Wow, those flowers are impressive! Talk about patience!

Um...I seem to remember making that page during classes-- primarily math, science, and study hall.

i can't find my keys. does this count? hey, any chance we could get a higher resolution image of that flower picture for the clubhouse?

Possibly, if you're a good boy and eat your vegetables.

you should totaly frame all that stuff and hang them in your apartment. at least scan in the 'adopt a jock' notebook!

The adopt a jock picture was by far one of the shining moments of my high school experience. I seem to remember making massive photocopies of the pictures.

Not to be a downer, but I try not to dwell on my teen years too much. I have scars that are daily reminders and I'm almost to the point where I don't notice them as much anymore. Ironically, I love history, but other peoples' history. I do not really try to hold on to my own very much. Dang, that's depressing. :(

Memory is subjective and variable. It's always fascinating what two people remember about the same event. The descriptions often differ widely. The other thing is that as you get older, you start trusting your memory less and less. You realize there are gaps and that sometimes, you're really remembering a memory of something rather than the actual event itself.

Haven't you ever had one of those family stories told to you so often you can picture it in your head, even when you can't possibly remember it because you were too young?

I took a really interesting class at the New School last spring about memory. I'm wondering now why I didn't blog about it, though I guess this site was young and I wasn't sure what I wanted to share out loud yet.

The most interesting thing that I've found about memory is that our perceptions of a moment change with time, even if ever so slightly. You will never get back the precise moment-- even two minutes later your memory of it will be slightly changed, as you have processed and contextualized it, etc. Often times we assign objects to memorialize moments-- I am constantly guilty of this. To me, the object stimulates the memory more vividly.

That said, I used to leaf through my old journals more often than I could count. It was as though I was frantically trying to preserve perceptions. About a year ago, this realization frightened me and I decided to put them away for a long time-- to stop trying to rustle up the past so purposely, so often.

I guess, in many ways, the act of revisiting our pasts is part of a continuous quest for understanding ourselves.

that flower sheet reminds me of a doodle sheet i did during a college chemsitry class i took at hunter college one summer - the first piece of artwork my dad ever framed of mine!

I wouldn't be too hard on yourself (or too frightened)--all you'd have to do is look at the stuff I've found and it would all come back to you. I'm not sure I would have remembered it all myself, except hat I kept these things in this accordian expanding folder and took a peek into it now in then. I also found a "jumpsuit" that we made for our dolls using primarily hot glue. It actually wasn't too bad for a couple of 10 year olds... Since I'll be 28 at my next birthday, those artifacts are pushing 20 years. THAT boggles my mind. Not so much that they'd be 20 years old, but that I'd be old enough to have something 20 years old that is both completely foreign to who I am now, and yet also meaningful in my adult life (because I'm still friends with you).

I am so jealous of the conversations your postings inspire. I've looked at all the other blogs you have listed and really no one else I've seen gets quite the responses you do. One might say, you are the cumulation of everything you renounced those years back. You are the most popular girl in the school of blog, so to speak.

I say this because I get the impression that looking back carries heavy and difficult weight for you, (maybe I'm wrong, maybe I totally missed the point) and I think that it shouldn't. I would gather that those times weren't so bad -- I mean, hey I was in them and that's awesome -- but perhaps misguided, and valuable developmental time to make you the creative, talented and well received person that you are today.

Aw shucks, Jaysonian. You know, there were things about high school that were great. I would never say that I didn't have good friends or a good education, etc. There were also dark times-- that I'm sure we all had-- that went unspoken. Nothing out of the ordinary, but certainly not fun. It's that whole perspective thing. When I look back now, as an adult, I see an adolescent who was in a lot of pain. Cry me a river, I know-- most teens experience some form of emotional pain-- but still valid, etc.

All that said, it's always easier to focus on the bad (at least my instict) and forget the good-- of which there were many. Rememeber when we pretended that my doll was a real baby and punted it across the yard at the arriving pizza delivery man's car?

while visiting my mom a couple years ago, i leafed through an old photo album that had a lot of pictures of me in high school. man, i wanted to kick that kid's ass.

"I'm wondering now why I didn't blog about it"

Is blog now a verb? I still don't fully understand/accept it when used as a noun. Blogalicious. Is that an adjective?

Hmm...I'd think that it's edging toward a verb. One keeps a blog, hence they blog about things? Kind of like how people use the term journaling, which I don't think is a real word, either. Then again, I doubt "blog" is in the dictionary.