Blast from the Past

Three months ago, I managed to get in touch with an old school friend from back in Paris. We've been exchanging emails eversince and I must say it's a breather. She's Nigerian and now based in the States doing a double degree. Back in the school days, she was notoriously known for making people cry and just bugging the hell out of people. Everyone knew her, even teachers who never taught her. But somehow, apart from her notoriousness, I could tell she was a nice person at heart.

We were classmates in 2nd Grade through 4th Grade and she always had a knack for bugging people who were smarter or better in sports or those prettier. She was just like that. Maybe she was attention-deprived, I don't know. In 4th Grade, my class shrinked from more than 20 students to a mere 12 students. In such a small class, you just had to lean on each other coz well, there weren't that many girls left and eventually you'd have to make peace with everyone. Occasionally we'd hang on the phone and talk about nothing to everything. It was weird the fact that I gradually became close to her.

I made a remarkable discovery about Africans during swimming class (still can't swim for the life of me!). You can immerse their head in the water for hours and not a strand of their fine hair would be wet. I'd tell her, "Go in the water again," repeatedly just to make sure her hair was truly dry. Droplets of water would just trickle down her face and head like her hair held a water-proof protection. We were both in Intermediate swimming class and sometimes when some of us were just hanging on to the sides of the pool, she'd just kick her legs furiously while holding on to her board and just purposely hit people with her water splashings. That annoyed a lot of people. At times she'd be ordered out of the pool and left to sit by herself while everybody went on with class. She was a little mischief like that.

We also took the same after school sports activity. Gymnastics. I think because she was also a bit on the heavy side, it made her inferior to the rest of us who looked proportionately good in our gymnastic suits. She always seemed to have something against me and another fellow Malaysian during gymnastics. Maybe because we were Asians, we were blessed with a slightly more flexible body (I could be wrong so don't sue me) than anyone else in the class. We could make perfect bridges with an almost impossible arc or do cartwheels on a straight line, make a headstand on a chair even. She on the other hand would always have to be the one on the very bottom of a pyramid stance taking other people up on her body. In retrospect, maybe she was sick of being just that while others got to prove their gymnastic skills.

I had a good reputation of never having made any errors during spelling tests except once. The class teacher would let us take home a list of words to study for the week and a spelling test would be given out at the end of that specific week. Because I read a lot then, I thought the words were pretty easy and never really studied for it. During the test, if she sat next to me, she would occasionally glance over to try and copy me. What it was that my classmates were trying for was that big star sticker if you got it all right. If you got a small star sticker, it was still okay than having none at all. She was envious of me for that. She'd make all sorts of deliberate acts just to piss me off. I especially hated it when she blamed or accused me for something I never did.

She is the one holding up two peace signs. Me standing next to her, maintaining a 'konon ayu' pose.

She was only human. A little kid at that too. I guess it was her way of rebelling. No one ever wanted to be her partner to the park or take her in for group projects. She did try to be nice at times, like giving me the duty of 'Distributing Books' when she got to be Leader. It was a task everyone wanted to do and whenever you were chosen leader in class, you have the power to choose who gets to do what. Everytime it got to the job of distributing books, you'd here everyone going "Me! Me! ME!!" with rows of raised hands. Alternatively, the class would go all quiet when it came to 'Tidy Floor'. I have always remembered the incident she assigned me for that job. I said "Thanks," to her in recess and she smiled.

When I found out that she is a senior doing a double degree in health management and nursing, I figured she must have changed a lot along her way up. Nowadays, we just reminisce and laugh over our past and share our current ongoings which is simply great. Eventually, I found out why she did the things she did to everyone. Now, it's just hilarious. Into the ending of her second e-mail, she said something that I would probably remember for the rest of my life. She said "You know what? Back at school, you were the smart little girl I wanted to be ;)"

In some ways it's a compliment but now that my intelligence has somehow declined (haha!), it makes me feel bad somehow. Oh well like I said, reminisce and laugh over the past. Just don't live in it.

Nostalgia is like a grammar lesson: you find the present tense, but the past perfect! --Owens Lee Pomeroy