Journal excerpt #1

30 nov, 2023

[The beginning of the page is very messy. A lot of text is erased, ever-so-slightly too faded to be read, page marred by graphite. Much of said text seems to be crossed out.]

Hey there! I want to start a journal, because I keep hearing that university is very different, and I’m now very curious how I’m going to change with time. So, future self, without further ado, let me introduce myself!

My name is Anna, but you already knew that. As a pastime, I like to do fencing. I do it competitively right now, and I’m pretty good! I’ve tried all of the styles a little, and I think I like sabre the most. In fact, I’ve got a tournament coming up, in Toronto. I think I’ll write about it soon.

I’m also very interested by electronics right now! Just a few months ago, I build a little circuit to detect if a door was opened to play the among us body detected sound at whoever entered. Mom was so mad at that one. Had to disassemble it almost instantly lmao

I’ve applied to a lot of electrical engineering programs. Hopefully you get to enjoy that, future self.

I’ve also bought a switch recently, and I’m trying nintendo games for the first time! Mario wonder was a lot of fun. I like a lot of the different wonder effects, they’re very interesting. I didn’t like botw that much though, the guardians are too hard to beat. Maybe I’ll try a pokemon [sic] game next.

I’ve got some pretty good friends. I met Jane and Mike at school, and they’re usually down to do whatever. Jane always has something funny to say, and Mike is a master at trivia, he knows everything.

I met Dan at fencing practice, and he’s my rival

I’m not joking, he’s my perfect rival

1. he’s the same size as me
2. he’s the same level as me
3. he’s the same age as me

1) he’s the same size as me
2) he’s the same level as me
3) he’s the same age as me

That’s a neat coincidence. He’s also a pretty cool person, I talk with him on Instagram every once in a while.

idk, i don’t have much else to say. I think I’ll wait for something interesting to happen to continue writing

---

5 dec, 2023

So, the fencing tournament I was talking about just ended, I’m back in Montreal right now.

I ended up coming in fourth, out of 16 competitors. I’m pretty proud of myself.

I had four matches. I lost the second and the fourth, but both of them were pretty good. I think the person who won in my second match ended up getting first anyways.

I feel bad for the person I fought in my third match. I won that one so fast, it wasn’t even fair lmao

Dan also joined, he didn’t do as well as me. He had three fights, he lost the last two. I say it’s still good, even if he won’t admit it.

I feel like what’s more fun about these tournaments though is the rest of the day. The actual competition is fun, but teambuilding during the rest of the day is more fun

We were all tired when we got to the hotel room yesterday night, so nothing interesting happened, but today after the tournament was better.

We ate at an italian restaurant right after the tournament. Dan said that plain shirts without designs were better and we had a fun argument about that for about an hour. Jack, our coach, was arguing for designs on shirt while wearing a plain shirt lol

Also Jack tripped on those bumps next to crosswalks for blind people on our way from the restaurant to the car, I don’t know how he managed to do that

It was a pretty nice day.

---

15 dec, 2023

[The text of this entry is surrounded by drawings of elongated circles, with a line coming out the bottom — I’d later learn these were called “balloons.“]

It’s Jane’s birthday today!

Mike and I ended up surprising her by buying her a new drawing tablet. Hers was broken a week ago 🙁

We walked to the cinema to try to watch a movie, but we couldn’t because Jane remembered she didn’t finish the English project that was due today. It was worth a lot of the grade, so she couldn’t ignore it. It just feels bad that this happened on her birthday.

We ended up deciding to watch a movie tomorrow, because that’s the weekend anyways.

In other news, I decided to start playing fe3h instead of pokemon [sic]. So far, it’s very nice. I’m playing golden deer first, I like Claude a lot.

I think that’s all for today.

[A few more traces of graphite lingered below — it seems she had more to say, but changed her mind.]

---

25 dec, 2023

[A crudely drawn gift box is to the left of the date.]

It’s christmas!

I got some new electrical components! I now have another screen, but this one can display colour! There was also a proximity sensor, and I’m already thinking what I can do with these.

I’ve already made a circuit that displays the distance to the sensor on the screen, obviously. I’m wondering what I could do next.

Apparently, Mike got Baldur’s gate 3 for christmas. I think that one’s a turn-based game, that sounds like something I could play. Maybe I should get it some day.

Dan says he got another Rubik’s cube. I don’t know why he has so many of them, but he likes it. He showed me how to solve it a while ago, I still have a cheap cube I bought that I solve sometimes.

