December 31, 1999

Okay, it's 6:21pm on the last day of the year. And of the decade. And of the century. And of the millennium! We weren't allowed to use our computers today, because people think the switch to year "00" will screw them up or something. There are fireworks at the high school at 7pm, and I'm going with my parents.

There's been a lot of talk that the world is going to end tonight, at midnight. I don't think that's true at all, but I'm not really that sure. I think it will be midnight and then keep going, no differently than in years past. But just in case... I don't know, it's scary to even think about, but just in case the world ends tonight, I want to sum up my life quickly.

So far, it's been pretty normal. I am an average 13-year-old girl, I'm pretty sure. I've made a lot of mistakes but I've also accomplished a lot. And if every living thing is destroyed at midnight tonight, and then like, a billion years in the future, life re-happens, and somehow this diary survives those billion years and is found by those new lifeforms, and they are somehow able to decode it... I hope it gives them a good idea of what life was like. [How positively charming that I saw my own life as representative of the human experience.]

Wouldn't it be weird if that actually did happen, and the new lifeforms are reading this and thinking how weird it is? Wow. But I have to go to the fireworks now. If I don't get a chance to write again when I get back, then this is the last time I'll write in my diary in this millennium! How strange! So this is Emily Lindin, signing off.

[I remember the feeling of gravity with which I closed my diary after writing this entry. Lucky for us all, this diary will not be the only piece of evidence available to future lifeforms by which to judge human life. Thank god.]