Picture Taken By My Mom

I was only in the third grade. That is when I first transferred from a private school to a public school. It was strange, new, and different, the whole environment was a total change. It was like a dream, everybody was older and taller and not to be racist or anything but I was the only Asian student in my grade there. I knew a maximum of around 15 other Asian students in the whole school.

In all seriousness, for the first two weeks and for the first time in my life I felt distant and separated, not just that but vulnerable, I tried to do everything in my power to fit in. I tried to join them in handball, basketball, dodgeball, and baseball, sat with them at lunch, and eventually they let me in. Took time, similar to weeks or months but eventually I came close to everybody in my class by the first semester. Not only did I have to change my social life I had to change my academic habits.

I remember distinctively that I had to have a reading log and read at least 200 hundred pages per week and it was already hard to read even 100 pages. You also needed to get it signed by a parent or guardian and log the dates. Now, I know this is illegal but I used to cheat on every single one of those by forging my parent’s signature to pass that. Yes, it was cheating but it’s in the past! My delinquent days don’t end there either, I was in class and you know those lead containers that are shaped in circles and open on both sides with these circles that you twist to unlock.

Well, I used those to blow tissue paper at people like little balls and I shot a bunch before I got in trouble with my friends. The teacher lectured me and made me stay in during the break to clean up, I finished that, and guess what one of those circle things that untwist and lock the cap well it got stuck in my nose, and I was so scared to tell the teacher because I didn’t want to get in trouble so I tried to take it out with my own hands and it gets stuck. Becomes harder to breathe on one side of my nose and eventually it started to get more and more stuck and I just lost hope, no way it was going to get out. Now it is stuck there forever, I don’t even know where it is now. This just really shows how when put in a different environment people will do things differently, and that karma does exist but maybe that affects only me. 

There’s another thing that I remember very explicitly, which may be the most important thing ever that happened to me that year. It was one day. The date is unknown. The break comes by, I’m eating and then I start to play handball, unluckily somebody hit it very quick and it went straight to my face. There. I lay on the ground, my face hurt so much, and in so much pain. But it doesn’t even stop there, I go to the nurse’s office, and I’m okay, then I go to class, class ends and lunch happens. I go to lunch and get my food, eat, and boom when I start to play again another ball to the face. Honestly, it becomes a little gray from there, I don’t remember much but I know that was the first day I had a bloody nose and to this day I have never had a bloody nose than that day. 

Image from Jon Nazca

Curiosity Killed The Cat

I will never forget this day, as I looked him and everyone looked at us, we look back now. I was so confused, why was everyone looking at me and WHAT WAS HE HOLDING BEHIND HIS BACK is what I was thinking. It was killing me to find out what he had behind his back. I was becoming obsessed, I NEEDED TO KNOW what was behind his back. Was it a toy gun? Candy? A hat? A flag? WHAT IS IT? My heart was beating, the sound around me started to silence, my thoughts were racing.

He said, BOO as he shoved the figure in my face, not touching me but right in front of me. I fell back as I started to scream. I was frightened, more than frightened I was terrified. Everybody laughed at me, their faces seemed deformed and blurry. Tears began to fall from my eyes and down to my knees. Then as the kid came closer I said BOO as he was in close distance. He fell and I started to laugh. I was no longer scared because I knew what he had behind him.

Image from The New York Times, “Whats going on in this picture?”

Hide N Seek

I was the first, to put the box on. I jumped into action when I read,

“WATCH OUT! FROM THE SKY”

I quickly put on the box, where the dark concealed my peripheral vision.

SPLASH!

All around me, I felt the water tickle my clothes except my head. I wasn’t soaked just a little damp around my thighs. I was a part of a test, a test that was broadcast to the whole world. On the papers we were each given we were told to do certain tasks. The first task was to put on the box before water was poured over each of us. There were several of us, one of us screamed, one ran, and one cried. I read the next line.

“COLLISION”

There. I saw a hay bale far in the distance but straight ahead. I started to run towards it and SPLASH! As soon as I took off my box I got drenched. The water kept pouring until I put back on the box. I guess I was supposed to make it through these tasks while keeping the box on. There were three of us trying to make it to the hay bale. We all ran forward praying that we would make it there.

“I MADE IT”, I screamed as I felt a very soft landing.

“EWWWW”, we all yelled when we realized where all three of us fell into. COW MANURE.

The Jump of Joy

Image from The New York Times, “Whats going on in this picture?”

As I jumped, while smoke covered all around me, I felt the small breeze of air follow me as I ran towards the jump. I landed. For those two seconds between me and the jump I felt free, like nothing was holding me back. My friends watched as I jumped and wondered to themselves.

“WHAT IS HE DOING?”

And to that I say, letting go. I got up and tried to convince them to join in. They wouldn’t budge at all saying that I was a possible freak for doing that. They said, “I think he caught a case of the tism in all of the smoke” as they started to cover their faces.

But, one of my friends joined me because they were curious. They undressed and ran from one stack into another. Almost as if it was crossing two oceans. We start to laugh we felt so free. One by one everybody started to join because everyone was wondering what it was like. All joined except one.

“COME ON MAN”

“I can’t its too dirty for me”

As he said that all of us ran at him picked him up and threw him. He laughed all the way through and got up and jumped again.

Image taken by My Mom

Life Taken Away

Ever since I was born I have been moving from house to house, not home to home. Eventually, I finally settled in another house across the world, creating new friends in the neighborhood and at the nearby school where everybody knew each other. It was a small neighborhood with no quarrels between families, youngins and adults bonding, and a regular gathering event every few weeks at the park. When I first arrived I thought it was going to be like every other house I was at, stay for two weeks then get evicted. I never thought much of it, that is why I never bothered to socialize because it wouldn’t affect me in the next week or so. 

Then, it hit me. I stayed for more than two weeks at the house. This is why, I began to start socializing because I thought, maybe it would be different this time. A few months went by and I became familiar with the neighborhood. Everybody around me knew who I was but not where I came from. This house and this neighborhood were no longer just a house, it was home. HOME. 

But, after we hit the year mark, I had to leave again. My home that I had sought after had been taken from me, stripped like how a baby would be taken away from a mother. I moved into another house again, would it be any different even if I stayed a few months again? I think to myself every day, is this house ever going to become the home I once had?