Kindergarten Kaitlin Donnelly ’15 wants you to send us your elementary school journals.

Building an identity at college can feel strange because your classmates at Kenyon didn’t necessarily know you when you were younger and scared shitless of horses. At the same time, building an identity at college is kind of awesome because I bet your classmates also didn’t know you during that braces-wearing Middle School Bully phase you went through in the seventh grade. This is a recurrent series on the Thrill devoted to embracing those horse-phobic/bully years and finding out how far we’ve come since then. Kenyon students are known for being strong in writing, but what did we write about when we were impressionable and ten years old? Find out after the jump!

Olivia Grabar Sage ’15, Sociology Major: June 11, 2002

Olivia promises her journal that she will write more often.

“Dear Diary,
Today was the last day of school, and swiming. We got our trophys. But there is this one girl in my swim class. I don’t really like her but just because she is on a swim team also they gave her a huge trophy 5Xs the size of everyone elses, and my teacher teased me when I asked why she got such a big trophy.”

It is my only hope that young Olivia one day overcame her resentment of swim teams with big trophies.

Matthew Delbridge ’16, (potential) Political Science Major: Third grade

“In October we went to the Cincinati Zoo, it was cool. We had a cool Math Night. We had a awsome Halloween party. We had a cool open house. We had awsome animal projects. October was the most awsome month!”

I mean, Ohio in October is pretty awesome.

Were you ever in fifth grade? Did you ever write about it? Send us your elementary school journals at thekenyonthrill@gmail.com!