One Year In A Religious School

Late-April, 8th-grade

Unknown time

At the 99¢ Only Store™ in Main-City—I am not revealing the real name of the city—I got a notebook. I intended to create out of this notebook a diary of some sort. It was blue (or cyan)-colored, it had ruled lines (I do not recall whether it is College or Wide Ruled, although I think it would have been College Ruled), and it's inexpensive. Blue was (and is) my favorite color; I didn't know yet, but it was a favorite color for... pretty much as far back as I can recollect.

I do not remember the time of day, or even what day it was. All I know is that it was sometime in Late-April, during my 8th-grade school year. I only had around a month until summer break.

I also recall that it's a wired notebook, and only because of a later experience involving that book, but that will soon be narrated.

My first entry on that book was composed on April 30th.

It would go on until I am done in 9th grade, meaning this diary lasted from the near-end of 8th grade until somewhere in the summer break between 9th and 10th grades. This diary only lasted slightly more than one year.

And yet so much occurred during that time, that I decided it's worthy to get uncovered out there. But not any names: no cities, no people. In fact, I'll give everyone a code-word.

Unfortunately, I can't determine what I originally wrote, but since I put my entries from April 30 to May 3 in an unpublished site, I contrive to visit it and figure out what I pretty much originally penned down for those dates. But I cannot get the initial diary entries from May 3 (8th grade) to... actually, I don't remember when precisely, but sometime in April (9th grade). Why? Because I "passed on" the original content into another notebook, with another binding. And now I cannot find my original diary, so it's lost. Meaning I have to rely almost totally on this diary I have now for the dates of May 6th (8th grade) to sometime in April (9th grade). I paraphrased and cut down some of what I wrote between both diaries, so I have to depend on memory for these.

Wow, what a lousy introduction...

April 30th

My brother took forever to get on his shoes. We just were getting ready to walk out of the house and into the car in order to drive to the "school bus stop"—which is some miles away from here.

This detail was ultimately noted in my first diary entry. "We woke up, then we ate these baked [actually fried in oil] banana peels [actually slices], helped make the lunches [for us during lunch-time], and went upstairs, to worship."

And yet by my brother's attitude, he seemed to be throwing our devotion all away!

We are Seventh-day Adventists, meaning we are different from other Christians. For the time, I was not that big a fan of the president back then, Donald Trump.

The entry continues that we got to the car, a gray one. The drive was a down-slope. We were going down, for we have a high elevation from the city nearby—I Google Translated its name to not have to say it: Angels called his name.

It normally takes about 10-11 minutes the whole way down. Finally, we got there. And we often either waited for the bus to show up or it was just there. It appears the former occurred in this case since the journal reads: "The school bus arrives and almost hits something at the side."

So, we (my brother and I) got onto the yellow bus. "Then I prayed," reads the diary. Yes, religion has been a key factor in my life. While the diary reads: "The bus radio is on FOX news," in reality that radio was just ran by FOX news, so it is not playing the news.

"I never heard a 'Donald Trump' there [on the radio]." Of course, it's not FOX news.

We arrived at the High school to drop off the high school students. But I will not say its real name, only the Googled Translated version, and this is just what I got: Hepatic pain in secondary school students.

"Hepatic" is something relating to the liver.

Yeaaahhhh, that isn't good.

And next the bus drops off the elementary school students. (Google Translated, this is what I get for the school name: Why: This is the first.)

What was on my mind was about whether I would attend the high school Hepatic pain in secondary school students or "the academy". I have a hard time figuring out what I meant exactly by "the academy", but I do know it's religious: Seventh-day Adventist.

"The bus radio played 'Happy Birthday'. Whose birthday anyway?" I got used to that since the radio played that every single day!

"The bus did several turns, reached AmeriGas, which is also a bus stop. Then we took a straight run, passed Middleton, the SDA church, ACE (they pass free popcorn), Taco Bell, Burger King, passed [once again] the HS [High School], a building Dollar General, then we came up this road that leads to school, and dropped us there."

My school's name, Google Translated, of course, is this: The stone consists of two parts.

Since I've only started in diary entries, I did not go over much about school life, just the key things I did. "At School, we had math, and [at history we] learned about the George Washington presidency. And there is other stuff. At Lunch, I prayed for my food. Then I went to the book fair. At the bus back home, I prayed again."

Prayer, prayer, prayer...

You can mention this detail: "I went to the book fair." You know that one-week period in school with the books and whatnot? I was (and am) obsessed with books... and religion.

So that's what is recorded on April 30th.