I'm a girl. This journal is almost 10 years old, when I started it, I called it Almost 21. Before that, I had a journal called Soap on a domain that no longer exists. Some things have changed since then, some things haven't. I always wanted to be a writer. I live out that dream here.
Two of the best weeks of my teenage life have been encapsulated in the teddy bear diary. Marked on its pages, a diverse collection of colourful scribbles make up memories of people that I had forgotten about, people that I will never see again, and some people that I will not remember, even if I do see them. In the ritualistic good bye ceremony that is so prevalent during high school years, everyone has signed my autograph book, even the people I did not know.
Seven years ago, running around with the teddy bear diary and �cool� rainbow pen, teary me had no idea as to what significance lies in attempting to obtain everyone�s signatures in the book. If they are not my friends, if we have not spoken, what is the point? Yet they are willing, and do it anyway. And even though I do not remember who they are, seven years later the words of some will etch an inexplicable profoundness in my mind, and sometimes even my heart.
We fondly called it Geek-Fest, but the science camp was much more than that. The gathering of intelligent young minds from around the country turned out to be a party of incredible people that grew to find that they had much more in common with each other than science and math, and as many differences as they had similarities. A group of ever tolerant, patient young people that could learn as much from their peers as they could teach them.
A group of people that looked as different from one another as fish do from birds, but meshed because of one fundamental similarity that was evident in all of them by their participation in the camp: their willingness to learn, not just about math and science, but about each other. It was the sowing of lifelong friendships, rivals and even relationships, and for me, the first time in a new country that I felt like I belonged.
Of the multitude of latent signatures in the teddy bear book, five were by those who grew to be my lifelong friends, like Jonno, who I spent my early university years hanging out with, and once thought I was in love with.
There were many that signed that I would like to look up, and rekindle my friendship with, like David Taylor. Gentle spoken, blue-eyed David Taylor, who has told me in his left-handed scrawl that I should be proud of being a wallflower, and I wonder, would he be surprised if he met me now and realised that I am no longer the wallflower he once briefly knew? David Taylor, who quickly etched his way into my heart during the last few days of those two weeks, and even the months following, who could tell me from experience that colour blind people did not have trouble with traffic lights.
There are many that I have forgotten, and will probably never remember.
And there are those that I will never see again.
�I haven�t really talked much with you, but I hope you enjoy life and hope we meet again sometime.�
On 5:58 AM Saturday, the last day of the camp, Ryan has signed on the last page of the teddy bear diary. I did not know Ryan well. If my memory serves me correctly, he was short with dark brown hair, which he took some care to gel into spikes. If I had walked past him on the street after those two weeks, I probably would not have known who he was. He might have become a friend, or stayed an inconsequential acquaintance in my life, but I will never know for sure.
Because less than a year after what may also have been the best two weeks of Ryan�s teenage life, Ryan died. And for those that choose to keep it, his memory lives in a seemingly silly little autograph book; a trifling message from a person they did not know, but could have.