February 2000

Feb 2

In the morning as well as last night parents scolded me about my brother. He wasn't washing his hands after toilet as usual and I was doing my best not to lose it at him, so I was sulking. And they started yelling at me, saying that I am driving mum into an early grave! Just me! Although he is definitely to blame too! He is so doing those things just to annoy me! And he was sticking his tongue out as they were scolding me. They said that I can keep going on if I don't value mother. Of course I do! But doesn't he deserve any blame whatsoever? Dad ended up driving me to school because I was running late with all the drama. He made sure to lecture me on the way too.

Feb 4

Today was my birthday. It felt like it from the very morning. I am 13 now! Mum congratulated me first. That was nice. Yuka congratulated me too, as soon as she arrived to walk to school together. I was very happy that she did. No one at school even remembered! Even Yui, even though I got her a present when it was her birthday 2 days ago, despite being annoyed with her. Why does no one love me? The school day was not good either. Particularly the last period. We had a discussion about how to spend a free period at some later date. It was decided that we can either play dodge-ball or volleyball. I love volleyball but the problem was that it was meant to be boys and girls together. That's disgusting! How are you meant to play like that? I don't want to give a pass to a boy, especially if it's someone I don't like. I don't want to go to school now!

One other thing. During the English class, we had to ask class questions. I asked if they preferred prawns or mushrooms. 13 people replied prawns. And no one opted for mushrooms! How can they like something so revolting?

At home we had a cake. Yuki came over to give me a present and have a chat. We had a good time. She gave me some socks, hair ties, and a necklace and earring set, with little purple butterflies. I loved them. Yuki is such a good friend. It is weird though, why can't I get along well with others?

Feb 9

The girls ostracised me at school again. Why do they hate me so much? What do I do wrong?

At home I found that the photos from Australia have been printed out. I picked out the ones I liked and hang them on the wall in my room. But there was one that was absolutely the worst. I am really ugly on it. I hid it in the cupboard and locked it. It was such a good holiday though! I want to go to Australia again.

Feb 11

Today we were planning to have a sleepover with Yuka. However ever since I got up in the morning, I felt a bit sick. I was coughing and sniffling and maybe even had some fever. Mum said I could not go. That was very disappointing.

I did homework in the morning and in the afternoon I got to go to dad's workplace to use the internet. I chatted in a chatroom (Microsoft Chat back then!!) and met a girl from Korea. She is 13 too. She did not seem to be very good at English but she was very friendly and kept asking me for my E- mail address. She gave me hers too. I shall write to her... It would be so cool if we get to become friends!

At night, as I was figuring out how to get rid of the cold asap, dad told me of this method he heard from a friend. A Chinese method, apparently. You are meant to stick pieces of garlic to certain spots on your body (8 pulse points) with band aids or something and go to sleep with it. Of course I had to give it a try!

Feb 12

I felt alright today. But mum still did not allow me to go for the sleepover! Why on earth did I have to tolerate this garlic? For the whole night, arms and legs were really painful and I kept waking up. In the morning it turned out that I was covered in burns and even bubble blisters! (They hurt for days and all then left permanent scars, all 8 spots! Especially visible is a round discoloured scar on my wrist. I had decided to consider it a symbol of my undying love for Yuki later on).

Feb 19

We had a mini sports festival at school. I had to play a game that is like baseball but you have to kick a ball instead of using a bat. I did very badly. Probably worse than everyone. I could neither throw nor catch well. Although our team did well overall, I did not feel happy at all. Yuka was annoying. Not just her actually, girls from her class. They were screaming louder than everyone. They were fairly good at kicking but still... I think it was really unnecessary. But maybe it is fun for them. Maybe I would have been shrieking too if I had friends. But from the viewpoint of the losing team it sounds very upsetting and from any other perspective - silly. We ended up defeating them in fact. Don't know how it happened.

At night, mum did allow me to go to a sleepover. After she had a meltdown. Me and Pete tried to calm her down and cooked dinner together for us all. Eventually mum cheered up and let me go. I was just sad though. Wanted to cry too.

I had a lot of fun at Yuki's. We looked through a catalogue and then played in chat rooms. Then we washed each other's hair before going to bed to chat. Had a bit of dirty talk. She gave me a couple of pairs of earrings.