A lot of the ones he has are so cool because they spin all weird. Like, he has this one called the square one or something like that that stops being a cube after a few turns, it’s weird

Anyways, Jane only got 40$ this year, her parents are now telling her she’s an adult so she shouldn’t mind. I asked her, and she says has no problem with it, but I still feel bad for her, I think the suspense of a gift is the most fun part.

Christmas itself was fun too. The chicken my mom made is perfect, like every year. I keep asking her to make it more often but she keeps telling me it takes too long to make so she keeps it for special occasions 🙁

The best part of christmas is just doing nothing all day lmao

All I’ve done so far is keep progressing through three houses.
not like I have much else to do today anyways. I’m getting close to the time skip, I think.

Is Lysithea supposed to be this strong? She’s killing everything in one hit.

---

1 jan, 2024

It’s new year!

It’s been a pretty fun day. Mom, dad, and I stayed up this night to watch some fireworks. It’s been pretty nice.

We also took some time to share resolutions. Mom wants to try to learn an instrument, she says she’s leaning to classical guitar. Dad is thinking of trying to get a gym membership and learning some exercises.

I felt like being funny and said I want to save the world this year. I didn’t really have any actual ideas that wasn’t once of the cliche [sic] ones you do anyways, so I guess I’m stuck with that.
looks like I’m failing my resolution this year lmao

idk why I wrote this, i guess only because it’s new year’s, not much else is new.

---

3 feb 2024

I forgot I was writing a journal for a month. At least it only took a month to remember it, could have been worse. I think I forgot it because nothing big happened recently.

I’ve gotten better at fencing. I’ve actually managed to beat Jack about two weeks ago! He did make a mistake but I still won, I don’t care

I’ve also met Jane and Mike a bit since last year. We went skating a few days ago, we make sure to do that at least once every winter. It was pretty good.

Mike is lucky. He says his parents are fully covering the costs of uni for him. Wish my parents would do that.

About that, that’s why I remembered to write an entry today! I got accepted to waterloo university, in electrical engineering!!

Of course I enrolled right away, can’t wait for high school to actually end now lmao

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20 feb 2024

Maybe I should put this journal somewhere I see it better so I forget it less often.

Anyways, I’m flooded by homework right now and the only reason I’m writing here is because I don’t want to work lmao

It’s been pretty rough. I’ve just finished math homework.

My physics teacher is absolutely terrible and is not teaching what he’s supposed to teach. Right now I’m supposed to be rereading everything he gave us, because he didn’t bother teaching it and I have a test tomorrow.

I’ve also got a literary analysis to write for english. Sure wish I didn’t.

btw Jane is finally with Cody, of course it was going to happen

She always kept saying that they were good friends, but they were so obviously supposed to be together. He ended up asking her to a date on valentine’s. Hope all goes well for them lol

[Little hearts are drawn around the previous two paragraphs.]

Also Dan broke his leg. He’s not telling me how it happened but it’s probably because he fell out of a tree. I finally have an opportunity to get better than him lmao

I also finally beat all of the paths in three houses. good game, I enjoyed it a lot.

Maybe I should finally try playing it on a harder difficulty.

---

1 mar 2024

Fencing practice is a lot more boring without Dan around. Like, I know other people here and stuff, it’s just that they’re not as fun as Dan.

I feel like I’ve been having a burst of energy, now that I’ve finished what’s been going on last month. I’m doing so well at fencing right now, it would have been fun to CRUSH DAN

Actually, pretty neat thing. Mike found a pretty cool new card game. It’s a russian one called durak, it’s a lot of fun.

I really like how the game plays out. It has the same rules at the beginning, and at the end, but since the deck doesn’t reshuffle, the game completely changes how it plays out. That’s really cool.

Mike is beating me at the game, but that’s only because he knows it more than me. I’m going to beat him soon.

Also I’ve finished building a mini roomba kinda thing! It just drives around in circles and uses the proximity sensor to not hit anything. It just does that until it runs out of battery or I turn it off.

That was tough but fun to make.

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31 mar 2024

Why is nothing happening? Like everything’s been fine lately but I just have nothing interesting to put in this journal that I feel would be worth writing about.

Mike, Jane, and I are meeting up as usual, but there’s nothing really worth noting in here, you know?

Dan’s leg is still broken, nothing’s changed there.

I feel like I’m just tired of life, that I need something new to keep going. idk, hopefully uni does that for me when it comes around.

maybe the eclipse on april 8th will be fun to write about when it finally happens.

idk the only new thing that’s happened is that I finally chose to buy pokemon [sic] sword, we’ll see how that goes.