School life - 1

          I have been thinking of blogging again no poems this time. As a start (or restart) this blog is about my experience in school (higher-secondary). I know what you are thinking “School & experience”; yes I believe we learn a lot in school which become a base for what we are today. Anyway it’s just a blog and read it that way.
 
The year was 1992 (I think so), new school and it was one of the best schools in town. My problem was that I don't have my usual friends around, so not that thrilled about the new school. There were lot of kids from my street who studied in the same school no wonder my parents shifted me to this school, in fact there were some teachers as well; you know what happens when parents meet teachers “they talk about you ! “. The most troubling part is “You don't know what they spoke”, so one fine day my class teacher met my mom in the market and she advised her to send me to the “Additional skill development classes” (still don’t know how they named it). I was like “come on I can do my assignment what more do you want” looks like that was not good enough. So finally my dad convinced me to take up one of those classes. After all it’s just for 1 hour in the evening how bad it could be.
 
Selva the Typist
My class teacher asked me to choose one from the list - Karate, Yoga, Tailoring, Typewriting and Computer science. I had about 5 or 6 seconds to choose one, first thing that came to my mind was typewriting wanted to actually see a typewriter and type using it. I thought it would be fun with the typewriter. So started my A, B, C’s again with typewriter; if you have attended one, you will know that first day they will ask you to just type “asdf;lkj” continuously and that’s not a typo-error by the way. Of course it meant northing to me, first week was ok and I happen to sit next to this smartest girl in the class - just so you know. Second week the real trouble started, before starting to type you have to adjust the header so that it’s at the top-left of the sheet even more trouble inserting the paper in to the machine. And the fun part comes with the ink ribbon-rolls - I hate them! That day’s exercise was to type 2 pages (I think it was repeating the same sentence some 50 times or so). I didn’t notice that the ink-ribbon was not spinning it actually spins as we type, all of a sudden the ribbon got cut-off from the roll. So what would you do? Believe me on this, I tried to pull both ends together and tied a knot (poor me). Did you remember the class smarty who sits next to me; she went directly to the teacher and told “Teacher.. Teacher.. Selva has broken the machine”. Whiner…! But I think the teacher was quite use to such complains or may be the teacher thought I am not that powerful to actually break a typewriter without any noise so she didn’t bother much. Meanwhile it tried to patch things up, rolled the ink-ribbon with my hands to hide the knot.  Again the Whiner goes “Teacher look he is rolling the ribbon with hands”. My god will she ever shut up, this time the teacher came to me “O Selva, still you don't know the basics of setting up the machine” yes they had their fun with the poor kid (me). After a week from that day I decide to quit typewriting class. So I went to my class teacher and said “I don't want to do typewriting I would like to do Karate Instead”.
 
Karate kicked me out
After a 3 week stint with typewriter and my consistency in bugging my class teacher earned me a Karate uniform. The white dress with very loose ends, don't tell me you have never seen one! I said to myself “Let’s do some serious stuff - kicks and punches” and serious it was. Let’s say “I did better that Mr. Bean”. Karate class was all about positions and a sequence of moves (kata) you do as you were told. The boy who stood behind me was very short, so while practicing this kata my back-hand frequently hits his head. Well he was a nice person even before I apologies he would say “that’s ok”. One day they arranged a friendly fight at the end of the class. It’s actually not a fight the master would say what you have to do and you do so. For example “punch” you do that alone and nothing more so one will act like a sand-bag other will punch (it won’t be a actual punch but an action) – hope you got it. So I was paired with this Shorty and was smiling, master said “you” pointing me “defend” and asked the other guy to execute the kick. Here is how it went, master said “round kick” the guy couldn’t complete his full action and he landed a strong kick on my nose. I cried “Not the nose….!” Suddenly I feel chill under my nose and blood was flowing through the nose. The master came to me lifted my head and said “Nothing to worry he broke your nose, go clean it up”.  Thanks Mr. Doctor I wish it was your nose; I felt that short-guy took revenge in just one kick. Karate was a very serious business and I couldn’t take it for more than a month. So here I am standing in front of my class teacher asking for a change and she asked what now? “I prefer tailoring, so that I don’t get kicked on my nose”.

I pinned myself on to Tailoring
 After some recommendation from my mom, class teacher agreed to shift me to “tailoring”. I thought my mom knows tailoring already so it will be good to finally do something that my mom can help me with. No, tailoring class was not about sewing machine in fact they don’t even have a sewing machine much to my disappointment. The class had bundles of color strings and needle – O no I am in a wrong place again. Its middle of school year and hardly students shift classes like me, every one was busy doing something. No wonder the class was full of girls except for 3 boys including me – I went to this guy with big spectacles (or should I say glasses with concave lens). Asked him “You are not from Karate / typewriting, so you must be from Computer Science?” he said “No”. I expected he would complete the sentence, but he didn’t so I continued “So yoga huh ..?” He gave this weird look through his pair of concave lenses and replied nothing. Mean while the trainer called me and said “come lets find you something to work on” she gave me a wire roll and taught me how to make basket (wire baskets). I must agree it was interesting and good for sometime but the class was so silent and no one really talked. I feel so much lonely that I can hear the sound of pins dropped by others – perhaps that’s called “pin drop silence”. So I asked the other guy in the class “What do you think about yoga?” He said “It’s very bad I saw one guy putting his legs behind the neck”. I asked “whose neck..?” “His own neck” he replied. O no it looks more violent than Karate, so I asked “How is Computer Science?” He said “I don’t know, but others say it’s cool”. Cool that’s more than enough – next stop “computer science” enough with strings, pins and buttons!

 Finally found what I wanted
It was no that easy to change classes after all this, so I spent rest of the quarter in the same tailoring class (those were the boring days). After the term exams I joined the Computer Science class – hoping for some good to happen. The guy who sits next to me was the class leader & the leader of the chess-club in the school. I said “Not again”. But things went different that day, he was more like me we had a great conversation and were friends from the very first day. The first thing he said was “Hey Selva, I heard you learnt all other skills and now ready to break some computers? 4 classes in 6 months – that’s severely cool”. What can I say it felt like home! Finally some one who can speak like a guy? He shared lot of his learning’s and stories. We become good friends and I went all the way the whole year and earned an A+ in the class. I am still doing the same “working with computers”, now you know where it all started.
 
So what’s the deal?

1. There will be always some whiner’s don't bother, do you stuff.
2. When you kick someone be ready to take some back (some times more).
3. No matter how slow or boring things are still it teaches you the patients to wait.
4. Do what you love (lot of people say that) but finding one is the hardest part.

There are people who change jobs and departments stating a lot of reasons, the way I see is “It was never the job/company that make your day but the people around you”. At least most of the times the reason behind frequent transfers and job change are not because of the job, but because they don't get alone with people there (or) don't find the people with whom they can get along. I think if you work beside wonderful people you will never feel bad about your job.