俺借用了梅mm的心水曲子“againt all odds”,希望梅mm不要見怪
俺又8的又臭又長,還純英文,俺快累死了,幾天不能動,能忍住看到底的同學都該發獎
At the last year of my junior high school, my family moved from a small town to a big city. I was transferred to an average middle school, which was attached to a well-known university. It was not close to home. I had to bike almost one hour round trip there every day. I didn’t have any friends. Most of the students that attended that school were children of the university staff. They had their own long time formed cliques that were hard to get into. I was the only outsider, totally left out. In my old school, I had a bunch of close pals with whom I grew up together in our parents’ factory. I had never felt lonely or depressed in my life until I arrived at this new school. That was the first transition in my life, kind of like being forced away from a tight knitted warm nest and thrown into the dark cold uncharted water. Looking back, I was a tender flower in a green house. Everything used to be served to you in plate. You tend to take everything for granted. When things change and you are on your own, you feel complete inept and confused. That was exactly what I experienced at that time.
To add salt on the insult , I was soon appointed as TA for our English class. The lady, who taught our English, also in charge of the whole class, was a rigid middle-aged woman who couldn’t get along the students at all . However to me, although she was not amicable, she was a diligent teacher with a great conscience. Everyday, she worked overtime to straighten out the mess her students made but they just simply didn’t appreciate it, let alone liked her . For those rebellious teenagers, she was not cool, not hip, way too old fashioned, even more annoyed than their nagging mom type of teacher. Lots of times, good intentions alone are far from enough. Connections, understanding, supporting, patience, wisdom as well as passion are all indispensable, just like all other types of relationships.
Unfortunately she really liked me, thinking I was naïve, mild and honest, and singled me out as her TA. To be a teacher’s pet is already a pathetic target. To be a pet of an extremely unpopular teacher, your life is beyond miserable. Every time when a student got caught of his pranks or some bad deeds afterwards, I was put onto the spot as that notorious tell-on person that everyone hated. I was thought as a sly spy planted by the teacher into the class. In fact, I seldom talked with the teacher except helping her collect homework. That was my red scarlet. No one wanted to talk to me due to my “reputation”. Sometimes, my books got missed mysteriously, my homework got vandalized, and I even got flat bike tires several times. In the freezing winter evenings, I waited helplessly in the empty schoolyard for my father to pick me up. I tried many times to get out of that hideous TA position but in vain. I cried my pillows wet during sleeping. I literally hated to go to school every day. I pleaded with my teacher to make a public explanation, so I could be washed of those ridiculous “scandals”. One day, she announced to the whole class that I was not that tell-on person and she would punish whoever dared to trouble me. After hearing what she said, I even felt relieved for a moment. How naïve I was. Isn’t this that here is no 300 pieces of gold coins buried underground story? I was doomed to be a teacher’s pet.
The only way to get out this hell place was to get admitted to another school, a much better one. Once I made up my mind, I worked much harder to the goal. One year later, I became a freshman of the senior high, same school. However all the teachers were changed. We had rearranged classes and I got many new classmates. My “past” seemed really becoming the past. The chip seemed gradually off my shoulder. I opened up a bit and even had a couple of girl friends. We brought our lunch to school, ate together in the classroom during the long noon break. Sometimes, we shared the snack with each other while listening to the music from the school radio station. Life began smiling upon me.
Then this guy appeared in my life. (Thank god! Finally things start getting interesting :)) Let me call him Y. He was my new deskmate. He was tall, dark, quiet, kind of good looking in a way, which I couldn’t tell back then. The thing I could tell was he was really bad at English. Like most boys in middle school, English is always the biggest headache. So sometimes I had to let him copy my homework, or secretly passed on to him some tips when he was called on by the teacher in the class. In return, when our classmates lined up to play ping pong on the school playground during the recess time, if it was my turn (I really sucked at ping pong), he would purposely lose a few points to let me stay “alive” longer or otherwise kill off quickly. This suspicious partial action unquestionably would definitely incur endless teasing from boys, which I was afraid of most and had had enough before. He would nip the bud by tossing back a line expressionlessly to make it sound like a strict business, “Let me copy your English homework. If it is good enough for copying, I will let you win, not just stay alive longer.” (Of course, he said all this in Chinese :) ) He said it in a very frank and cool tone. So I thought this was a business, how come I even felt a bit of unnamed sweetness? Aren’t all girls silly? And I also found he had a bad habit, kind of unorganized, always forgetting this book, or that learning material. I had to share mine with him from time to time. But I thought I could bear that. Aren’t all boys scatterbrained?
Anyway, I actually started to look forward to going to school everyday, unconsciously started to match my shoes with my clothes, although I only had 2 or 3 pairs, either black or brown. During the lunch break, I would sometimes sneak out of the school to buy some cheap gaudy hairpins from the street stands (limited budget :)), which I would just pass by before. I was trying not to be too obvious to look stupid. I just added something new on me cautiously once in a while, but I did hope that I could be noticed somehow, ehh, by him. I felt like an ugly caterpillar molting to a butterfly.
One day, I found out his secret. He said he forgot his English test paper at home that the teacher was going to review in class. So I had to share mine with him as usual. In recess, I happened to spot his test pager was right in his backpack, which he couldn’t have missed. The only explanation… The only explanation was that he was doing it on purpose. He forgot things so we could read a book or a test paper together, to look at the same word at the same time without saying anything. And all these started even before my girly antics mentioned above. He was attracted to me when I was still a caterpillar. I was shocked to my core, sweetness mixed with happiness with ecstasy. Finally I was out of that suffocating low self-esteem cocoon I was trapped in for almost two years and became a free butterfly. I didn’t tell him I knew what was going on. We continued to live with that lie until I got accepted by a top-ranked high school. That was the farthest that our “relationship” got. (Disappointed? Can’t blame you. :))
Although I got the admission from the school I had been dreaming of for a long time, I was not excited at all. I felt sad, upset, and hard to say good-bye. I didn’t know what new stuff I was going to face and it seemed I just adjusted to an environment that I finally fell in love with because of him after such a long time struggle.
New semester finally started. In the late afternoon of the first school day, my mom took me to my soon-to-be old school to go through some final procedures. Once I entered the school gate, I saw him at my first sight. I didn’t expect to meet him. On the first day of school, it was usually just registration that always finished in the morning. Students were all gone. The whole school looked deserted. The playground was empty, dark clouds hanging low in the sky. He was there, leaning against an old bicycle under a big bare maple tree. He looked taller after a winter vacation. Wasn’t it spring here now? Why did I still feel chilly from inside out? Once he saw me, he nodded and I nodded back. We didn’t exchange any words. Then he took off. I turned around, holding back the tears that were welling up and started my new journey. I didn’t notice there were leaf buds actually bursting out on the branches of that big bare maple tree, so were the leaf buds in my heart. Spring was here anyway no matter how harsh the weather still was. I was fifteen years old that year, too young to know many things.
We have never seen each other again. According to my current taste, he may hardly come close to someone of my type. Come on, after getting married so many years, even my hubby was falling out of my type :) (hope he wouldn't see this article) . It’s ok. I am working my butt off transforming him or maybe myself.
Back then what I had with Y couldn’t even count as puppy love. We didn’t say anything beyond what classmates should say. Our closest contact was through holding the same textbook. But it is so hard to forget such a person who once warmed up the heart of a self-abased girl and gave her strength to carry on. Extend my thanks wholeheartedly to him during such a thanks giving season.
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