held back a year.

I had a classmate whose name was… Ah, let’s just call him John.

So, John had Acute Gastritis. He rarely went to school, and when he does, he went home earlier than us, usually skipping a subject. John was supposed to be in 9th grade, but his sickness held him back a year, that’s why he’s in our class, 8-A (John had a little brother that’s also in 8th grade, but different classrooms.)

John was, honestly, a smart guy. He did the tests at school, and ranked eleven out of thirty eight (on the best class, 8-A), despite his sickness. Even some of my classmates who were completely healthy dropped classes to 8-B or 8-C. He, on the other hand, stayed on class 8-A.

And although from outside he seems like a cool guy, I can somehow see that he’s kind of sad, as if he doesn’t feel like he’s fit into our class.

He’s also very sensitive, in my honest opinion.

One day (I’m not really sure about the chronology), when John walked inside the classroom, one of (or maybe two, I’m not sure) my friends yelled, “The adult’s here!” or (“The old man’s here!”, take your pick.)

It sounds like it’s no big deal, but apparently to him it is. He stopped coming to school, as if his confidence went down the drain.

I never had (and hopefully never will) a sickness so bad, so I can’t really connect with him. He’s a male, so I’d imagine that he’d be stronger, but alas I was wrong.

And really, this became like an international incident between the counselling teachers and our homeroom teacher. Some of the students, too, but you could exclude me.

I’m getting bored with how the teachers ALWAYS making such a huge fuss about him around us, almost like they’re blaming us. Plus this invisible war between the counselling teacher and homeroom teacher (<- this person doesn’t notice I guess).

Our homeroom teacher is frankly ANNOYING. She likes to brag. A lot. If not about a) herself, b) it’s about her kids, or c) her other classes’ students (whom she had taught before).

But our counselling teacher is pretty good. Nobody dared to say a word (mostly because her stories are always so interesting) when she’s talking. But their opinions differ like water and fire.

The thing is, all of them likes to say

“When John came back, act normally, okay?”

Don’t you know that if you drill those words to our head, it will come out as a chore? Naturally, we won’t be able to act normal around him. (Because of self-consciousness)

We’ve had enough of the talks about normal, John, and John.

Just bring him back to class (the counselling teacher are currently in the middle of texting and talking to John/his mother in hopes of being able to bring him/his confidence back.), and we’ll do the rest. Seriously, kids makes mistake, but we learn from it.

I hope that he’ll come back soon so we can be friends.