In ten years, I will…

Written in 1999 (Grade 5).  Oh, how I’ve changed since then…

In ten years, I will…

In ten years, I will be 21 years old.  I will be a veterinarian.  A veterinarian is a doctor that takes care of sick and injured pets.  It’s tough because you have to find the right medicine for each customer.

I want to be a veterinarian because I really want to help sick and hurt pets.  The pets need their freedom to roam with their masters. [Wow.  What a contradiction there.]

I’d love to have a pet but my mom says that I can have one when I’m old enough to.  I would have a dog because I think that they are easier to take care of, compared to animals like rodents, etc.  Someday, I’ll be Aaron the Veterinarian!

30 Day Song Challenge: Day 29: A song from your childhood

Does every elementary school have a Sports Day?  Every year, I was on the Green Team at Maple Grove Elementary and every year, for many, many years, the Gold Team would always win the Sports Day.  Somehow, they were able to get a lot more points than any of the other teams, not to mention the fact that they were gold, while the other colors were regular Red, Green, and I think, Blue.  If there was favouritism, it was obvious who it was for.

Anyway, I distinctly remember hearing “Octopus’ Garden” at one of the challenges one year (as does my sister).  I can’t remember what the actual challenge was, but because most of the Sports Day events took place outside, everyone would/could hear it, especially if it was playing on a loop.  At the time, of course I didn’t know who sang the song or what it was even called and it was only until my older sister was playing the Beatles that my sister and I, almost at the same time, suddenly recalled Sports Day and demanded to know what the song was.

One year, I guess the teachers thought a different team than the Gold team should win for once — since the winners who received points at the events were judged by teachers, for the most part, and hence, they could rig the entire Sports Day — and I remember one year, the Red Team won, and the next year, the Green Team finally won too!

Kindergarten

I think it was on the last day or one of the last days of kindergarten when this happened.  So there we all were, playing or running around or whatever it is kids nowadays do in kindergarten.  I must’ve been having too much fun, as I suddenly let out a scream that in retrospect, didn’t seem that loud.  I mean, there was definitely louder I probably could’ve done.  Anyway, the teacher, Mrs. Elliot must’ve been out of the room because she came in a few seconds later and asked the class, “Who just screamed?”

Okay, let me set the record straight: I was not afraid of my teacher.  But I was afraid of getting yelled at since I was a fragile, very much sensitive young boy (long before I ever became the jaded, pissed-off-at-everything guy I am now).  I so wanted to blame it on Kathryn what’s-her-face since, as I was so young, my voice obviously hadn’t broken and still sounded as girly as ever.  But I did the right thing and told Mrs. Elliot in front of the entire class that I had been the one who had screamed.

And she then screamed at me.

What did she say?  I don’t remember.  It’s probably repressed somewhere in my unconscious.  After the smoke had cleared and everyone was awkwardly going about resuming what joyful activity they had been partaking in, I do remember sitting down on the big red, orange, and yellow carpet in the room by myself and crying, mumbling something to myself which I’ve also forgotten.  For some reason, I think I was mumbling, “It wasn’t me” but that wouldn’t make sense for me to confess, get yelled at, and then say it wasn’t me.  In any case, there I was, a sobbing 5 year old on one of the last days of Kindergarten.

I think at some point, some of the other kids came up and tried to calm me down but it didn’t work.  And for some reason — perhaps this is a whole different memory altogether that I’m confusing this with, which is likely — I remember Mrs. Elliot, having enough of me making a scene, told me, “Oh, shut up already!” or something to that extent.  This then, surprisingly did make me stop bawling and eventually I stopped altogether.

As I grew up, I created my own carpets for crying whenever someone would say mean things or yell at me.  Eventually, I learned to divert my hurt feelings towards a different emotion: anger.  Instead of crying, I would silently fume, glaring at people and now, yelling back.

When they tell you that you need to have thick skin in this world, they mean to not give in to tears.  They mean to learn to yell back.

They mean to become like them.

Sleeping with a Stranger

Sleeping with a Stranger

Perhaps when I was around 7, 8 or possibly 9 years old, for reasons I do not recall, my family was not in the house for a few days.  They must have gone on a mini-vacation or something and I was either sick or didn’t want to go.  Whatever the reason, I found myself alone.  Except there was a stranger in the house as well: my father.

I had never been close to my father and currently have very few memories of him and I together, even fewer of them are good memories.  When my mother and my sisters left, because I would be sleeping alone, he told me that on the last day, I could come upstairs and spend the night with him in bed.  Naturally, I thought this to be a strange idea; I had never slept with my dad (or at least had no recollection of it) and he didn’t seem particularly lonely.  I didn’t even know if he was serious or not. I don’t even remember if my parents were, at the time, still sleeping in the same bed, but I doubt it.

For a few days, we minded our own business.  I probably didn’t see much of him, as usual, and the house must have been oddly quiet.  On the last day, I wandered up to his room with my pillow.  After a few minutes of getting ourselves ready for bed, I climbed in first, feeling awkward.  He turned off the light and crawled in next to me.

