe we had Thursday and Friday off.

January 7, 1991 – It’s been Christmas, Thanksgiving, Halloween, New Years Day and my birthday.* Notre Dame lost in a bowl game and so did BYU.**
March 9, Sat. Today is Scout-o-Rama.
May 24, 1991, Fri. I am going on a trip with my dad, sisters and little brother. I hate Shawna.*** I have a new girlfriend. Her name is Amanda Coon. Pinewood Derby is coming up. I’ve had three Webelos leaders. First Mike Wilkinson, then Vaughn Avery, and now Wayne Smith, 9 more days of school. Tot tot for now.****

*Just in case you didn’t know what holidays occur between October and January.
**I understand why I cared that BYU lost, but not so much Notre Dame. BYU got absolutely destroyed by Texas A&M that year in the Holiday Bowl. It was Ty Detmer‘s Heisman year, and I believe he separated both shoulders in the game. Don’t ask me how I remember this.
***Guess we didn’t fully get over our difficulties. Looks like I moved on, though I don’t know how reciprocal my relationship with Amanda Coon was.
****Must have been watching a lot of Disney cartoons or something. “Tot tot for now?” 

May 25. Sat. I’m in Roosevelt in Duchesne county. I’ve come all the way from Vernal. I’ve been to Dinosaur Land,* a museum, and a motel. We’re going back to WVC. Ebyay orfay ownay.**
12-9-91 – Today I was in school.
1-9-92 – It’s been exactly one month since I’ve written. Nothing new around here. I’ve got a new girlfriend, Not!!!*** Well good night for now.
3-24-92 – I’m rearranging my room because my brother’s moving in in a while. Good bye!
4-14-92 – My brother Mike is getting married to a woman named Christie. She has two kids from a previous marriage. Their names and ages are Cody, 4, and Aleta, 10 months. They are getting married on June 25th. Their colors are pink and burgundy. Their (sic) going on a cruise for their honeymoon.**** I am a fan of the Utah Jazz. My friend is betting me on their games.***** Bye.

*Growing up, my dad worked for a guy that sold souvenirs, mainly postcards and other knick knacks. We would go on “business trips” with him where he would drive to various state and national parks around Utah and refill their postcards and other stuff. Never got to actually see these places except for Dinosaur National Monument in Vernal. But we did go on a lot of these weekend trips.
**Practicing my Pig Latin apparently.
***Look! A “Not!” joke. Hilarity. And the whole thing about not having a girlfriend. Like I said. Foreshadowing.
****Mike did not marry this woman for various reasons. I’ll leave it at that. Shortly after this little episode, he moved to Phoenix and met his current wife, so all ended up better anyway.
*****My friend Kris Kemple didn’t like the Jazz. So I started gambling at a young age. That is all.

April 25, 1993* – Hello again. The school year is almost over (yea!!!!). I still like Shawna.** I doubt she likes me. It’s almost her birthday so I plan on sending her a card or something.
April 30, 1993 – It’s the weekend (Finally!!!) Midterm next week. Mrs. G is a witch.***
May 26, 1993 – Howdy.
June 3, 1993 – Tomorrow’s the last day of school. Shawna is awesome, a babe, and is very smart. I hope she’s in some of my classes next year.****

*Another year just flies on by with no entries. Totally skipped most of my sixth grade year.
**Shawna must be the one that got away or something. Or I was just a child with some affection for a girl that walked home with me in second grade.
***Ms. Gehmlich was my sixth grade teacher. Many people did not like her, but I think at the end of the school year we all had a certain appreciation for her. She didn’t like me much because I didn’t take the test in 6th grade to go in the Gifted and Talented program in junior high. I just wanted to have a semi-normal experience and was sick of having all the same classmates for the past four years. But in the end, a lot of the things she taught us prepared us for life in the “real world,” even though we were only 11-12 when we left her class.
****This is crossed out, but I think this is what it said. From reading the next entry, I think I know why, but who knows?


Now that I have left elementary school, though you wouldn’t really know it because I barely talk about school at all up to this point, if ever, we will end this one here. Stay tuned for the next post where I go on a rant about “seeing people in love” and how it pained me so. I was emo before emo was cool. I just didn’t wear makeup and cut myself.

Until next time…