Brandie Halls

   I can’t believe exams are coming already.  I have been cramming all week long.  In fact, I think I sprained my brain last night, if that’s possible.  I bet they give you a three day weekend just before you have to start cramming for exams on purpose.  It’s the calm before the storm.  Speaking of storms………man have there been a bunch of tornadoes this year or what.  I am so glad I don’t live in the middle of ‘tornado alley’.  Those poor people loose just about everything if one hits their house or business.  I feel so sorry for them.  We are taking up donations at school for bottled water, canned goods and a whole list of other things they need to send to them through my church that is sending a bus load of men and supplies to help.  It’s nice to know there are still people who care.

  You are not going to believe this but a local computer store was having a contest to give away a new Dell Laptop computer to a graduating senior from each of the local area high schools.  The store asked each of us to write a paper on how a laptop would benefit us in college.  You had just a few guidelines to follow like it had to be at least 1 full typed page, but basically the rest was totally up to you what you wrote.  I started mine off by telling them I was already accepted to Duke University in the Engineering program.  I then explained my plans to go into medical research because of my aunt dying from Leukemia and hoping to help make a difference in other peoples lives.  Of course it was in a lot more detail than I’m putting on this but the main thing is………………..I WON!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

   It’s Memorial Day Weekend and Mom can’t afford to take us anywhere this weekend.  Gas is almost $4 a gallon here.  I know I’m only in high school and none of this makes any sense to me how gas keeps going up and yet the oil companies keep making all these record profits.  How is that possible other than it looks like they’re just getting richer off of us little people.  Mom said when she started driving (back in the stone age) that gas was only .37 cents a gallon.  I asked her if that was just after they stopped using their feet like Fred Flintstone to make their cars stop and go???  She didn’t find that too funny.  Our family isn’t the only one that isn’t going anywhere.  In fact, most of my friends are just sticking around here.  Darlene’s family opened their pool and we’re all going to her house Saturday for a cook out and swim party.  Mom said something  about having a cook out Monday.  At least I’ll eat good this weekend even if we can’t afford gas.

   It wasn’t bad enough that we lost Cameron just a month or two ago and Papa Clarence died just Friday afternoon, but now this.  Jaquelyn, a good friend of mine overdosed on Cocaine on prom night.   I don’t know if she had ever done Cocaine before or not.  I didn’t think she was into drugs at all.  She’s in the Beta Club, volunteered at the hospital and was looking forward to going to nursing school this fall.  I just don’t understand.  Maybe it was her boyfriend that talked her into trying it.  He’s not someone we go to school with and is kinda known as a ‘bad boy’ but I don’t know much more than that about him.  I just don’t understand what is going on all of a sudden.  It’s like the whole world is turned upside down on me.  I don’t know how long she’ll be in the hospital and then when she gets out of there, I think she’ll be sent to a rehab place.  I’m not sure if it is drug rehab or physical/mental rehab.  I just don’t get it. 

   What a way to start prom night.  They just called me from the nursing home and told me that Papa Clarence who was 94 years old, passed away.  Bless his heart he had Alzheimer’s and thought I was his daughter, only she died when she was 19 many years ago.  Because of Papa Clarence, I did a research paper on Alzheimer’s for my senior thesis and made an ‘A’ on the paper.  The fact that I had Papa Clarence to observe and note the different phases of the disease over the 4 years that I had known him was a big help in writing my thesis.  I could put a human spin on it and not just from a medical or clinical point of view.  I included my thesis in my college application also.  It was part of the requirement for the application process.  They will bury him Sunday with full military honors.   See, he was a highly decorated WWII veteran.  He talked more about that than he did his family.  I guess that’s part of why they quit coming to see him, that and he didn’t know any of them anymore.  I just hope his family will be there because even though I’m not really family like he thought I was, I’ll be there.  The way I looked at it is he may not have known who they were, but they knew who he was.  That should have made them come see him.