It All Started On A Not-So-Normal Afternoon.

My name is Zlata Filipović. I live in Sarajevo with my mom and dad. I am in my early teens and I love writing. I have very many friends and family members and they mean a lot to me. I go to school and I take piano lessons. I am an only child, but we have a bird that lives in the kitchen. My journal is a way for me to express my feelings. I write in it almost every day, if not more. The year is 1992. Lately, there has been shelling going on in Sarajevo. Shelling would mean bombing. Some of my friends and family have left Sarajevo to stay safe. I miss them a lot. It scares me when I go to bed and I hear the shelling. It makes me wonder if I am going to wake up in the morning. When we go down to the cellar, it makes me wonder if I am ever going to come out of there. We often go over to some friends that we still have here and celebrate birthdays. We enjoy it while we can, because we know that the war may eventually prevent us form spending time with our family and friends that we love very much. Sometimes we celebrate by just playing games, or sitting around talking, or even sometimes, sitting down in the cellar waiting for the war to end.