Time Capsule: 2004
A 12-year-old measures a year.
I’m unpacking manila envelopes I stuffed with memorabilia in end-of-year rituals from 2003 through 2007. This is the second entry in my Time Capsule series. Read the first entry here.
In 2004, I finished sixth grade and started seventh. As sixth graders, we ruled our elementary school, a la Rizzo and the Pink Ladies, minus the sex, drugs, alcohol, and singing. Younger kids followed us around, and I still brought my bulky red lunchbox to school because I hadn’t yet learned that brown paper bags signaled sophistication. Seventh grade was a rude awakening. My junior high went through ninth grade, and as a preteen in a sea of teens, I encountered a harsh new reality where adults didn’t trust me automatically. The school administration, the yard duties, and the teachers — a crowd I used to have some nice sixth grade smart-girl sway with — all thought I was trying to get away with something. (Me?!)
Kids started going out with each other, which didn’t require going anywhere, only saying you intended to. Of course, I went out with no one. I told my parents it was just pretend, but they still wouldn’t let me. :-( They also didn’t let me have AIM, which was where most of these relationships were brokered. I didn’t have social media yet, but I shared a silver flip phone with my older sister. She had 90% custody of it, and I spent my sweet 10% on it playing Snake and prank calling my friend Rachel’s house to ask if she’d bring me my ChapStick, a la Napoleon Dynamite. Her mom told her a “deranged boy” was on the phone, so I was quite proud of my acting job.
Puberty came for all of us that year, if it hadn’t already, and we couldn’t hide it, because we had to undress for PE in the junior high locker room. Our gym clothes were hideous: gray polyester t-shirts and knee length basketball shorts. Some girls rolled their waistbands until the shorts looked sort of cute, and tied their t-shirts so they showed a little midriff, but of course that was all against the dress code, along with spaghetti straps and wearing five or more items of clothing in the same color at once (gangs). However, I regularly broke that rule with six articles of pink clothing, and no one noticed! (So I was getting away with something…) We learned to hold our arms straight down by our sides and curl our fists to prove/pray our shorts were long enough. Otherwise, we got dress cut — a regional term, most know it as “dress coded” — and had to wear our gym clothes for the rest of the day.
“Time Capsule - 2004!” - Annotated 19 years later
In keeping with the original capsule, the Table of Contents is written on Tinkerbell notepaper. In an upgrade from year one, the contents are divided into four categories: Letters; Travels; Media: Movies, TV, Music, and Books; and Random.
Letters
Letter from Mom & Dad & Allison to me when I was on a sixth grade overnight trip
My mom wrote it and signed it with their names, but I suppose they can all get credit.
Letter from me to my family and our Korean exchange student Jane
I drew Otus, a screech owl I’d met on the aforementioned school trip, who was blinded in one eye. I reported on the “neat hike in the rain” and illustrated a ropes course challenge, before signing it, “love you, got to go,” which is how I used to sign my diary entries, too.
Notes from Clair & Isabel & Rachel, left in my locker when I was sick
In junior high, my friends and I memorized each other’s locker combinations so we could leave each other notes in them. According to the pile of consecutive letters, I was out sick for the final week of October, including the day everyone at school dressed up for Halloween. Isabel reported, “Halloween at [our school] is just like in Mean Girls.” Apparently there was a bunny, like Regina. In science class, they made a yummy drink with dry ice. In English, they played eerie music and read scary stories. Luckily, I made a miraculous recovery by Sunday the 31st, in time for the four of us to trick-or-treat as Edgar Degas and three ballerinas from his paintings.
Travels
German Museum Ticket; German Chocolate Wrapper; “A Tour Through Schloss Burg” Brochure and Ticket
That summer, my family went to Germany. At the home of some old relatives I’d never met, I pushed pork, pineapple, and gravy around on my plate and thought about how lucky my sister was. She didn’t have to eat this, because she was still at her German host family’s house where they sprinkled MSG packets on pasta like parmesan cheese.
On this trip, we saw museums, cathedrals, castles, and rolling hills, and we ate so much chocolate. We were chastised for ordering Kaffee und Kuchen at a cafe either too early or too late in the day, I don’t remember which. My knitting needles were confiscated in the airport, and I’ll never forget the word the agent screamed at me: “Stricknadeln!”
Tube Map and Ticket
After Germany, we went to London, where we visited relatives I’d already met who taught me that it’s always teatime.
List from Oma of all the places Opa’s shirts and sweaters are from
My grandmother catalogued my grandfather’s closet and hand-wrote a list of 15 countries on an index card and mailed it to us. I would confidently bet she wrote this on at least four index cards and mailed them to all of her children. Clearly, I appreciated the effort!
Student Journal from Sixth Grade Outdoor Ed
In this activity book, we drew maps and wrote about night hikes, day hikes, and what we learned about owl eyes (They have clear eyelids that come in from the side like windshield wipers?! Wild if true.) At the end of the week, we split up and found quiet places to sit and journal. Mine was beneath manzanita trees, which I’ve loved ever since because they are cool to the touch.
