The England Story

Last night I couldn't sleep, so I decided to read some of my extremely old diaries.
I have about six diaries all from around the same time. Why I kept lots of diaries simultaneously between about 1999 to around 2003 and each one only has about 4 entries in it, I have no idea. I was a strange child.

I am strangely intrigued at how intelligent, yet completely childish they are. They are all about boys I liked or friend problems, and that was the childish part. However, they are all meticulously dated, have very few spelling errors and interesting word choice. Very impressed with my 10-year-old self.

Now, there was one particular diary that I love the most. I snort-laughed last night, while trying to stay quiet, while reading it. I think it was probably one of my first diaries, and it's a self-designed Hunchback of Notre Dame diary. Very pretty. There's only two entries. The second one was dated Jan. 27, Sunday, 2000 (which would make me nine years old) and it simply said:

Today I am going swimming with Ariel.

However, it's the first entry that is extraordinary. It isn't dated, but since I'm assuming I got the diary for Christmas in 1999, I must have still been nine. I will let you read it for yourself, but I love it. The original is handwritten (quite badly) and in pencil. Here it is, absolutely verbatim from the diary (down to the punctuation), titled simply: The England Story.

The ship was at sea. The Captain was beening warned about a coral reef. The alarm went off. The ship hit the coral reef, than it sank. All but one drowned. That one was a lady. The lady who started england, her name was elizabeth.

Wasn't that beautiful? Here were my immediate thoughts:

- Did I really think this was how England began? Or was it like some freaky imagination thing that frequently happens with me?
- I can't believe I thought Elizabeth was the first ruler of England!
- Where is the ship and everybody else on it from?
- I can't believe I spelt "Captain" right, but I couldn't capitalize Elizabeth or England (even though it's capitalized in the title).
- So... she started an entire country... all by herself...
- Who was giving this "coral reef warning"? It's as if the reef came out of nowhere.
- Are there many coral reefs near the British Isles?
- What exactly is "beening"?

Oh well, I was entertained. It's fascinating to read my writing now and read my writing from 10 years ago. There's a slight difference, I hope. At least grammatically.

Just thought I would share that little tidbit.

Pip pip.