My first day of School. The tradition over here says for you to receive a present by your parents, as to be seen in the picture on the side, and to carry it to school. It included not only the things we might need for the first day such as pencils, rubber and paper but also sweets and toys. I know, I know, you might think what does she needs toys for in school. I can not answer that. I did not know it either when I opened it and saw my goodies.
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I was six when I was enrolled into school. My hair which had been red at birth had almost turned platinum blond by now. I remember not much of this day, only that the big present bag was really heavy and the school bag I had now to carry every day bugged me already on my back. But I was so ready for school. I was bored at home, I hated the vacation time between the terms at day care and that my friends were all gone during those times didn't made it fun at all. During this times, most of my days I had to spend at the hotel of my parents or at home with my siblings. But now the day had arrived where I was to be counted as one of the big kids. SCHOOL! Yeah. We left early that morning and walked the not very far distance of about a mile to school. I was carrying my present, but after a little while I was starting to sulk on how heavy it was and passed it on to my father or my mother. We now took turns to carry it. When it got again too heavy for me and I was about to give it to someone else to carry, my mother said: "If you give it out of your hand only once more, I gonna keep it to myself. Is that clear?" Hell yeah, that was clear all right. So I fought with my strength and stumbled along the roads until we finally made it to the school building. Many kids and their parents had arrived at the same time or were already there. Greeting each other, waving around or trying to get a picture taken by one of the many professionals who were there. After we all got together in one room, we got grouped together by a man, calling our names and assigning those people to one adult. I was called up with a teacher named Mrs. Reidt. I think we were about 32 pupils and our parents followed that Lady down the hall, up the stairs and to my new class room. I was now a student in the class of 1A, led by Mrs. Reidt. There were many Yvonne's in my class, too many for my taste. I was just one in a bunch of children, nothing special, not known for anything, just someone, some kid out of 32. I had only one comfort. At the next table sat Olaf Öttchen, Julia Kohler wasn't far off either and a few other kids I knew from before. But most faces where unfamiliar to me. I was sitting beside a girl named Alexandra Gierling, a blond girl with blue eyes. We had to sit still for years if not decades as it seemed at the time. When the day was over and I got taken home by my parents, I thought and hoped it would get better than the first day. And
it did in many ways, but it also got worse in others. It did not take
long until my parents started to get the regular phone calls from the
teachers or the head master complaining that their daughter couldn't
sit still. “She was always jumping up and telling stories to the
other children, disturbed the classes and kept the others from
learning.“ Only shortly after those phone calls, my teacher got a
new name for me: Bouncing Ball!!! Go figure. I don't remember much of
those first years of school. Only bits and pieces but those I love to
share.
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The grounds of the school were huge. Two buildings which were connected with a glass-hallway. If you stood in front of the buildings, than the one to your left was where all the class rooms where and to your right were the labs, auditorium (the room we met on the very first day to get grouped up), library and other rooms for the older students from 5th and 6th grade. Leaving the building was only possible through the glass-hallway which was the main entry and through doors on the back of the right building near the library. When you left the building through that door, you had to cross a little pavement until you got to the big field of grass. It was surrounded by bushes and shrubs to hide the fence that imprisoned us students in the school grounds. During the years, friends and I built a cave into those shrubs. We hid there often when planing our next moves in a student war, or smoked there or …..
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Besides me being unable to sit quietly and nicely on my seat, I was a strait A student. Fast in reading, fast in understanding what the teacher wanted of me, unbelievably easy with numbers in maths. Only my hand writing needed some improvement (as it is still in need of today). I loved sports but my teacher couldn't deal well with my energy levels and tried to tame me. That was an unattainable goal. He got me only more wild and more excessive in my boxing and beating up of others. One incident that I remember very clearly, happened on a day we had to line up in the
hall and wait for our teacher to lead us down to the sport hall. It
was second or third grade I'm sure. While we were waiting, the girl
behind me pushed against me and boxed me in my back. Without
hesitation, I raised my fist and slammed it into her face. Her name
was Ivon Becker and she lost her front tooth that day and I got a
crack in the skin over my knuckle from her cutting it with her teeth
as I knocked her out. Later I was told that she had got shoved
against me by someone else. Guess that's what you call bad luck. Her
parents called mine, mine called me downstairs, yelled at me, slapped
my face while screaming I had not the right to slap anyone. (that's
what I call hypocrisy and sarcasm paired with stupidity)
During one of my winters at school, it must have been first or second grade, and I was still too small to know better than to be told, I licked the iron bar of the door while waiting to be allowed to go inside again after the big break. It was freezing cold and I held with both hands the handle of the door, ready to pull as soon the bell told us to go back inside again. While I was waiting and shivering, stupid little me licked on the handle and.... immediately my tongue stuck fast to the iron bar. I was in shock, a frenzy came over me so as to get free again. I pulled but it hurt like nothing ever had before, I took my warm fingers and tried to rip my tongue off and after a while it worked. I had no feeling in my tongue, there was no blood, just pain, overwhelming pain. Than my tongue went numb. You could see a huge piece of my tongue, well in my eyes it looked huge, stuck to the iron bar on the door. I touched my tongue with my finger but I did not feel anything because of the numbness. It was so cold that I didn't know I was crying until someone who was running against me so as to get inside, with me blocking the door by standing there, asked me why I was crying. Even today, over 30 years later, I still have a blister on the tip of my tongue when it gets cold outside, and I still feel the pain on it and the itch of missing a piece of flesh. Tell me about phantom pain.