Back to School (XVII)

The holiday season was over and I had to go back to school, by the time we’re entering second year, all the students were divided into three majors, physics (A1), biology (A2) and social (A3) classes. I was in biology class or A2. There I had some new classmates since some of them were from my classmates from the first grade. As usual I was always sitting in the back of the class, Oyong, Johny, Boim, Al were all sitting not far from me. We had a school band Oyong was the guitarist, Al was the Drummer, Boim was the vocalist and I was only a cheer member.

Often after school time we wouldn’t go home directly but we would stay at Oyong’s house for a couple of hours. We would usually sit in front of his house facing the street, the house was not far from the school so we would see every other students walking home from school. Oyong would hold his guitar while others would be busy thinking what other next songs to sing. I would contribute to sing some songs my self, I would pick party doll, always somewhere, soldier of fortune, etc.

Once a week we have a sport subject, which required us to come at noon after school time. I would not go home then since my house was quite far from school, so instead I would stay at Johny’s house or Yendra’s house for lunch and break before noon. We would wear training suit and were asked do some warm up and stretching before the lessons or games started. Every now and then we also had a swimming lesson and we would go to “Batang Tabit” it’s a public swimming pool but also used by schools for swimming lessons.

I joined the student exchange program AFS (American Field Service), the test consisted of English test (grammar and essay), discussions and interview. I failed in the first test and I was quite sure, I had bad mark on essay. I was very weak on essay, the title that I picked was “ If I were elected an AFS student” there were only two students out of about 50 participating students who passed to the next tests and finally there was only one student from my school who was elected an AFS student out of five from west Sumatra province and he was sent to New Zealand for one year program. Even though I failed but at least that gave me experience.

The final examinations were coming, I decided to rent a room in order not to be late and could focus on studying the lessons. I rented the house right in front of the school and which the owner happened to be Dewi’s parents, you know the girl that I liked from the first sight on the first day I entered the high school.

to be continued...