And for a while, neither of us moved.  I lay staring at the ceiling before closing my eyes but I couldn’t sleep on my back.  But as much as I wanted to move, I found myself paralyzed.  What if my dad didn’t like that?  What if he got annoyed at my moving?  Wouldn’t I be bothering him trying to sleep?  Eventually, I froze in that position for a long time, on the edge of the bed, until I willed myself to move quickly on my side when I sensed him moving at the same time, so that I wouldn’t be disturbing him.

I would repeat this maneouver several times that night, being extra careful not to wake the stranger sleeping next to me.

Random dream

Something I found in my Crap folder just now.  Hmm.

Random dream

So I had another dream last night.  (Actually, I have dreams every night and I remember almost all of them, unlike the average person)

I should probably give you a backstory to all of this.  I (used to) know a guy named Peter who I knew way back in kindergarten.  We were sort of friends for the first few years of elementary school but then we weren’t in the same class anymore and we ended up drifting apart.  I left that elementary school for another private school for 2 years before entering high school.  He also happened to be going to my high school too, so it was kinda weird seeing him again.  We didn’t really talk, except in Spanish class when he would ask me about things and one time when he phoned my house and asked me for stuff.  (I was surprised how he had my number).  Anyway, I got out of high school last year and haven’t seen him since.

Here’s the dream sequence:  We are sitting in a classroom.  He turns around and asks if I want to know something cool.  I say yes.  He asks me if it’s weird that crosswalks start out wide and then gradually narrow near the middle and then widen again.  I somehow know exactly what he’s talking about and we laugh about that for a bit.  I ask if he wants to know something weird and he says yes.  So I tell him to follow me.

We somehow get to my old bedroom in my old house.  The camera angle is now third person as we sit down on the bed.  I tell him that I’ve known him since kindergarten and yet we never really knew each other.  I ask if he remembers the Memory Book (scrapbook) we made back in Grade 2.  I pull the oversized yellow book out of the drawer while explaining what I came to tell him about.  We had taken a class picture of everyone and below it, a caption of everyone’s names in the class.  A long time ago, I had scribbled out names of people I disliked, and of course, his name was one of them (this part is also in real life – the scribbled names part).  I tell him this and watch his reaction, but he just takes the book from me and looks at it.  I tell him I don’t know why I had crossed out his name and ask if he remembers if he did anything bad/mean to me, but he still doesn’t respond.  He continues to flip through my book, studying each page.  I look and him and gently kiss him.  I’m not sure how he’ll respond, of course.  The next thing he does surprises me, to say the least.  He just puts the book down, and walks away.  I don’t know how to feel; was it the kiss that made him leave me or was it the fact that I had attempted to erase him from my Memory Book?

The end, by the way.  If there is anyone who can translate a dream, then maybe you could help me out here, because I don’t know if it’s supposed to mean something.  I should probably say that he’s probably straight, but my gaydar is probably the worst in the world, so I could be wrong.  Also, I would have on/off crush status with him, but mostly off, I think.

Wow, that was long.

Random memory: giant escalator

A long time ago when I was young, I was watching tv, presumably with another one of my family members.  On the television was this strange program; it was in black and white and there was what appeared to be an escalator out of nowhere.  But it was absolutely enormous, and was able to carry maybe a hundred or so people.  The quality of the film itself wasn’t very good, as if taken a long time ago.  The escalator was heading up — to what, I don’t know.  Then suddenly, without warning, it stopped.  People began falling down the escalator, slowly and silently.  For some reason, this still haunts me to this day.

The 10 Defining Moments of My Life (so far) — #1: “Gay”

Back during my film school year, I had to come up with a list of ten defining moments of my life, like taking a snapshot of a scene and describing what was going on (it was an exercise in creating stories, not just randomly coming up with stuff).  Keep in mind these are things I came up with two years ago and some stuff I might bump off now for others.  And with that, in no particular order, here’s the first one! (not necessarily my #1 moment)

1.

I was running around the playground in the third grade, like all third graders.  I can’t remember where exactly I heard it from, but someone had mentioned the word “gay”.  At that point in my life, I had long known, but I couldn’t find the word to describe it… or something.  Feeling utterly joyful that I knew who I was, I dashed around the schoolyard, shouting “I’m gay!  I’m gay!”  I was so elated that I dared to even whisper into the ear of one of the supervisors (who was wearing a shiny reflective vest), sitting on one of the pale blue benches.   I heard her calling out behind me and attempted to avoid confrontation with her by talking with my friend Jessica, who was standing next to a gnarly tree.  But the supervisor didn’t let up; she approached me and asked where I had heard such a word.  I can’t remember exactly what I said, but I do remember her lecturing me on the usage of the word, that it only meant happy, and nothing else.  I stood there, humiliated and crying, not fully comprehending why this stranger was telling me what I was feeling was something else when I knew it was who I was.