Friday, May 16, 2008

#16 Threw a Tantrum Over a Drink

In Grade 3, for a reason I can’t remember, and one I’m sure doesn’t matter, we all had soft drinks brought to us, after ordering the drink we wanted. So, the appropriate drinks came to the class, and I patiently let everyone else get theirs first. (Maybe I was forced to wait until last, I’m not sure.) Anyway, when my turn finally came around, the drink I got was not the one I’d asked for. Either they got the order wrong, or someone else changed their mind and took mine. Heck, for all I know, I was the one that made a mistake. Anyway, I started yelling and crying about it.

So one of the girls in my class, we’ll call her Shanéné, offered to switch with me. That meant a lot to me, and though I still talk to her sometimes, I’m not sure I’ve ever told her this. The teacher was also proud of her, and told her she could have a prize sticker, in a system similar to the one described in #15. When this happened, it was one of those moments when I recognize that I really had to mature a little, but I’m pretty sure it passed.

3 comments:

Anonymous said...

I had one of those slap in the face realization moments.
I was 16 going in for knee surgery, I was all ready to go and then they told me that it was cancelled. I got into an elevator and started sobbing and a nurse came on. She asked me what was wrong and I told her that I got cancelled. And she said "Aww. You got cancer?" And I corrected her "No, my surgery got cancelled..." I stopped sobbing and the rest of the elevator ride was very very awkward. Although it did help me put things in perspective.

Malice Blackheart said...

I'd say canceled knee surgery is a pretty big deal.

Just because there are people out there with something worse, like cancer, doesn't it's okay that you can't to walk.

spookygreentea said...

"You have cancer. You also have Alzheimer's."
"Oh! Well at least I don't have cancer."

...

I remember we used to have a sort of spelling bee game where each word we spelled for the teacher (this was in Waddles' class, by the way) had a certain number of points assigned to it that corresponded to the number of syllables the word had. ANYWAY, we got tickets that we could exchange for prizes. The only trouble was that we had to sometimes spell words out to each other, and people would try and cheat each other out of tickets (the number of specific prizes was always limited).

Why do teachers always seem to choose activities that make kids compete in a negative light? Hmmm.