How We Met:

Jessica: I probably met Anna sometime in kindergarden, but she was in Morning and I was in Afternoon, so I wouldn't have remembered her. We both owe our friendship to our little sisters, Erin (Anna's) and Laura (mine). Laura switched preschools when she was three, and started going to the same one that Erin was going to. They became good friends, and as they started going to each other's houses, I'm sure Anna and I met. But we didn't become good friends until first grade, or that's what Anna says. I don't remember meeting Anna in first grade, but then again, I don't remember ever meeting her, no particular time, or place, or day when that we met comes to my mind. When I think about it, it's sort of like Anna's been my friend forever. I don't remember a period when we knew eachother, but weren't great friends yet either. Ever since whenever it was that we met, we have been good friends.

I first met Aleah in seventh grade. She and Anna had become good friends so she started sitting at our lunch table. I thought that she was pretty anoying (then again, every single friend I've made since about fifth grade I thought was anoying when I first met them), so I basically ignored her. But Aleah didn't really ignore me. Once again, my memory is hazy when I try to think back to when I began to think that she was actually okay, I think that my opinion of her must of changed gradually so I didn't really realize what was happening, until I found that I thought of her as a good friend. That was probably around the middle of the school year. The funny thing is, when I think about it, I can't remember why I ever thought Aleah was anoying in the first place.

Anna:    How I met Jessica: We've been friends for so long that it's hard to really picture never....... "living life without her" sounds a bit too melodramatic, although it comes pretty close to the truth. I can't imagine never having met her. We didn't originally meet on our own, we met through our little sisters, who went to the same pre-school at the time. Over time, our sisters became friends and began to go over to each others houses. Somewhere along the line, Jessica and I met each other. We went to the same school, and even though we never had any classes together until 7th grade, we managed to become best friends. In first grade, during sometime in the middle of winter, I was put into the after-school Campfire program. Jessica had been going to it full time beginning in kindergarten, and since I knew her more than anyone else, she was the one who showed me my way around on the first day. I don't like calling someone my "best" friend, because that makes it unfair to everyone else. I have more than one "best" friend, but Jessica is the best friend that I've known the longest.

How I met Aleah: It all started that first fateful day of 7th grade. Apparently, my schedule was inaccurate, and the teachers were sending me back and forth between classes. I ended up in the Language Arts classroom, where Ms. Barter was giving the "1st day of middle school" lecture. I walked in, interrupting her, which resulted in everyone looking at me. I explained the situation to her, and she told me to sit down until she got it figured out. I took the closet empty seat to me, where about 3 other girls were sitting at the table. I could tell they knew each other by the way they talked, and I felt very out of place. Aleah was one of the girls at the table, though I might not have known it at the time. We never really talked until we turned in our personality projects, a day when Aleah and I discovered we both had a very crazy passion for cats. We started talking in that class, and then in gym class; another class we both had together. We were talking one day, and somehow figured out that her grandmother and grandfather lived very close to where I lived; only about four houses away from where my house was. She said they had a dog, and I said I knew there was someone who walked a dalmation around the block for ever since I could remember. The people who walked the dog were her grandparents, and she commented on how, when she was little, she would go over to their house almost every Thursday. We marveled at how we never saw each other all those years, and things just took off from there.

Aleah: I met Anna on the first day of 7th grade in our language arts class. I was sitting at a table with other people that I knew and she came and sat down next to us. Later, our teacher gave us an assignment to make a pamphlet about ourselves. Anna?s was covered in pictures of cats. I was like, "Oh, do you like cats too? I love cats" and she was like, "I LOVE cats!" We started talking and talked some more. Then we found out we were in the same gym class so we talked some more and in the process of talking, we discovered that she lived down the street from my grandparents! As we continued to talk we became better and better friends. I started sitting with her at lunch and that?s how I met Jessica.

When I first started sitting with Anna, nobody really talked. I was scared of Jessica and the other people who sat with Anna. I guess that eventually we started talking because I got to know her more and more. She turned out to be really nice. We are all good friends now.

We all go to the same school, Aleah is fourteen, Anna just turned fourteen and Jessica is still thirteen.

How Often We Met:

We met everyday at lunch to work on it during the week before it was due, and occasionally when we had other time. Jessica worked on it almost everyday after Winter break, and Anna and Aleah gathered information throughout.

Distribution of Work:

Division of Research: Originally, we divided the work up so we each had six disasters to research. Jessica had: avalanches, tornados, floods, hurricanes, tropical storms, and landslides. Anna had: blizzards, ice storms, sand storms, typhoons, tsunamis, and earthquakes. Aleah had: forest fires, drought, volcanic eruptions, lahars, mudflows, and cyclones. We were each suppose to have a paragraph on each by the end of Winter Break. As we researched, we figured out that some of the natural disasters were basically the same thing. We ended up combining subtropical cyclones and typhoons, Anna and Aleah each contributed a paragraph to this page. The only other thing that changed with Anna's topics was that she wrote one paragraph on earthquakes, and Jessica did the rest. We figured out that landslides was a big category that included mudflows and lahars,so Jessica did the page on landslides, except for the paragraph on lahars, which Aleah did. Jessica couldn't find very much information on tropical storms, so she made it tropical cyclones and got information on the broader category.

Division of Other Work: Jessica put together all the pages. Anna found one picture for blizzard, and Jessica found the other two, Anna found one picture for sandstorm and Jessica found the other, Anna found one picture for tsunami, and Jessica found the other. Jessica found the pictures for ice storms, and all the pictures for all of her topics. Aleah found the pictures for all of her topics. We all helped with the editing and the selecting of background colors.