Okay, I still dunno if this whole journal-thing is really dumb or really cool.

Maybe it’s both.

Can it be both?

Hmm…

I dunno. But the reason is super dumb no matter what. ‘Cause this whole thing started because of school. And school is pretty much the dumbest thing in the whole entire world.

Miss Li is making us do a project about ‘tradition’. We’re supposed to figure out something that’s a tradition in our family and share it with the class (See? Dumb).

For some kids it was super easy to figure it out.

Sophie started talking all about how everybody in her family cooks, and how Vietnamese food is the best food in the world. I’ve been to her house for dinner a couple times, and it is pretty good. But my Papa could cook the pants off anybody in her family. I know it. I’d never ever tell her that though.

Then I remember Katie making this super long, super boring speech about how her family has this fancy vacation house in Switzerland and they go skiing there every year and blah blah blah. That’s when I turned off my hearing aid and just sorta tuned her out. She’s so mean and so annoying ALL the time. She’s such a bully, and she thinks she’s better than everybody. Ugh!

Anyway, it felt like everyone else already knew what they were gonna talk about. But I had NO idea. I was gonna ask mom or Papa about it, but I decided to ask Oma instead. Old people know all about that kinda stuff right? And my Oma’s pretty cool too. For an Oma, I mean.

But when I asked her, she got all weird about it. She was almost like, crying and stuff. It was so embarrassing! I got a big speech about how special it is to keep a journal and all the people in the family who had one. She said all this stuff about ‘preserving memories’ and ‘carrying on the family legacy’ (What the heck does that even mean?!)

Then she got Papa in the room and it just got worse. He started making his own speech about it too. Papa said he was planning on getting me a journal when I was a little older, but he’s really excited that I’m ‘so interested already’. Then he was going on and on about how fun it is to write about your life. And helpful too, he said. Because it’s so therapew… therapu..? Whatever.

Anyway, I really wanted to turn my hearing aid off and try to ignore them too, but I knew I couldn’t. That’d be super mean. And I’m not like Katie. I’m nice! So I just kinda nodded and let them be all sappy and hoped they’d stop.

And then they did.

But then like two hours later mom came home from work and gave me my own journal. And I didn’t even ask for one!

I told Oma and Papa I was just asking about it because it was homework. But I guess they got too excited about it. I think Papa called mom and told her to get one for me on the way home.

Or she COULD be psychic… But I have a feeling it was probably just Papa.

The good news is it’s pink though. One of my favorite colors. Which is kinda cool. And maybe the writing part might be kinda cool too.

Maybe. A big maybe.

We’ll see.