Still dated prior to the June 30th entry, but written on pages after…Again, I believe I skipped a page and filled it in with the June 30 entry.

Date: 6-27-90
Week: 4
Weather: Summer

Today I let my catapiller go because It was dieing but now its better I found out hoo is my boyfirend It is  Jesse — he is relly nice but wehen he comes over tatong always yell. Roxane

So, first…I was obsessed with little creatures when I was young. Insects, reptiles, small rodents; I loved them all and had them in my room in mason jar or shoe boxes all the time. Apparently, this day I had a caterpillar. I actually remember letting this one go. It was dying, I mean, how would it live? A nine-year-old would have no idea what to feed or how to care for a plump caterpillar just trying to hang upside down to morph into a butterfly. I released him, but in a sort of rocky culvert next to my bedroom window so I could keep an eye on him. It’s like I thought getting some fresh air would somehow revitalize him. He died shortly thereafter.

Jesse grew up right across the street from us. I don’t know how I found out he was my boyfriend, or who decided it, but it seems like it was a big mystery that I finally figured out this day. Tatong is what we, in my family, call my mom’s dad, who was living with us at the time I wrote this. Not that Jesse would ever read this blog, but if he did, I’m sure he wouldn’t want his identity in any way associated with the happenings of these posts.

Can you really have a boyfriend at 9-years-old? Who decides your boyfriend/girlfriend? Maybe some of the next entries will reveal. Jesse and I had very much a love/hate relationship. I remember hating him at times for incessantly picking on me. In that case, this entry explains a lot. We are literally at a time with my entries where hitting and making fun of a girl on the playground means you like her.

This entry is incredibly difficult to read even with the page right in front of me. But I thought it’d be nice to show the array of colored pens I used to do my writing. Also, I’m not sure why, but this entry is dated before the last. If I had to guess, I’d bet I skipped a page, and instead of continuing forward, I went back to fill it in.

Date: 6-30-90
Week: 5
Weather: Summer

Dear Diary,
We Did not Do much Today But we got a new car and mom is taking drivers school she is going to be done at the end of this moth. Dad went campig and I went with him. got to go. Bye, Roxane

My mom and dad met while my dad was stationed in the Philippines for the Navy. They married and my mom moved to the United  States at the age of 23. She had never driven a car before and didn’t get a driver’s license until the age of 36. I remember pretty vividly taking our first drive with her after she got her license. She was, and still is, the most apprehensive driver I had ever seen. Her first car was a brand new 1990 Geo Prizm LSI. She loved that car, and was extremely careful with it. Oddly enough, some 10 years later, that Geo ended up being my car, which I drove throughout most of high school and college. I was so proud of it, probably a carry-over for how proud my mom was when she first brought it home.

The Geo!

Date: 6-30-90
Week: 5
Weather: Summer

Dear Diary,
Today I got very upset Rona is being a very big snot I wanted to scream and yell we were going to go camping but Bill did not show up and mom is always yelling. Roxane
I am mad

Punctuate much? Geez.

Rona is my older sister. I was 9 years old when I made this entry, and until the age of 12, I refused to even sleep in the same room with her. Sad thing is, we shared a room! There were about 2 years where I literally slept on the living room couch because of my disdain for my sister. I can’t even remember why now. I don’t know what she did this day, but I was pretty mad at her.

Bill was a friend of my dad’s. If I remember correctly, he and Dad worked together. Bill used to spend a lot of time with our family. He would pick me up from school if my parents were busy, or come and get me in the middle of the day if I needed to go home sick or something. I recall him being very helpful. Dad would have been in his 30’s when I wrote this; not far from my age now. If Bill was anything like my current shady friends, he probably said we’d go camping, then never called to come through, which disappointed me. As a family we spent a lot of time outdoors either camping, or in an RV, or on a lake somewhere. Dad always had a boat of some kind. I learned to fish and bait my own hook at a really young age. I’m hoping later my entries will reveal the lake as some of my most fond and most hated of memories.

The next two entries were so vastly different that I just had to post them together. I remember being a pretty bossy kid, and I think I made mountains out of mole hills a lot, but I sure don’t remember being so dramatic. I bet my mom would beg to differ; apparently I made her life a living hell at times. Here goes…

Date: 6-28-90
Week: 4
Weather: Summer

Hi diaray
I’m going thoye (through) a depreshen fase and I keep crying I don’t feel very good latly I get really dizzy and can berly walk, I have lot’s and lot’s of miscto (mosquito) bits and can’t help it. Bye

Date: 6-29-90
Week: 4
Weather: Summer

Yesterday was relly fun we went to stars and got coke, new kids cards and cookies We walke all the way to provo. I got my Bike fixed and I might go to the mall we went to sislers to. Roxane

So, obviously I wrote the 6-28-90 entry in the morning, we had our “really fun” day, and the next day I wrote the 6-29-90 entry about 6-28-90. That’s the only way to explain my 9-year-old bi-polar disorder. Why, at 9-years-old, would I be depressed? I don’t really think the dizziness was anything more than just standing up or getting out of the bed too quickly, but apparently this was a very big deal, and it looks like mosquito bites only added to my hellacious ordeal.

And yet, the very next day I say how great my dizzy, depressed, mosquito ridden day was! If this is how most 9-year-old girls are, parents everywhere should worry.

I think Stars was the local grocery store. At this time my family was living in Springfield, Utah and my mom didn’t have her driver’s license yet (she immigrated from the Philippines and had no reason to drive there; she didn’t get her license until she was 36- years-old, probably 2 years after this entry). Whenever we needed to get groceries, my two brothers, my sister, and I would walk with mom to the next town where it was located to help her carry them home. It was probably the same distance as walking from Bryant to Benton on the I-30 service road (for you AR readers). On more than one occasion I remember strangers picking us up and driving all 5 of us into town or back to our house, a thought now that is horrifying. But, it was summer, after all, and very hot…I’m sure seeing a little Asian lady with 4 kids walking down a highway, all carrying grocery bags full of food was a pitiful enough site to make anyone want to stop and help.

Pretty funny to see we got New Kids on the Block trading cards.

I don’t know what happened to my bike that it needed to be fixed, and I think Sizzler’s was a restaurant.