My True Self

Chapter 1

Chapter 1

“Sine, Cosine, Tangent… Oh, which one should I be using?” I asked myself as I stared down at my tough mathematical questions.

I looked out the window of my bedroom, gazing at the stars. That’s what I usually do when I have too much on my mind. Well, tonight, it was different. The skies were filled with clouds, therefore, I couldn’t see any stars. It was a sign! A sign that it was going to rain tonight.

I was still frustrated at the question that I got up from my chair and stretched a little. I walked around my apartment and stopped at the kitchen to get some snacks. I opened a bag of seaweed flavoured popcorns and went back to my bedroom to solve more questions.

Don’t get me wrong here. If you have never tasted seaweed flavoured popcorns, you should probably try some. It is just delicious! Well, I do have other flavour popcorns which I like, for example, the caramel flavoured one and the butter flavoured one. I have yet to try the chocolate flavoured one, though, I heard that it was just as good as the other flavours. I like seaweed, so I get them to reserve one packet each weekend.

I took a seat on my chair and started cracking my skull again. I really love the acronym for M.A.T.H. where each of the letters means something, which is MENTAL ABUSE TO HUMANS. Maths is one problem, the bigger problem comes when I have to solve additional mathematics questions. That one really cracks my skull. I understand that I have to practice more to be perfect. Don’t get me wrong here, but who in this world is perfect when only God is perfect, right?

Before I go on, my name is Antonina Snow Simon, Nina for short, Though, you don’t pronounce Simon as “Simon”, but you pronounce it as “Simone”. My family have this strict policy that all guy’s “Simon” is pronounced as “Simon” and all girl’s “Simon” is pronounced as “Simone”. I hope you get it. I have 2 elder brothers and one elder sister. So, I am the youngest. My eldest brother’s name is Austin followed by my sister Ashley and then my other brother Ashton.

Just a little more about me, I live in an apartment which belongs to my parents. Occasionally, they come stay with me, at other times, they are just living in their cosy little single story which is about a 5-minute walk from the apartment. So, we need not worry about anything. Whenever I am “haunted” by weird noises, I just have to call my parents and one of them would come rushing to my apartment.

I am fifteen going sixteen in just a few weeks time and I am pretty excited as this is the one time my parents allow me to have a birthday party. For the first time in my life, I would be able to have a birthday party like other teenagers my age. I would be able to invite friends over to my place! Isn’t that a dream come true? Well, it is for me.

I attend classes at Gardenia High. No, I don’t drive to school. I go by bus. Gardenia High sounds like a school in America, but it’s actually in Malaysia. I know that we have bread made by the company called Gardenia, but I don’t think they built the school.

You might think that I have a boyfriend, but no, I don’t. I have this strict policy about being one of the top student in my school. Education first, boys later. So, I would probably be looking for a boyfriend when I am in university.

Well, I am currently one of the top students in my class. Apparently, there are a few students who are way smarter than me. I am not jealous of them. I just take it as a challenge for myself to beat them. Besides, how I am supposed to get better if I am the best, right? Well, I pity their lives because every time I encounter them, they seem to be either doing their homework, revising or doing some research. What geeks!

I glanced up at the clock on my ceiling. 12.30a.m. Great! People always says that I should sleep early and wake up early, right? Well, I am sleeping so early in the morning and I’ll be getting up early in the morning too. Gardenia High’s classes starts at 7.20a.m. My school is about 25 kilometres from my place, and since the bus has to pick tons of people, so I have to get up by 5.30a.m. and be ready by 6a.m. on the dot. That is how my life goes during the weekdays.

I am a busy girl, I think. Well, I can’t participate actively as transport is a problem. Once I reach school, I would do some reading or catch up with homework if I forgot to do any. Oh, and I can never jot down what homework or assignments I have. Sure, I’ll do it for a few weeks and then it just stops. So, I usually have to depend on my memory.

I understand that in the overseas, students are forced to shift from class to class depending on what period they have, but in my school, or rather I say schools in my country, well, the teachers comes to us. That would mean, at the beginning of the year, we are allocated in random classes with random students and are forced to stay in that class for the rest of the year.

All classes lasts for about 40 minutes and we have breaks or widely known as recess at about 10 in the morning. Our recesses are shorter than schools overseas. We only have 25 minutes and then we would have to get back to class to continue our lessons for the day.

School ends at around 1.30p.m. and everyone is usually tired by then. Most of us would be on our way home, but there are still students who actively join clubs, sports team or societies which requires them to stay back after school.

With all the homework and the assignments which our teacher gives us, I barely have time to nap in the afternoon. I don’t know about you guys, but I definitely love sleeping in the day because I rarely sleep at night. I know it’s unhealthy, but for the sake of homework and not getting punished, well, this is what everyone has to do.

I reach home at about 2.30p.m. and by then, I would have to have my lunch, shower and then start on my homework before going for tuition a.k.a. extra classes to boost up my level in subjects. Thank goodness for me, I only have add maths tuition as it is my weakest subject. I pity some of my friends which have to go for so many tuitions. Sometimes, their tuitions would start at 5.30p.m. and only end at 10p.m. at night. Just imagine, they have not much time to complete their homework during the day. Well, I wish them all the best and hope that they can catch up with everything in school too.