Wednesday's Words on a Friday

 

The original Words for Wednesday was begun by Delores and eventually taken over by a moveable feast of participants when Delores had computer troubles. Sadly, Delores has now closed her blog forever due to other problems.

The aim of the words is to encourage us to write. A story, a poem, whatever comes to mind.

If you are posting an entry on your own blog, please let us know so we can come along to read it and add a few encouraging words.

This month the words/prompts are supplied by messymimi and can be found here

This week's words/prompts are: 

1. genuine 

2. dominate 

3. moving 

4. gold 

5. embark 

6. classroom 

and/or: 

1. bleed 

2. absent 

3. separate 

4. affair 

5. steep 

6. beginning

Here is my story: 

In the beginning, I'd had a genuine interest in school and learning. I watched as my older sister struggled to understand the printed words, despaired over simple arithmetic and knew I could do it easier. I'd already picked up her schoolbooks and read to her from them. My love affair with books was already well known. To me the grade one sums were easy.

 I couldn't wait to step into the classroom and embark on a lifetime of fun. Truthfully, I couldn't wait to step into a classroom and show off, thinking I would probably dominate the class.  Two years later, I had my chance. I was finally five. 

Finding myself in a room full of other five year olds, also capable of reading, writing their own names and able to do the simple sums, was a jolt to my ego. I'd been so smart at home! What had happened to me? I discovered much later that my older sister had been born with some brain damage and learning was incredibly hard for her, although she did progress.

Trying to stay at the top of the class was a steep learning curve for me, I was constantly challenged by my peers. And I didn't much like it. I had been used to everything coming to me easily. 

In spite of moving house several times, once even to a whole new town way up North, I continued to do well at school and was absent only rarely, with the usual childhood diseases, chicken pox, tonsillitis (strep throat). During this time my mother left us, taking my siblings, and for a while, my school career, which had shone like gold, took a nose dive. 

It didn't help that I still found the work too easy. I became lazy, doing only the work required, not volunteering  for anything else. Homework? Never done. Initially I had continued, but my dad had convinced me that it wasn't necessary. I knew he was wrong, but the lazy me won out. Until grade five. I began to take more interest in the lessons again, no longer acting up in class and in grade seven, I found the teacher who understood me.

She understood all children, knew her lessons and loved to teach. Grade seven was a breeze, even the homework got done. But then there was high school. Many more children, and much more challenging. A good study ethic was required. Research ability too. I had neither. I was astonished to find, at the end of year exams, that I had failed and was to repeat that year after the summer break. 

I buckled down and did better, being top of the class in end of term exams and passing into second year high school. But at the end of that year, when my dad announced that at age fifteen I was no longer legally required to attend school, I had no trouble separating myself from school life. 

I got a job, in  a different town and moved on with my life. But when I look back now, and think of all the chances I wasted or lost, my heart bleeds. However, I am still far too lazy to bother with learning now.