I'm still finding out so keep checking back here to see what I'm thinking about me.

For now I'm a girl who lives near Chicago and will be 15-years-old next week.  I live with my best friend's family because my mother died from AIDS when I was 12 and my dad's been gone since I was little.  Susan's like my sister now and sometimes we fight and aren't great friends but we really are most of the time.  Her mom and dad are great and I know I'm lucky they love me and let me be part of their family.

Ok, more about me.  Last year I got my black belt in Taekwondo.  TKD is great and not just cause its for self-defense or good exercise.  It really helps me feel better about myself when I do it.   Skiing and soccer are my other favorite sports.  I play on a team and help coach a 3rd grade team.  The Women's World Cup is this summer and I can't wait to see some of the games.  Skiing is awesome, especially in Colorado where I use to live.  My uncle lives there with his family and I get to visit and go skiing alot in the winter.

The other thing I love is writing.  Mostly I write to help me let out feelings that are inside of me.  A lot of things happened cause of my dad when I was little that messed up my family and hurt my mom and me.   It messed me up on the inside too.  My poem "Wonder" tells how I feel about my dad.  My essay The Incurable Disease tells more about everything.

I put some of my poems and stories on my page because I want people to understand how bad it is when kids get hurt and abused and how messed up it makes them feel.  But I don't want people to feel sorry for me.    My mom taught me that feeling sorry for someone else is selfish if that's all you do.  Feeling sorry for someone makes YOU feel better about something bad.  But it doesn't help the person you feel sorry for.  If you feel sorry for someone you should do something to try to help them or someone else who needs help. 

I have alot of people who love me and are helping me now so if you feel sorry for me or my mom you should do something to try to help other people.  You can do something to help people with AIDS or to help abused children or battered women.  Or maybe you can even do something to help yourself if there's things that happened to you that you still feel bad about inside.

There's all sorts of ways you can help no matter where you live, even if its just something little.  Try to help people.  Don't just feel sorry for them.

I have to stop being online now and I don't know for how long.  So like I can't make more changes to my web pages except I hope maybe I'll be allowed to put on some new poems if I write any.  I can't write email to my friends to tell them so I hope they all read this.  My doctor and my family don't think I should chat or do email or anything anymore.   I got like real depressed and stuff about how the world is and like it got real bad this time again and I did things that weren't good for me.  I got back home yesterday but I had to promise not to go online after this so you can still write in my guest book but I can't write back for now. 

Rachel
May 4, 1999