Saturday, January 31, 2009

Sleepover!


Well, Harriet's slumber party is in two weeks, but last night I had a sleepover. I expected to have only Harriet over but she brought Kristy with her. I had mixed feelings about having her there, but it was all good in the end.
We spent all night watching movies and gossiping about... well... Meredith and her minions. She's been mean to all of us, but she's been mean to Harriet since kindergarten, teasing her for her name, her clothes, and the fact that she lives with her mom and grandmother. If there's one person in the sixth grade who hates Meredith more than I do, it's Kristy. Meredith's been mean to her, too, calling her names like "half-boy, half-girl" and other names I can't even write here. In addition, Kristy says Meredith stole her baseball mitt and she hasn't found it yet.
I had so much fun, I didn't mention the dance once.
We also discussed the guest list for Harriet's party. I knew Harriet herself would be there, and Kristy too probably, but the question was, who else? I suggested Katarina, and was surprised when Harriet said yes. Harriet doesn't know Katarina at all, and I only know her a little bit from newspaper. Then she surprised me again by suggesting Hilary, the new girl. "I don't know," I asked, half-sleeping, "would she come?"
We then threw out a bunch of names -- Mia St. Clair, Bridget O'Shaughnessy, Sasha Moore, Megan Ryder, Alison McCann. Then I thought about it. There was one person missing. Nicki. I realized, I actually miss having her here. It was weird.
I told Harriet to just send out all those invitations and see who shows up out of that group. We don't know all those girls that well, but who cares, right?
We had a contest to see which of us would fall asleep first. It turned out to be Harriet. I looked at the clock, it read 2:57 a.m.
Kristy was next, it was 3:13 a.m. Meanwhile, I drowsily opened my notepad and started jotting ideas for my social studies fair project. Try as I may, I can't help myself. I finally closed my notebook and closed my eyes at 3:45 a.m.

Friday, January 23, 2009

The Inauguration and other things

I'm sorry this entry is way late, but that's how busy I've been planning the dance.

Well, it's official, we got a new president. And I like him, a lot. His daughters are our age. Not to mention, Harriet pointed out that he's kind of cute. Definitely not like the old guy that used to be president.

We were at school when it happened, so I caught a little of it on the TV at school. Luckily, Harriet's grandma videotaped it, so she, Kristy, and I watched it there after school. This means a lot for Harriet's grandma. You see, Harriet's grandma grew up in the South where blacks and whites had separate water fountains, separate bathrooms, and went to separate schools. She said she never dreamed all this would happen. I can't imagine not being at the same school with Harriet just because her skin is darker. It would be so weird.

Speaking of being president, I'm finding out that being class president is much harder than I thought it would be. I was checking out some ideas for the Valentine's Day dance... and there was a Chrissa flyer with stuff you could for her cards, and I was thinking about using some of those cut-out decals to decorate the gym. So I decided to suggest my idea to the school dance committee (that I mysteriously found Meredith had put herself on, despite the fact she claimed she didn't care about the dance) and she was, all, "That's so childish!"


Then I heard another voice, I was surprised to hear it. It was Mia's. Mia had been in the room but seldom spoke. "What about a winter pageant?" she asked. "Mix in snowflakes with the Valentine decorations." Hilary seemed to like it, but I wasn't sure, since it is a Valentine's dance. I felt like in hearing out Mia's suggestion I was giving in to Meredith. But I had to admit, Mia did have a point. Then again, Mia is biased. She's a competitive figure skater and still plays ice hockey.

Thursday, January 15, 2009

Back to Business

The Adams Junior High student council had its first meeting of the new year today. There wasn't much new discussed, except the budget (there's nothing in it) and the upcoming Valentine's Day dance, which has to be planned by .... drum roll please ... yours truly. Any suggestions?
Speaking of Valentine's Day, the only Valentine I'd like to have is Adam Cartwright. I'm telling you, the boy is soooo handsome!
Trouble is, Adam doesn't know I exist. Every girl at Adams, it seems, has a crush on him (he's in the 7th grade) -- including Meredith, who throws herself at him at every opportunity. And I'm not sure a boy like Adam would want a freckled face girl who wears thick glasses.
Now about the dance. Like Halloween, I've got no clue what to do to the gym. The gym at Adams doubles as the school auditorium, as Adams used to be a high school. There's cutting out a bunch of hearts and stringing them all over the gym. And then there's the question of what kind of dance it's going to be. There are different kinds of dances. For example, Harriet was telling me about a type of dance called a Sadie Hawkins, a dance where the girl asks the guy to dance, instead of the usual guy-gets-girl type.
So, the meeting of the reps of the several homerooms of the sixth grade took place in the gym. The new girl, Hilary Lang came, as well as Mia St. Clair, one of the other reps. I don't know Mia well, but she's a driven athlete -- she swears she'll be figure skating in the 2014 Winter Olympics. Mia does figure skating, ice hockey, roller blading, roller hockey -- anything on skates, she'll do. Her style is girly but athletic and comfortable. Harriet told me she has 3 older brothers -- so she can't be a pushover.

