Jensen House

 Our new church group is about as bad as I thought it would be. They like me and my sisters there but I am always wishing that I was with my old group. Gaston and I are still together despite not seeing each other as much. We see each other on the weekends and we have a lot of fun. I don't really get why he only wants to see me on the weekends but it's better than nothing. He and I get in really brutal fights though. If it's not great, it's horrible. One day, we text fight so badly that I decide I will only have this conversation face to face. So my good friend and I get in her car, drive to his school and I demand that he come out and fight with me in person. We are yelling, throwing our arms around, pointing fingers and cursing. He puts his finger really close in my face and my friend looks like she's going to get out of her car to intervene. People are staring while we yell at each other on the field. He tells me that people are telling him that I'm bad news ...

 At a party during the summer before grade twelve, someone decides to play this horrible game. It was kind of a thing to play horrible games at these parties and make horrible choices, but we kept doing it. For this particular game, someone asks someone else a question. In this case, someone asked one of the girls who their least favourite person at the party was. Then if those two people say the same number at the same time, they have to reveal what the question and answer were. So she's asked who her least favourite person at the party was, they said the same number and she revealed in front of the whole party that I was her least favourite person there. I look to Gaston for help and he's laughing hard. He does pat my back to comfort me but everyone in the room had mixed reactions of laughing, cringing, and standing up for me. The girl texts me privately and apologizes a lot. But ouch, I already didn't like myself so it stung a bit to know that my "friend" also ...

 Rehearsals for Mamma Mia start and I think the show is going to be really good. I think it did help that I was finally a lead but I was also having a lot of fun with Hans. Although I'm in this complicated situation with Gaston, I start to think what things could be like if Hans and I ended up together. He really thinks that I am just great and he doesn't shy away from telling me. He always hugs me and compliments me in rehearsals. We have insane onstage chemistry that people in the class start to spread rumours that I like him. All of the girls are in love with Hans so they're really jealous that he and I are becoming closer. I tell them that I love Gaston and that Hans and I are just really good friends.  Hans is playing Sam in Mamma Mia, so if you know the show you know that Donna and Sam get married in the end. The script did have a kiss in it, but no teacher was going to make us kiss if we didn't want to, except we really did want to. Over text one night, Hans and ...

Some time in grade eleven, Manda and I decided that it was time for our own rooms. Our house was small but big enough that we could have our own rooms if the younger two girls shared. So we moved into our own rooms and I feel like it was pretty underwhelming. It's funny how as kids, all we want is our own room. There were many nights that Manda and I spent arguing over who was going to turn the light off at night. Or nights where I was trying to sleep while she had friends over and they were being silly. I like to keep my space as messy as possible and she likes to be really neat, bed made and clothes put away. But there were also nights we spent laughing. Times where we made music videos on Video Star with Jordan or times when our mutual friends came over and we all stayed up together. So many good chats, belly laughs and fond memories. We moved into our own rooms, but what I would give to be sixteen sharing a room with my big sister again.   Gaston and I were pretty much sti...

 September of 2017, I was going into grade eleven. I was still dating Gaston and going strong with him since February. I like being someone's girlfriend. We don't really see each other outside of church activities and group get-togethers because we're still young and our parents ran a tight ship. But we had already said that we loved each other. I wanted to be this guy's wife. My family was not thrilled about me having a steady boyfriend at sixteen and they didn't seem to really like him in general. But they didn't know him like I knew him and they were going to have to get on board because we were going to get married one day.  Our school musical that year was going to be The Music Man. None of us were happy with this choice and we all considered boycotting the theatre program because "there's no way they'll do it without us" because we "held the program together" or something. We all bomb our auditions and I am left with a small rol...

 I finish grade ten feeling accomplished and relieved. We do a production of Hairspray (again, with only white kids) and I play Penny Pingleton. It's not the lead but there are a few singing parts that I really like and I got to act romantic opposite with a good friend of mine. I maybe should have mentioned this before, but I was kind of a legend in my high school for singing. I would sing O Canada on the announcement every Monday morning, our school put on a singing competition every year and I always participated. The song that I always came back to was "I Know Where I've Been" from Hairspray. It's a powerful, soulful song about struggle, identity and fighting for equal rights. So of course nobody found fault with a white sixteen year old singing it over and over again, right? So if you're familiar with that show, you know that Penny Pingleton doesn't sing that song, Motormouth Mabel does. The girl who was casted as Motormouth was actually black, therefo...