an ode to girlfriends

during tenth and parts of eleventh grade, a bunch of us (asian) girls at Woodlands obessed over these fobby day planners. We each owned one, giving Morning Glory a surge of business. It was a daily routine to swap books and fill Babu or Blue Bear pages with the daily gossip and how much that school day sucked. In retrospect, the messages were all embarrassing frivilous and ever so teenage-ish, but at the time, we held those notes dear to our hearts for our friends had put such thought and time into writing them.

I found my Chenney planner while cleaning my basement the other day-- Chenney the angel with all her pretty pinkness. Oh! the time I spent with her, filling her with stickers, cheesy l'il qoutes and pictures. She was my constant companion and a reliable reminder of when choir practice, badminton games and, most importantly, birthdays were.

My favourite notes entries in Chenney were stories written by Kim and Kary. I shall share for the amusement of my dear 'ol highschool chums.

"Once upson a time there were 5 friends: Tamie Jam, Chemily An, Kary Kwak, Chinnie Wung and Lim Kuu! The 5 friends all attended the wonderful Weedlands highschool and all had eyes for a significant other 'cept Jamie who had a steady bf but sill had a few side obsessions... 20 yeasr L8R @ the reunion, walking in the door, Chemily in a ratty old DKNY jacket bumped into a smartly dressed Kary w/ something by her foot. Emily had an MD but decided to be a starving artist instead and Kary was a surgeon/cartoonist and the thing at her ankle was TOM*! Her highschool sweetheart... guess he shrunk even more =)

Chatting together happily, Tamie walks up. They all look upwards at an ever so tall Tamie** with Matt on one arm, Kram on the other... with a big smile on her face! after awhile... they spot Lim. Lim was also a succesful doctor... and was married to a very much taller fej! They finally caught up with what had happened... but... WHERE IS WINNIE?!?!? Suddenly... the door flies open and 101 little tiny cute kids come bursint in... right behind them is no other than... WINNIE & J*******!! They'd gotten married and by the looks of it, kept quite busy."
~ Written by Ms. Kimberly Luu

"Once upson a time there were these penquins that lived in Antarctica. Em, one of the penguins who had just moved to Antartica met a bunch of girl penguins who took Em for some bubble tea,. yay! they plodded to Just Antartica Bubbles****. Afterwards they decided to go shopping at ICE ONE, the local "chilling" place. They bumped into many fellow penguins... Edwin, Kevin, Jason Tran etc*****... and an especially "hunka-ma-junka" penguin****** that caught Em's attention. "Yes, there are many good looking penguins here. Come to our school" Jamie said. "oh really?" Em commented. "i guess I'll hafta get used to living here!" And so, Em the postal penguin becaue a fob and lived happily ever after with her new penguin friends."
~ Written by Ms. Kary Kwok

* our crushes all went by nicknames. we were smart like that.
** I'm sure Jamie has grown another inch, if not two, since highschool
*** Heeheehee!
**** Just Bubbles was the only bubble tea place in Mississauga at the time and we used to visit during our lunch hours because we weren't cool enough to hang out night like the popular kids.
***** stupid l'il boys who had crushes on me
****** Kary had drawn a picture of a tall penguin with spiky hair and a suede jacket, referring to the boy whom I was "dealing with. "dealing" was a term used to describe the pre-dating aspect of a relationship. you know, you like one another and admitted to liking at one another, but there's also all this other drama to first deal with first-- so you just "deal".

Addendum: Win's is making me code her then infatuation's name. In the original document, Kim had had spelt out his real name and bolded it.