An excerpt:
“Sitting here, I feel safe and touched. Touched like when you read a great poem. That kind. Like you’re the only one there. I’m not wearing a sweater, just a t-shirt, so I feel cool (as in temp). I’m in almost solitude. This is how I feel at the ocean, my favorite place in the world.
Something I learned about myself this week is that
I don’t get very homesick. This week I never thought ‘I miss my home so much.’ (Even though I love my family and all, duh)
I can have fun/get along with a lot of people. It doesn’t matter much who I’m with.”
Thinking Day “Passport”
I was never a good Girl Scout, but I made it through elementary school and this particular activity.
Utah Ski School Report Card and Day Passes
I graduated from the Gliders level with flying colors! A girl in my group kept telling everyone she was “soon to be 12,” but her birthday was five months away. This has the same energy as when I was three and used to say, “I’m three but I like to pretend I’m four.” Girl, you are eleven!
Sixth Grade Certificates, Tests, and an Unsigned Note from a Classmate
“Participation awards don’t really count, but I guess you can be proud of that Algebra Readiness score.” — my inner critic
Battle of the Books chart
My friends and I had been the reigning champs of this town-wide elementary school competition, where teams of four read seven books and then answered detailed trivia questions for a reward I can’t remember! (Maybe pizza?) This chart indicates each book was read five to eight times between the four of us, but this may have been the year we were finally dethroned.
Junior High Schedule
Seven, count ‘em, seven classes, in seven rooms, with seven teachers. The sign you’ve made it (to junior high).
Junior High Twelfth Night Program, Schedule, and Script
In our school production of Twelfth Night, I played one of Olivia’s six attendants —characters created by the teacher/director because too many girls auditioned for the play, and everyone had to get a part. We split Olivia’s lines between the seven of us (Olivia plus six), and we wore black dresses and moved in a pack.
Fruit Still Life from Art Class
Pears and grapes in number 2 pencil on paper. I got an A.
Media: Movies, TV, Music, and Books
Newspaper clippings on the Oscar Academy Awards
The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King won, and the Sacramento Bee reporter loved Naomi Watts’ dress and hated Uma Thurman’s.
WB printouts on One Tree Hill (which I don’t like anymore, The OC is better), Chad Michael Murray, Amanda Bynes, and horoscope
I love that I clarified that The OC was better — I still cite it as my biggest TV influence — and yet I continued to watch OTH for 100 more episodes at least and still loyally listen to the rewatch podcast Drama Queens. I actually have so much more to say on this topic; I warn you an OTH essay may arrive in your inbox someday.
Lyrics to “Girl All the Bad Guys Want”
These lyrics are printed off the internet onto the back of my sister’s German homework. I called the radio station 107.9 The End to request this song at least once, but they played it hourly so I could have just waited.
Funny Parts of Princess Diaries books
I photocopied my favorite pages from the library books to save jokes for posterity.
Pirates of the Caribbean Novelization that Kristina and I made notes in
According to our annotations, Kristina had seen the film 11 times, I a measly three, though I vowed to bring up my number. Like any crush, Orlando Bloom had a code name, so we could talk about him without him noticing. His was “Cookie.”
Random
Very Odd Paper Written with a Typewriter
Two decades before Taylor Alison Swift sang, “Who uses typewriters anyway,” I plugged in an electric typewriter and typed stream of consciousness interspersed with the lyrics to Blink 182’s “I Miss You,” then declared the product “very odd.”
I must address and retract an entry in my first time capsule post about 2003.
Eleven-year-old me stuffed this item into the capsule:
“Rubber Band Bracelet that Won’t Get into the Right Shape”
Thirty-one-year-old me of three months ago had this to say:
“The rubber band bracelet that wouldn’t get into the right shape is missing, lost to time and memory. What color was it? Who stretched it? Why did I save it? Where did it go?! We’ll never know.”
Past me was so certain this mystery would never be solved. Yet here we are, mere months later, and the “rubber band bracelet that won’t get in the right shape” has come back into my life! The humble bracelet was misfiled into the 2004 manila envelope at some point in the past two decades, and now I can tie a bow on this mystery, and answer all burning questions one by one…
What color was it?
White with blue gel pen spelling out: “study learn sing dance write practice act smile work.” This brings up new questions… Was this a mantra of sorts? Or a weekly schedule? And to what “work” was I referring?
Who stretched it?
I’ll take full responsibility.
Why did I save it?
Why did I save any of this? I wanted to measure a year. I wanted evidence of a pre-smart phone world. I didn’t want my child self to be forgotten, or left behind. I thought I might still care.
Where did it go?!
Into the 2004 envelope, by mistake.
Anyway, case closed. Stay cool (as in temp). Love you, got to go,
Savannah
Can completely relate to the difficult transition from 6th grade (Elementary School) to Junior High (7-9th grade). Going from being Kings and Queens of one school to feeling like under-developed pre-teen nobodies among intimidating, gangly, insecure teenagers, some with a need to demonstrate their superiority. Maybe that was just in Brooklyn in 1961. Always enjoy your sharing of memories.