And just so you know, this is a long, reminiscing kind of blog.
It was going to be longer but I thought I should stop, or people would get bored.
This term's almost over, and at the end of term 3, it'll be the end of high school for Genvin and all the kids in his grade. My mum asked him yesterday if he had Truong today, and he said yeah, and that he only had 3 more lessons. Until he finished going to Truong. Until he didn't have to go anymore. So I don't know how many people know this, but I've actually been going to Truong since year 5. Anyway, so when he said that, I was just really shocked. When I'm in year 12, I'd be so sad to leave school and Truong. Then I started talking to my mum about Truong and what it was like in year 5 and everything.
I remember the classroom used to be the shed at his old house. I remember my first lesson there. I was possibly the dumbest kid in the class and I didn't get what was on the board. That doesn't mean that it was way too advanced and crazy that I didn't get it, or anything. We were learning about numbers, and how many numbers were in a sequence, or something like that. I remember how he made things easier, and we counted how many trees, and how many gaps between the trees. Actually, I think we were learning about inclusive numbers and things like that (the handout he gave us just said numbers, and now I remember, it was stuff like simple additions, subtractions, multiplications, directed numbers, prime numbers, etc). I sat at the front of the class, and didn't know the people that were sitting next to me. I remember the first time the teacher (Truong) called on me for an answer, was when we were learning prime numbers. I didn't understand it, again. It could've been in the same first lesson. He asked me, Which prime number is going to be next? and I didn't give him the right answer. I think I said 27 or something. Anyway, he said something along the lines of, No, can someone help her out? and everyone else knew the answer. :( I felt so stupid and behind the whole class.
After that first lesson, or maybe the second one, I didn't want to go anymore. I really wanted to quit, even though if you quit, you can never come back thing. I didn't care. I remembering crying because I didn't want to go back. I still remember that, too; I was on my bed, I had only just moved into the room I have now and my (new) bed was on the opposite wall. I didn't go to the next lesson. I'm not really sure what month I started in, though, but I remember doing homework from a handout titled 'Numbers' on Chinese New Year/Chinese New Year's Eve, in my mum's room while Genvin, Steph and my dad were out watching the lion dancing at Bonnirigg temple. But after the lesson I skipped, I went back again. Only yesterday, my mum told me that she told Sir that I wanted to quit, but he told her to make me keep going because he thought I could make it and keep up with the class.
So I kept going. I guess things got better, and in the end, I moved to the desks closer to the back of the classroom. I sat with Kelly Pan and Anne Nguyen (which is the one at Hurlstone today, yeah). I think the payment box was at the back of the classroom, too. I remember that there was a little family of birds that used to live on top of the air conditioning, which was at the back of the room. I remember that once, Sir called on me for an answer but I don't think I knew what to do, and I was 'distracted by the birds' and Sir said, You've seen a bird before, as a kinda .. get back on track, tell me what do I do for this question kinda thing. I remember chip week. I remember pen week. I remember how Kelly called Sir 'Truong', once. He didn't say anything. I remember when Lindy first went, she got told off in the first 2 minutes.
I remember Wendy was one of the smartest in our class. She was the girl that Sir used to be like Oh, you gotta watch out for Wendy .. Make sure you break her arm before the exams, so she can't beat you. Sir used to get all the smart guys, and the smart girls, and used to compare their exam marks after every exam. I used to be compared to Ben Tran. Yeah, Ben Tran, LOL. He's changed a lot. I remember how Jonathan in our grade right now used to be in my class. Sir used to call him DJ, cuz his last name starts with DJ. I remember one time, after an exam, 3 people came tied at 1st, all with 100%. It was Kelly, Anne and Mitchell. That made things weird, since I was sitting on the same table and Kelly and Anne.
Sir used to tell us that if we saw a mosquito, then if we killed it, we'd get more marks in our exams. So Ben Tran drew a dead mosquito on his hand and told Sir he killed one. He didn't fall for it, LOL. I remember the toilet (I only ever went once, max. twice) was so scary. It was at the back of the house .. And I don't know, the place was just so mysterious, or maybe because we were just in year 5. Oh, I remember how Sir used to tell us he had two other triplets. He used to pretend that while he was teaching us, he used to switch around his brothers, and they would teach us, but since they were identical, we wouldn't be able to tell. He told us that at the end of the term, he'd show us all of his brothers at the same time. I remember how he used to change his glasses, and say that he'd be a different triplet. I remember once, he didn't change his glasses, but pretended that these glasses were permanently stuck to his face and that he couldn't take them off. In the last lesson, he walked in with his son and his brother and said that these were his triplets, LOL. And his brother looks a lot like him.
I remember he told us that we had class on Chinese New Year, but when we went there, there was a sign saying no class because it was Chinese New Year. My friends (in the other class) said that he didn't tell us because he thought it'd be funny if we turned up and then had to go home.
Then I remember when I was in Ms Anh's class. We were Saturday, around 2-4pm. We were the accelerated class. We used to scare Miss, when she turned around, and say that there was a spider on the whiteboard. Omg, I was at Truong when they still had blackboards. There were 3, lined up. I remember the Friday night class, the class we were versing (taught by Sir), left a message for us once, before an exam. Like, my class walked into the room, and on the whiteboard was a message that was something like: we're gonna beat you >:) and there was an arrow pointing to the angry smiley face, that said angry smiley face. LOL.
Okay, so all the people who hate Truong and think he's way too strict and should get used to living in Australia probably think I'm like way messed up or some shit. Ugh, it's so annoying when people say shit about Truong, LOL. TT It's so good there and being strict is good. They're really nice there, and it's not even thaat strict. I remember in year 6, it was the last lesson before we had to do the Selection High School test, which was like the big thing that we'd all been studying for, kinda thing. That lesson .. Idk, but in that lesson, Sir wasn't as strict and scary. He just said that whichever school we went to, selective or not, if we put effort into what we're doing then we'll do well. Idk, but that lesson .. Like it's not all about studying, studying, getting into the top class, coming first in every single exam, getting 100 HSC (cuz it was HSC back then?) and getting into the best uni and everything. It was more about trying hard and being happy with what you get.