The three of us talked, waiting for Meredith to come in. For those of you new to my blog, she ran against me for class president, and when the vote came in, the two of us got the same number of votes. The election was eventually decided in a school assembly, with someone drawing a name out of a hat. The winner became class president, the loser vice president.
You can imagine that I wasn't looking forward to working with Meredith at all.
While Hilary, Mia, and I were talking, who walked into the door but Meredith, followed by her little lackeys. I was angry.


"This meeting started ten minutes ago," I told her.

Flicking her hair, Meredith replied, "So? What's it to you?"

"As president of the sixth grade, I can tell you that the meetings start at three o'clock and I expect everyone to be here. You think there are special rules just for you?"

"Tell me why I should care about your stupid meeting."

"Well, because we're planning the Valentines' Day dance."

Meredith shook her head. "When's the dance? Oh, that's right, Friday the thirteenth. How exciting for you. You see, I'm not going to be at your stupid little dance. It's the night of my parents' big dinner party. The next day I'll be leaving to compete in the Miss Louisiana American Girl pageant. The winner goes to nationals, and, well, I'm going to nationals. So, your dorky little dance means nothing to me." She bobbed her blond head as she whizzed past me. I wanted to cry but I straightened my skirt.

I know I shouldn't care whether or not she shows up at the dance, but since she's on the student council, I'd like to have her pull her weight in planning it.

Monday, January 12, 2009

Whoops, forgot to mention...

In all the Chrissa movie hoopla, I forgot to mention that because I'd won the class presidency, Mrs. Baldwin picked a new homeroom rep to replace me. She chose a girl named Hilary Lang.

I can't say I know Hilary that well. I do know she's got long blond hair (but yellow blond, not like Meredith's white blond) and blue eyes and is a bit on the chubby side. She's not as thin as Meredith. And she seems to have similar taste in clothes as I do. And I can't say I have an idea where she stands in the class war, either. I don't know if she'll be open to me befriending her or not.
Harriet's told me a little more, though. Hilary's father is Dr. Tom Lang, who's very important in our town. Hilary had been attending the local private school, but she transferred to Adams after the holiday. I wonder why.
I'm also wondering why she got picked for homeroom rep. Perhaps she asked for the position?
And another thing -- the rumors are true: there's a French teacher at Adams this semester! His name is Monsieur Renou, and he's from a town in France called Lyon. In addition to Monsieur Renou, there are lessons on the computer. Thing is, only honors students get to take the courses. I haven't found out whether I get to take the classes yet but I've heard nothing so far.
Now, addressing all your responses to my last post -- I mentioned to Sabine and Wendy that I haven't seen "Mean Girls" yet which is what the Chrissa movie is being compared to. I also mentioned that while Harriet and I are planning her slumber party that we might try to rent it. Jane, glad you liked my outfit. I got it for Christmas from my real mom, and then was going to wear it the first day back but didn't -- only to find out Meredith wore one just like it! It came with a little white vest but I think it looks better without the vest so I wore it without it. Julie, I'm sorry to hear you're being bullied too and so is your friend Joy. But you know what? You are so much better than those girls it's not even funny. I try to remind myself that same thing every time Meredith says something mean. But it's hard, I know it is. And to the anonymous commenter, like I told Harriet, Sonali begins to see the light at some point through the movie.
I'll try to have another 'full' blog entry sometime this week.

Friday, January 9, 2009

I saw the Chrissa movie (some spoilers)

Welp, today was the day.



