Ten years later, these girls still remember those sad stories when their fellow boy classmates went through unusual trouble to get their attention. Of all the weird ones I endured at Alta Heights Elementary School, the craziest one occurred when I was enrolled in school in Taiwan during the winter of second grade.
On my first day of school in Taiwan, my mom and the school principle walked me to my new homeroom classroom at the four story elementary school. Upon entering, every pair of almond shaped eyes turned to look at me. Never have I ever felt so white in my life. This was an unusual feeling since I had always been pegged for my half-Asian background. But at this moment, I felt like the only American on the face of the planet. I looked at the green chalk board and saw math far beyond my abilities, realizing I had entered a world future Einsteins. (Below's picture isn't actually my classroom but looks similar. Only difference is that the students at my school had to wear blue and white uniforms.)
After shyly introducing myself and taking my seat in the back, I endured two hours of pretending that I understood the textbook while the students around me recited the text loudly in unison. I learned at a young age what it felt like to feel like an idiot. I endured this feeling of stupidity for a month. The only exception was English class, the only class I aced.
To my surprise I actually didn't have trouble making friends at this school. Everyone was interested in getting to know the American girl with naturally brown hair who could run faster than most of the boys. However, there was this one boy who never came close but still managed to make me nervous even if he was clear across the classroom. One afternoon during a break in between classes I went back into the classroom to fetch something from my backpack. When I looked up from my bag I noticed that boy standing in front of me smiling. I was confused by it, but thought maybe he wanted to be friends! Before any second thoughts, he grabbed me by my left arm with such force that I fell to the dirty cracked concrete ground. Instead of stopping and helping me up, he kept hold of his death grip on my arm and began running. He kept running and dragging my small body until he gave me the full tour of the amount of dirt on the ground between all eight rows of desks. By the time he finally stopped I was kicking, screaming, and crying. Scared and struck with disbelief, I looked up and saw that boy smiling. It was then that our second grade teacher walked in the classroom to find me terrified, crying on the floor covered in dust and dirt with that boy standing over me smiling like an idiot.
It wasn't until after my teacher shooed out that boy and cleaned me up that she explained to me the boy's reasoning to perform such a crude act. She tried to explain how that boy had a major crush on me and didn't know how else to confront me. As the victimized second grade girl, I was having none of it. Why would any boy do such a thing to a girl they had a crush on? I refused to believe her. That boy was the devil. But what I did learn was that a second grade boys' inability to flirt with a girl is universal.
The next winter when I went back to Taiwan, I once again went to school there for a month. Being in a new third grade advisory room felt like starting over, since I got to meet many new people. One afternoon, about a week into my month at the school, when I was walking up to the third story to get to a music class with some of my friends, I made eye contact with a boy in the hall. To my horror it was THAT BOY. Yeah, THAT devil. Except this time, to my delight, he exclaimed my name, dropped his food on the ground, and took off running in the opposite direction.
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