1.17.2007

IN AMERICA...

After two years of utter confusion in America, I finally had a strong grasp of the language at 3rd grade. Soon, I was being pushed in all my subjects from the low levels to advance levels. Then, confirming everyone's suspicions, I was tested and found to be GIFTED which then qualified me to join the PREP program. And so for a few hours a day, a few of us were pulled out of class by the special ed teacher to do interesting projects that involved creativity, imagination, intelligence, and the Apple IIe.

I LOVED LOVED that I had been discovered for all to recognize and I LOVED LOVED Mrs. Mitchiner and I LOVED LOVED that she had saved me and I began to LOVE LOVE myself.

LOVE LOVE until one day during PREP, I learned something that perhaps I learned a little too soon.

The five of us (Not everyone can be gifted, ya know) were working through a workbook of LOGO programs on the Apple IIe. I found myself whizzing through them while others seemed to have trouble. Mrs. Mitchiner was occupied with someone else when I threw up my hands proudly and began to yell "Mrs. Mitchiner! Mrs. Mrs. Mitchiner! I'm done! What now? I'm done now! Mrs. Mitchineeer! What should I do now! Mrs. Mrs. Mitchiner!"

I must have peaked her boiling point because all of a sudden, she turned to me and yelled "I can't help you right now because right now I'm working with Jessica. And you know what? I would probably be done quicker if you were not distracting me by your whining."

I - WAS - SO - DEVASTATED.

I literally wanted the school to blow up in that second so that what just had occured would be forever buried under a mound of broken beige computer parts.

It was a tough lesson to learn but I realized that day that in America, being smart did not TRUMP all things and that you had to be MORE.... and that being found GIFTED was not the golden ticket that I had been led to believe.

Damn Asian parents and their willy wonka notions!