I found this incomplete entry from 9/18/04. I started it, saved the draft, and never finished it. Take a look, maybe I’ll pick up where it left off in another entry:

At the end of the school year, practically everyone remarks, “Wow, I can’t believe the year went by so fast!”

Of course, I would scoff at this exclamation. The year did not go by very fast: The ridiculous amount of work made the year creep by.

I remember distinctly at the end of eighth grade that I felt time was moving just right. I didn’t need it to speed up, so I could get to drive and then grow up; I didn’t need it to slow down, because I was getting ready to at least start growing up. That summer, I attended the Advanced Internet Classroom at ATDP, and the pace of that class drifted at just the right velocity.

Ninth grade messed up my perception of time, and I can trace it to one specific date: 9/11, 2001. No matter how many months we progressed through, I still felt as if I could just peek over my shoulder, and 9/11 would be right behind me. Now, I live in California, about as far away as you can get from New York, in the continental US, and I didn’t know anyone who died in 9/11 — nonetheless, it affected me that greatly…