The Jessica Journals:

I fully thought the moment I walked out of the University of Fox Valley after four days spent within its hallowed halls marked the end of my association with academia. However, fate and I rarely see eye to eye.

My youngest sister Julia is just beginning her freshman year of high school. This, of course, involves a number of things foremost among which is a move to a new school. Normally, school registration has been a relatively painless process for the students in my family if only because we have all attended small schools. Julia, however, is attending a large school, so registration involved being crammed into a cramped vestibule with one thousand other people and spending half the day slowly being herded, like so much cattle, through a stuffy, enclosed hallway to an equally crowded library where, finally, after what seems like a lifetime of agony you finally got to pick up your school schedule and supply list. Of course, if you're my mom and my sister Julia you said, "Screw this," after an hour or so and ducked out to get a smoothie.

Ditching school may feel good at the time, but it leaves you with the inevitable problem of getting registered later on. This problem was made even more difficult by the fact that my sister was so worn out from standing in line that she went up to her room and promptly fell asleep.

Sleeping beauty or no, registration had to be completed. Therefore, my mother and I returned to the high school of horror in the hope that the Powers That Be would allow us to register Julia without my sister actually being present.

We arrived half an hour after the registration was supposed to be over. Students were still waiting.

...However, the place had cleared out considerably and instead of waiting three hours, my mother and I were able to waltz up to the main desk and talk to someone almost immediately.

"So, Julia," said the person glancing up at me, "you're starting school here?"

The fact that I was mistaken for a fourteen year old probably had more to do with the exhaustion caused by having to register one thousand, tired, angry, restless people than anything else, but please don't tell this twenty-three year old that.

I shrugged my shoulders and made a non-committal grunt, which the person took to be an affirmative answer. She proceeded to hand over some papers and instruct my mother and myself on how to complete the registration process.

"I don't think this is a good idea," my mother said in a low voice, a stricken look upon her face, as we headed over to the next table in the registration process.

"Oh, please, Mom," I begged. "It'll be so much fun, and Julia needs to be registered."

"All...right," she reluctantly relented, unable to hide a wince of pain.

We breezed through the various registration stations, picking up papers here and forging Julia's signature to documents there.

"Hee hee! This is fun," I thought to myself, all the while doing my best to look like a quiet, wide-eyed freshman. "I wonder if anyone will comment that I look old for my age."

"Ow. My stomach," my mother groaned.

Finally, it was time to get my picture taken for Julia's school ID. It's a well known fact that you could have a picture of Barney on your ID and nobody would notice, this goes double for a cheap high school ID.

I sat on the stool and looked into the camera, doing my best to look like a pretty, innocent fourteen-year-old.

"My stomach. My stomach," I heard someone muttering from somewhere behind me.

Three minutes later the ID was printed, we finally were allowed to have a copy of Julia's schedule and supply list, and my mom and I were out of there.

But, that's not the last Julia's high school has seen of me. I'll be coming back every weekday for the next nine months on Julia's ID.