After fifth period our principal called everybody out of class and told us to sit in the gym. When I looked around the gym, I saw Meredith and her gang had pretty much taken the seats on the top row. They were flipping through magazines and chewing gum and polishing their fingernails.
Then the student council sponsor told me to come forth.
"Haley, since you're class president, I'd like you and Megan to do the presentation."
Megan, of course, is Megan Ryder, editor-in-chief of pretty much every school publication at Adams -- newspaper AND yearbook. She says she's wanted to be a journalist pretty much forever, since her dad travels all over as an international correspondent. We're acquaintances, we work with each other, but we're not friends. Megan has goalpost-straight red hair and green eyes.
"Would you like to say a few words?" the teacher asked. "About bullying, I mean." Of course, having been bullied myself, you'd think I might have leapt at the chance to spill the beans about my own life. But I chose not to.
So while everyone else gathered in the gym, Megan and I stood in front of this huge screen where they were getting the movie ready to show.



"Well, today the school has called this assembly, so that we can talk about bullying." I told them that bullying was a very serious problem all over the country, and that surveys showed that a lot of kids had been bullied while in school. I didn't tell them, though, that I'd been one of them. Maybe I should have.
"Sit down, Four Eyes!" Meredith shouted from the top seats, to laughter from some of the other kids. She didn't realize, I was intending to. I decided to go back and sit in the first seat I could find, so I could watch the movie.



While I'm watching the movie, Harriet gives me a nudge. "Haley, she kinda looks like you."
I'm like, "Well, yeah, she doesn't have freckles and wear glasses and hair she can never really manage."

Okay, about the movie.... there's this girl named Chrissa Maxwell who moves to Minnesota to stay with her grandma after her grandpa dies. When she starts school she's bullied by three girls -- Tara, Jaden, and Sonali. Sonali is Indian, which I found interesting. Tara is the queen bee and the worst of the bunch, kind of like Meredith -- the other two are just followers. And Chrissa isn't the only victim. These girls also pick on another girl, shy and quiet Gwen, who turns out to be a talented violinist. Well, Chrissa wants to try to make friends with Gwen but Gwen has a secret. Chrissa's bullies seem to stop at nothing to make her miserable. When Chrissa joins the swim team, Tara's cruelty seems to get worse.

Chrissa to me seemed a little desperate for making friends -- it was like, she had made that her only goal upon getting to that new school. It was a little annoying, cause she kept saying 'hi' to the girls and the girls wouldn't say 'hi' back -- but then I got to like Chrissa, because she's willing to stand up for herself and what she believes in. Gwen really reminds me a lot of Katarina, so quiet and doesn't say much at all, keeps to herself. Sonali, I'm not sure who she is. I think she wanted to be friends with Chrissa from the beginning, but she was afraid of losing Tara's friendship because of it.



After the assembly, Kristy wanted to watch the basketball team practice, so Harriet and I stayed in the gym awhile before we left. "What did you think about the movie?" I asked them.


"I wanted Chrissa to beat those girls silly," Kristy said. "Especially that Tara, she deserved it." Kristy then told me that back in fourth grade, she did just that to a girl who picked on her for being a tomboy. The girl has since moved away.

"I didn't get Sonali," Harriet said. "I mean, she's Indian, right, and she's following behind those girls like a lost puppy dog."

"That's only in the beginning," I reminded her. "But Sonali starts to come to her senses I think around the time she signs up to do the ceramics thing. I don't think they made a big deal over the fact that she's Indian."

I have to admit, Sophie was right, it does kind of remind me of what happened to me when I first came to Adams. For those new to my blog, I'll crosslink the post so you can read about it. http://aghaleysblog.blogspot.com/2008/09/my-first-day-of-school.html I heard Meredith and her gang talking and laughing pretty much throughout the whole movie, till finally the teacher told them to leave. They were only too glad to.

Tuesday, January 6, 2009

IM with Nicki

How wonderful is instant messaging? Seriously. I don't have to spend hundreds of dollars on phone calls, I can only do it occasionally when I want to hear someone's voice.
So, Nicki comes on IM tonight to tell me... that she's SEEN the Chrissa movie!
Whaaa??
"Yeah, I've seen it. Pretty good, actually." She said her school showed it yesterday, on their first day back.
Since I told her my school's supposed to show the movie sometime this week, she didn't want to give out any spoilers. Drat! That Nicki...she's my cousin and all, but sometimes I just don't know how to deal with her.
She went on to talk about the twins and about her brother's progress in math and all the pigs and dogs and horses that populate their ranch.
I can't imagine living with all those animals. I'd sneeze so much.

