I've been trying to figure out what to do for this task for a few weeks now, trying to come up with something creative, out of the ordinary, etc. The other night I was going through my storage room looking for some long lost computer peripherals when I found an old journal I had kept when I was younger. Now I know it's not quite 20 years, and I hope people will let that slide. Twenty years would have put me at 5-6 years old and the only thing I remember from then is getting my first computer. The journal entries were short and definitely written by a 11 year old, but really made me look back to a childhood where life was really different.

First: the blog

And then, a few observations:

- Before blogs were even a thought, I was dating and timestamping many of my entries, which made it easy to post in a blog format

- I was focused on organization, structure and system. In my entries I used different symbols and abbreviations to signify different people's names, a "break in time that really effects writing," whether the entry continued to the next page or not, and also defined some acronyms that I used more than once.

- Edited conversation for relevancy:
[19:58] rabbit: apparently I was chasing after the ladies even back when I was 11
-snip discussion of Aaro's on & off girlfriend-
[20:00] Aaro: it leads me to my favorite line - which applies to you and your situation
[20:00] Aaro: Woody Allen in the beginning of the film Annie Hall. It re-inacts when he was a little kid in school. He goes and kisses a girl on the cheek.
[20:01] Aaro: She goes "EEEWWw , he kissed me he kissed me!" and the teacher yells at him - as if he's an adult
[20:01] Aaro: and says a few scolding words including, "Even freud speaks of a latency period."
[20:01] Aaro: and it cuts back to him in the school desk - and it's not the 6 year old version of him - it's the adult version of him saying,
[20:01] Aaro: "well, maybe I didn't have a latency period."
[20:01] Aaro: When I saw that - I'm like, "damn, that hits home with me."
[20:02] Aaro: so in other words - when you say "apparently I was chasing after the ladies even back when I was 11" - know that you're in the same boat as Woody Allen.
[20:03] Aaro: not sure if that's a compliment! But he makes movies that suck now and still makes a boatload of money and has relationships with girls half his age
[20:03] rabbit: and he married a young hot asian girl.. good boat to be in, minus the whole step-daughter thing of course
[20:03] Aaro: lol right

- After reading these entries I started wondering about the friends I had in elementary school. I found a few of them online and dropped them a message for the first time in 10+ years. I didn't find the Megan H. mentioned in the entries, but I did find the Megean H. that I dated the year afterwards!

- I realized that one of my current cats is named Bunki, and that my childhood dog had the occasional nickname Bunky-Head. Never realized the connection. (Bunki was chosen because it apparently means forking / jump (computer))

- I had a strip of velcro on the back that I used to use to hide this behind my dresser so my sister didn't get ahold of it.

- I was thinking about patents at 11 years old?

- It's amazing how well I remember some of the things I wrote about.