Changing the View

By Kaemon

October 23rd

My name is Ranma Saotome, and currently one of the best martial artists around. I may be beaten, but I never stay down. I have a very unusual problem which causes many issues in my daily life, a Jusenkyo curse to be exact. With cold water I turn into a female version of myself, and with hot water I change back to my original male self. Of course if you're reading this you probably already know who I am and all of this information is useless. Something you probably don't know is today is my 17th birthday, and obviously I got this journal as a gift. Doesn't seem like such a great gift at first, but when you consider that it was given to me by Ryoga, who happened to just by chance find the dojo today, it actually isn't to bad. It's much better then him attacking me out of the blue anyway. Obviously he hadn't planed on giving it to me, and it didn't seem like he knew it was my birthday either, but after he found out that he had walked into the middle of a birthday party he reached into his bag and pulled out a thick black book with golden spirals on the front. It took me a few minutes to realize what it was. I was stumped at first; what kind of book has nothing but blank pages? It wasn't until Kasumi exclaimed, "Oh! It's a journal." that I actually realized what it was.

Looking at it now it's actually rather nice. The pages are lined but they have a almost glossy feel to them, and if I wrote every day it would take me at least two years to fill this book up if I use one page a day and use front and back.

What do most people write in a journal? I suppose it's just what happened to you that day.

Well, it's not like I'd have anything else to write in it.

The day started quite peacefully actually. Pops didn't even try to wake me up to spar with him. Though I believe that's because Akane threatened him last night to give me a break today. Breakfast was of course normal by my standards, and by that I mean I only had to defend my food like my life depended on it. I'm surprised the old man is as fat as he is. With as much work as he does to steal the little bit of food he gets off my plate I'm sure he uses more energy then it gives him.

After breakfast Kasumi asked Akane and me to go down to the store to get some things for tonight, and since neither of us had anything important to do today we both went off to the store. The fastest way to the store is to go down the street and then cut through the park which at that time in the morning usually has kids playing around in it or people walking their pets. Foolishly I stopped at a drinking fountain to get a drink. I say foolishly because I should know by now that any source of water will spray me at any chance it gets.

So now I'm going to the store slightly damp and female. Before leaving the park we did meet a stray dog that Akane petted, but when I tried to it seemed to jump out of the way. It was slightly annoying but nothing major.

After getting the items from the story we decided to go get some ice cream, and since it is my birthday Akane decided she would pay. Though if she let me do my thing neither of us would have had to pay. She may say it's dishonest, but hey, I'm not forcing them to give me free things. If I'm going to be stuck as a girl for half of my life I might as well enjoy the time I am a girl, right?

I got back home, the Tendos, and changed back to male. The rest of the day passed with nothing interesting happening till around six o'clock, which was about the time we finished dinner and the small birthday party for me began. Lucky for me it was only the Tendos and pops. Not to be rude but Ukyo is overbearing, it's kind of sad really. I still can only think of her as the friend I knew when I was young. It's just too weird to think of her the way she wants me to. I've tried to tell her this a few times but she always seems to twist it in her mind to be something in her favor. Shampoo is a whole other story. She's so determined to follow the rules of her tribe that I sometimes wonder if it's me she loves or her laws. Though all those are minor problems. The main reason none of them are here is because if you get any two of them in the same room together they will try to kill each other, let alone all three of them.

It was right after the cake has started to be served that Ryoga walked into the room with that confused lost look that he always wears on his face. Akane quickly explained to him the situation and what was going on. It was at that point he gave me this journal. I wonder if he did that just to look good in front of Akane or just gave me it because he wanted to; I can't tell with him sometimes. I consider him one of my good friends, and with everyone I know the only real friends I would say I have would be Ryoga and Akane. I mean, I know he calls me his rival, but then there are times we just get along like friends. I would like to know exactly how he views our weird relationship, just so I can know if the friendship is mutual.

Really after that nothing interesting happened. We ate cake, talked, watched some tv, and then everyone went to bed, well, except Ryoga. He was still there so I led him to the dojo and let him stay there for the night.

So I'm, as of writing this, sitting at the small desk in the room I stay in with just a small lamp on as the old man sleeps a few feet away. Well, I guess that's all I have to write today.

----

I was suddenly struck to write something again, and the whole story here came to me. I should be doing something for my old story, but since I lost a couple chapters so long again I can't bring myself to do it yet... but I will soon.

Anyway, This entire story will be from Ranma's point of view, as wrote in a journal. Its just how the idea came to me. Fun huh?