Monday, January 5, 2009

Back to School Shockers

Well, I went back to school yesterday. I didn't want to go but I didn't have a choice.
The first shock I got was that Katarina got new glasses!


She got them over Christmas break and I have to say, she looks a lot like those pictures of Molly McIntire on the books. I also have to say that I feel somewhat better now that I'm not the only girl sporting specs. She's very quiet and keeps mostly to herself, especially that Meredith calls her names like "Fat Kat."
The second thing is there's going to be a school assembly later on this week to talk about bullying and to show the new Chrissa AG movie. I have to say, from what I've read on the subject, it's going to hit pretty darn close to home. There's even a website, set up by AG, to deal with this. http://www.americangirl.com/girloftheyear/

The third shocker was that yesterday, I thought about wearing the new outfit my mom bought me for Christmas back to school, but decided against it. Imagine my surprise when I saw Meredith walking down the hall wearing the exact same one! I was shocked.



Meredith and her minions continue to make life miserable for everyone at Adams. The girl on the left is Madisyn Baker and in many ways she's as bad as Meredith. The girl on the right is Natasha Ivanova, she's Russian. Meredith's hair always smells like strawberry conditioner and the scent makes me sneeze.
When we passed by, I heard them whisper something. "Hey, Van Dyke," Meredith shouted, looking at Kristy's green outfit, "I guess they forgot to tell you Christmas was over." I can't wait to see THEIR reactions to Chrissa's movie. I'm actually looking forward to this assembly.

Friday, January 2, 2009

Random Thoughts

On Monday I return to school. I can't say I'm looking forward to it.

For one thing, I'll have to deal with Meredith Hopkins. For those of you who are new to my blog, know that she has caused a lot of problems for me ever since I arrived at Adams Junior High in August.



She's head of the JV cheerleaders and the most popular girl in my grade. She also did some local TV and modeling work in her native Jacksonville, Florida. Not to mention, she is a spoiled, self-centered snob who thinks the entire world revolves around HER. Unfortunately, I have to see her a lot. Not only is she in my homeroom, but as a result of her running against me for class president, I get to see her an awful lot on the student council.
She has spent most of her time tormenting me for wearing glasses and for being smart. She tore down campaign signs, hid (and broke) my glasses once in gym class, scheduled a Halloween party at the same time as the school dance, and circulated a nasty petition about me. (Did I tell you that?)
She has a merry band of followers, too, most notably Natasha Ivanova, who has a head full of auburn curls, and Madisyn Baker, who in many ways is just as bad as Meredith.

On top of this, my cousin Nicki has decided to stay in Colorado for the rest of the school year. I can't say I'm surprised by this -- after all, her mom (my aunt-my mom's TWIN sister) just had twin girls and would need all of Nicki's help with them, she's got a new puppy, and they've taken in MORE service dogs to train, so they've definitely got a full house. The only thing I'll regret is that she'll miss Harriet's slumber party, which WILL happen, we're just not sure when. And besides, I don't blame her one bit in not coming back to Adams -- she's taken her share of grief from Meredith and her gang, too, for her love of animals.

Doesn't she look happy? Why come back to Louisiana when you can look outside the window and see THAT???

It hasn't been all bad at Adams, though, I must admit. I was elected sixth grade class president in the fall, and it's been very hard work, much harder than I thought it'd be when I ran. I also joined the school newspaper staff. This past semester I made the honor roll and my goal is to get straight A's.


I also managed to make some friends. Harriet Jones, I consider my best friend. She's African American and now has what I consider a gorgeous head of curls. Even though she's quiet, she's a good listener and seems to know everything about everyone at Adams. I don't know how she does it. She turned some heads when she showed up with her new hairdo. I give her credit, she's willing to take some risks.

Kristy Van Dyke was Harriet's friend but she's becoming mine as well. Her hair is long and brown and even straighter than mine, and most of the time she wears it under a cap, with a ponytail. She hates wearing dresses and is very adventurous. In fact, she missed two weeks of school because she fractured her hand in 2 different places from a scooter accident! And another thing -- it's quite possible Kristy hates Meredith even more than I do.



There's also Katarina Engel. I can't say I know her that well, I do know she's shy and quiet. I do know, though, that she was born in Germany and sent here to live with her aunt when she was eight. She looks like Kristy except that she's chubbier. The only time I see her is when we're at the newspaper.

It's almost as if we've formed sort of a "Team of Misfits" at Adams.

I don't want to go back to school on Monday. But I've got no choice.