I'm climbing a spiral staircase and not hoping to turn again...

Sunday, April 23, 2006

I wish I could somehow write all I feel about finally leaving my school of twelve years…technically, it should be 16 years…but I’ve been in this particular branch for twelve…much, much longer than any of my current friends…and some teachers too. The entry was on Thursday…and almost every girl was bawling her head off…bit ironic really, cuz it wasn’t technically the last day, Friday was (and almost no one showed up on Friday anyway—interesting…). I wanted to cry, I really did. In this school, I’ve watched my friends leave, I’ve seen the school building change and the huge new art room built, the swimming pool renovated twice, the Hall being built, the reading room, the second canteen—I’ve watched the lockers come in, the common room painted with a landscape that’s hidden behind the lockers now….with only the red sky showing; I’ve watched the upside down girl painted on the common room door. I’ve watched the swings dwindle year after year to make room for new buildings. And I’ve seen the school gate changed from black to dull green to black to white. There were all the classrooms…a new one every year…the one where we all sat together and cried when one girl’s brother and sister died in a car crash; the one where we threw a surprise party for our second-grade teacher, the one where the birds used to die every year by flying in through the exhaust fan—what else? Yeah, I wanted to cry. But I cudn’t…I’m sorry, but if neone made me stay in that building for one more year, I’d puke right on their face. Sure, it’s made me tough, it’s made me less sensitive, and it’s given me a hell of a good education. And it’s destroyed a part of me in the process. It just isn’t special, and I have no wish to see it again. It may sound callous, especially coming from me, but I’ve just about had it. I’ve made a lot of friends, but I’ve lost a lot too…and not all of them were lost by just leaving. There are just too many bad memories here…I was never a Grammarian at heart, I wasn’t one of those screaming, hyper, non-serious females so typical of LGS…hence, I just can’t bawl my eyes out like they were doing. I learnt a lot here, but I learnt nothing that could help me make myself a better person-there’s none of that here. I doubt if any school ever does that. To be perfectly honest, it does seem a bit strange. I’m a overwhelmingly sentimental person, but not in this case. I’ll miss certain teachers, I’ll definitely miss my friends if they don’t get into the same university I’m going to, but I’ll never, ever want to go back there…twelve years was more than enuff…I can move on without looking back. So maybe it’ll be worse in LUMS, with the co-ed system n all…I’ve never really thought about it, but what would it be like studying with guys after soooo long? But I don’t think about that; I don’t even fell it’s weird anymore. All I want to do is to just get LGS out of my life and into my past. Btw, an update on my previous post…Mr. Qazi’s funeral was the day before yesterday, and I got the wrong information about Mrs. Qazi-she’s not in a coma but has got a lot of injuries…she wasn’t sedated cuz the doctors had to make sure her brain wasn’t damaged…so I guess there’s bit of hope left.

2 Comments:

Blogger One in the crowd said...

I had pretty similar feelings when I left school. I had spent eleven days...each day, I hoped of not going to school the next day...At least you made friends there...In eleven years, all I had were two friends...it was too closed a place I thought...the only teacher I would have missed has now passed away...it wasn't due to her brilliance at work, but because she was a very nice person, Mrs. Sudha Mathur...and today, for all my failures and diffidence, I have that school to blame...it just killed the me in me...subservience, meekness, unquestioned compliance and orthodoxy...that's what I learnt there...I did unlearn a lot of it later but somewhere the ghosts still lurk...

I do have memories...of that huge painting of Narsinh Mehta (a great Gujju poet)which was singlehandedly done by my painting teacher...those colourful rathyatra rallies with human pyramids...those lovely samosas but it's just that being physically punished, or seeing my friends being called names or being ridiculed for my love for language outweigh the good memories...

Do I want to go back to my school? Hell No...Do I want to go back to my college? Anyday, YES.

4/23/2006 09:27:00 PM

 
Anonymous Anonymous said...

well bhal blah blogger, ur experience in skool sounds alot like mine in my previous one. u've described it wonderfully :"and today, for all my failures and diffidence, I have that school to blame...it just killed the me in me...subservience, meekness, unquestioned compliance and orthodoxy...that's what I learnt there...I did unlearn a lot of it later but somewhere the ghosts still lurk..." I need not add anything to it coz it explains it all. Do I want to go bak to my skool, hell no! wud i ever want to go bak to my college, Anyday!

Aty, be thankful tht if this skool has taken away a part of u from u, it has given u alot more. Mine took alot from me n gave me bak nothing.

4/29/2006 12:39:00 AM

 

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