If you're new here, hi. I'm Courtney, I'm 17, and I just finished my junior year. This page used to be about my cat and my swim team and my music, and most of that's still down at the bottom. But in April my dad's company moved his job to Houston, Texas, and so on Saturday, June 20, we are moving to Houston too. All of us, and Pumpkin.

So now this is my goodbye page. I'm not good at saying goodbye out loud, so I'm saying it here.

Things I'll Miss · My Friends · My Room · The Last Meet · Write To Me! · The Old Page

• Snow. Everyone keeps telling me it doesn't snow in Houston like I should be happy about it.
• The lake in July, and the dock, and jumping off it at night when the water is warmer than the air.
• Friday night fish fry with my grandparents.
• Frozen custard after practice.
• Thunderstorms you can watch coming across the fields for half an hour before they get here.
• The pool at 5:30 in the morning when the water is perfectly flat and nobody's in it yet.
• The whole state going crazy over the Packers, even me, and I don't even like football.
• The leaves in October. I hear Houston doesn't really have an October.
• Knowing every single person in the hallway at school.
• My room. (See below.)
• Everybody on the list below, most of all.

Jana - My best friend since second grade, when she gave me half her sandwich because I forgot my lunch. I have no idea how to do eleventh grade, I mean twelfth grade, without you. See? I can't even type it.

Alyssa - Relay partner, lane buddy, the one who always has an extra cap. You'll anchor now. You're ready.

Tori - Best lab partner in the history of chemistry. Sorry about the Bunsen burner thing. It grew back.

Leslie - Thank you for driving me to practice every single morning since you got your license. I owe you about a thousand dollars in gas.

Sara - Next-door neighbor, wave from the window every night. Please wave at my window after I'm gone. Somebody should.

Kristen - Youth group, the mission trip, the night the van broke down. Best worst night ever.

Saul - Funniest boy on the swim team, and that's saying something. Thank you for making me laugh at sectionals when I was about to throw up.

Kenneth - Thank you for teaching me HTML in the computer lab so I could make this page. All the mistakes are mine. You did your best.

Oscar - You know. (Not on the Internet!)

My room is at the top of the stairs, on the left, with the ceiling that slants down so you hit your head if you sit up too fast on the bed. I've hit my head about four thousand times. There are glow-in-the-dark stars on the slanty part that my dad and I put up when I was nine, in the real constellations, using a book. The Big Dipper is a little crooked because he sneezed.

There's a window seat that looks out over the backyard and Sara's house, where I've done most of my homework and all of my thinking. The walls were covered with my swim ribbons on a long string, my Titanic poster, my Matchbox 20 poster, and about a hundred pictures of everybody. Now it's all in boxes labeled COURTNEY'S ROOM in my mom's handwriting, and the room echoes when you talk in it.

I asked if I could take the stars with me. Dad said they won't come off without taking the paint. So I'm leaving them for whoever gets my room. I hope it's a kid. I hope they look up.

High school swimming is in the fall, so my real last high school meet was sectionals in November, and I didn't know then that it was my last one. But my summer club team had a dual meet yesterday, Saturday, June 13, and everybody knew that one was my last.

I swam the 100 free and got a 59.81, my best time ever by almost half a second. I think I was so sad I forgot to be nervous. Then I anchored the 200 free relay with Alyssa and two of the younger girls, and we won it by a body length, and when I touched the wall the whole team was standing at the end of the lane yelling. After the meet they gave me a banner that says WE'LL MISS YOU COURT with everybody's names on it in marker. Coach Daniels hugged me and said she already called a club in Houston to tell them I'm coming. I didn't cry until the car. Okay, I cried a little at the pool.

The banner is the one thing that isn't in a box. It's going in the car with me and Pumpkin.

My new address and phone number will be up as soon as we get the phone hooked up in Houston. Until then, my e-mail stays the same:

[email protected]

Write me about anything. What everybody's doing. Who's going out with who. What the weather is. I'll want to know all of it. And please sign my guestbook so I can read it the first night in Texas.

About Me: Courtney, 16, a junior. I swim the 100 and 200 free and the relays. I like chemistry more than I thought I would, I hate gym, and I'm saving up for a car.

Pumpkin: My cat! He's an orange tabby (so the name was kind of obvious), six years old, and he sleeps on my feet every single night whether I want him to or not. He hates the car more than anything in the world, so wish him luck on the drive to Texas. It's more than a thousand miles of complaining.

Music I'm Into Right Now:

• The Titanic soundtrack. I saw the movie three times and I play the CD every night to fall asleep. Yes, I cried every time. Yes, even the third time.
• Matchbox 20, Yourself or Someone Like You. "3AM" is the best song on it and I will fight you about this. Jana says "Push." Jana is wrong.

Swim Team: Varsity since freshman year. Practice every morning at 5:30, which is why I'm asleep in first hour. Best events: 100 free and anchoring the 200 free relay.