Warning!
This is a book for the open-minded only!
If you feel that you already know all about the mysteries of our existence, your view of life is set and you would like to keep it this way, then this book is not meant for you. Don't bother reading...
Oops! This image does not follow our content guidelines. To continue publishing, please remove it or upload a different image.
If you can solve your problem, then what is the need of worrying?
If you cannot solve it, then what is the use of worrying?
- Shantideva
A few weeks later, things had cooled down considerably. Not only had I long since recovered from the whole ordeal that had been our skiing-week, but my classmates had also got used to the new me. Not that I had given them much choice... Actually, after that one evening, nobody had bothered me again about the changes I had made to my personality or clothes. Everybody was far too busy struggling with the challenges of school.
Like preparing for a possible oral examination by our history teacher, who would randomly choose three candidates at the beginning of each lesson.
It was 9:30 am, meaning the second break had just started, giving me five minutes to cram as many facts and figures of what we had read during the last lesson as possible, into my brain.
History happened to be one of my least favorite classes - the other being geography - since I had a hard time remembering names and numbers. In fact, it had taken me three solid years to memorize all the thirty-two names of my classmates! To be fair: I had recognized most of them after only about a year, but to that day, I would still sometimes mix up certain people.
Although...I did enjoy learning about the dynamics of history: how everything developed the way it did and the reasons why. Which, at least to me, seemed to be the essence of history, anyway.
But for the life of me, I was not able to convince my long-term memory to retain any names of the people involved or the year something had happened, or even worse: the exact date!
Is it really necessary to know the name of this king in France? I silently complained, while opening our history book and scanning the most recent article we had read. And who cares during what century he lived!
Does it really matter whether he walked the earth 100 years earlier or later? - Exactly. ...Unless he organized or was the reason for a riot, which changed the course of history! And even then, the riot would have been the important detail and not the exact date!
Unfortunately for me, my history teacher did not see eye to eye with me.
Which was why I was writing down some dates and names on my desk. Just in case she decided to examine me today. A not unlikely scenario, since it had not been my turn for quite some time...
Fortunately, I was blessed with a decent short-term memory. Therefore, as long as I crammed all the valid information into my brain during the recess before the class, I should be fine.
The table was just a back up.
You might ask if the teacher would not notice my notes on the table, but let me assure you, she would almost certainly not.
